In domestic affairs, Spain showed some progress, even under her worst rulers. Godoy, vile as he was, abolished the savagery of bull-fighting and promoted the policing of cities and the paving and cleaning of streets, some advance was made in popular education, and the intellectual life of the nation began to emerge from the eclipse which it had been suffering. Possibly the most significant achievement of all was the development of an approximation to popular government, with an attempt to unify Spain and the colonies; which latter came too late. The Junta Central in January, 1809, declared that the American colonies were an integral part of the Spanish Kingdom, and were not mere appanages of the crown. This was revolutionary, but it was insisted upon by the Junta, and practical steps were taken to make the principle effective. The Junta was driven from Seville by Napoleon, whereupon it fled to Cadiz, and there, in superb defiance of the invader and oppressor, arranged for the assembling of a Cortes, or National Parliament, in which the colonies should be fully represented. This body, a single chamber, met in September, 1810, with elected representatives from the American colonies, including Cuba. Owing to the difficulty of getting deputies from America in time, however, men were selected in Spain to represent the colonies at the opening of the session. A tangled skein of history followed. The Cortes, though far from radical in tone, was progressive and was sincerely devoted to the principle of popular government, and it insisted upon the adoption of the Constitution of 1812, under which the people were made supreme, with the crown and the church in subordinate places. All Spaniards, in America as well as in Europe, were citizens of the kingdom, and were entitled to vote for members of the Cortes and were protected by a bill of rights. In many respects it was one of the most liberal and enlightened constitutions then existing in the world. The first act of the wretched Ferdinand VII., however, when Napoleon permitted him to return to Spain, was to decree the abrogation of this constitution and the establishment of a most repressive and reactionary régime which liberals were cruelly persecuted. The result of this was to promote the revolution which had already begun in America, and to provoke a revolution in the Peninsula itself; in the face of which latter Ferdinand pretended to yield and to consent to the summoning of another Cortes and the reestablishment of the Constitution of 1812. These things were effected in 1820. But the false and fickle Ferdinand made his appeal to the reactionary sovereigns of the Holy Alliance, with the result that in 1823 the French invaded Spain to suppress Liberalism, and those preparations were made for the resubjugation of Spain's American colonies which were frustrated by the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine in the United States.