His paper, _El Guirigay_, had been prohibited for its gross attacks on the Queen-mother, and his Liberal ideas were well known. The splendid coolness and courage with which this young man thus contravened the storm of revolution in the very palace itself was calculated to arouse the hatred of the populace, who had looked to a revolution as a reform in all the conditions which make life burdensome. Thus three days later, when Gonzalez Brabo crossed the Plaza de Oriente for his audience with the Queen at the palace, his coach was stopped by a mob, and the threatening attitude of the people would have checked anyone less cool and determined in his course. The day of the reopening of the Congress after its suspension for the formation of the new Cabinet was a very anxious one, for it was clearly seen that the Queen had either been treated with flagrant disrespect or her report of the Minister’s conduct had been untrue. The mace-bearers, with their plumed hats and their breasts bearing the embroidered arms of the city, were standing in statuesque immobility on their elevated places directly under the canopy at the head of the chamber. Every seat was filled; the boxes had their full complement of ladies, and outsiders and representatives of the press crowded the gangways. The President of the Congress sat at the official table, flanked by his officials, and all was expectation when the slight, dapper figure of Brabo, dressed in black and bearing the scarlet portfolio of office under his arm, walked with determined step to the seat of honour on the black[15] bench of the Ministers, and from thence returned the astonished glances of the deputies with a scornful smile and a contemptuous look. After waiting for the storm of dissentient remarks to subside, the Minister rose to his feet, and in clear, concise tones declared that he had been summoned by the Queen to the palace at 11.30 on November 3, and, being admitted to the royal presence, he found that the audience included all the staff of the _gentiles hombres_, including General Domingo Dulce, who had distinguished himself so bravely on the night of the attempted kidnapping of the little Princesses; Don Maurice Carlos de Onis, President of the Senate; the Duke of Rivas; the Count of Ezpeleta; the Marquis of Peñaflorida, and the Marquis of San Felices, Secretary of the Senate, with Don Pedro José Pidal, President of the Congress of Deputies, the President of the Academy of Languages, etc. The gathering also included the Patriarch of the Indias and the Notary of the King. And it was in the presence of this august assembly that Her Majesty had made the following declaration: “On the evening of the 28th of last month, Olozaga proposed my signing a decree for the dissolution of the Cortes, and I replied that I did not wish to sign it, having, among other reasons, the fact that this Cortes had declared me to be of age. Olozaga insisted; I again objected, rising from my seat and proceeding