Bravo in turn relinquished the government to Joseph Concha, an old conspirator, in whose heart the hatred toward the Church had never completely died out. In the meantime the rebels forced their way through the country, and gained as they went forward the favor of a populace whose spirits were inflamed by the lust of bloodshed and plunder. With a nondescript army Serrano took possession of Madrid in September, 1868. The Queen, despairing of her own safety, fled into France, and left the entire country in the hands of the revolutionists. On September 30, she protested against the treachery of Napoleon III., but no one would or could listen to her. It was only another of the unholy acts of the French Sovereign who had thrown ruin into various countries of Europe. Rome had seen the Holy Father betrayed by him; Florence, Naples, Parma, and Modena fell under his treachery; the Emperor of Austria had trusted him and found him wanting; he had cajoled the folly of Maximilian in that unfortunate prince's adventure into Mexico; and now he had betrayed Spain. One more piece of treachery remained in his conduct toward the Holy See--then came the reward of his double-dealing in the Franco-Prussian war, when he was himself cast down from his throne and driven into disgraceful exile. _SPAIN A REPUBLIC._ General Prim, whose usual tactics were to raise a great cry, stir up revolt, and then when the danger came, to disappear, had been missing through all the fighting. Now that the danger was over he suddenly re-appeared. But both he and the Duke of Montpensier came too late. Serrano was in control with a mob of irreligious ruffians gathered together from Paris and Brussels and filled with a mortal hatred of the Catholic religion. The proofs of this spirit were not long in coming. The Jesuits were the first to be hunted down, and after them the other religious; and while the revolutionists were raising the cry of "freedom of worship for all," they sacked and profaned monasteries and churches. Dioceses were reduced in number; cathedral chapters, abbacies, and prebenderies were suppressed; the fees to the nuncio and to the seminaries were discontinued. Ecclesiastical property was offered for sale, and a thousand iniquities of one kind or another were brought forward to enslave and impoverish the Church. In the meantime the question of the form of government to be adopted occupied the minds of all. Some called for a republic, some for a monarchy under the regency of Montpensier or of Serrano; others wished for a union with Portugal. Still others proposed a stranger king, Prince Napoleon, Duke of Genoa, a friend of General Prim.