Note 887 — Chapter I · DECADENCE AND EXTINCTION.

Even Evaristo San Miguel, one of the exaltados of 1822 who, as secretary of State, was largely responsible for the follies which invited the French intervention of 1823, admits the errors of the Córtes of Cádiz. The Constitution of 1812, he says, was an exotic that took no root in the soil; the mass of the people, plunged in ignorance and misery, knew of it only by hearing from their spiritual guides that it was a tissue of impieties.—De la Guerra Civil de España, p. 88 (Madrid, 1836).