schools, but she bequeathed it to him without any directive clause.
So Francisco Ferrer set out for Barcelona, eight years ago, with uplifted and unselfish feelings. Many things had happened in Barcelona since he had last seen it. Exiles had invaded his home in Paris with stories of brutality and injustice—stories we shall consider later—that hardly any but a Spaniard could credit. The tortures of the Inquisition had been revived. The corrupt officials of Church and State had descended with ferocity on the new generation that aspired to liberty and progress. Ferrer would not give them occasion to destroy his work. It would be such as civilisation could protect. But its ultimate outcome would be that those grim dungeons of Montjuich would never again echo with the groans of tortured men, nor would priests and politicians any longer keep Spain in the far rear of human advancement. And within five years he would be fighting for his life in the courts of Spain. Within eight years he was to yield up his life in the trenches of Montjuich to the forces he had challenged.
This tragic ending to so fine an ambition has so perplexed Europe that I cannot proceed further until I have plainly described, with adequate evidence, that profound corruption of Church and State to which I have already alluded. One point, however, remains to be considered in regard to Ferrer's earlier years. His domestic conduct has been so grossly impugned that one is compelled to say a few words about it.
Ferrer's legal wife was a woman of heated temper and pronounced orthodoxy. Needless to say, the difference of views drew on him painful attacks from his wife, especially after the birth of their three daughters, Trinidad, Paz, and a young girl, Sol, who is at school in Madrid. Ferrer was a Freemason, and had his elder daughters initiated in a Masonic ceremony. The irritation of the mother ended in a revolver-shot and Ferrer, instead of prosecuting, consented to a separation. The eldest daughter works in a bakery or confectionery at Paris, and received help from her father until his imprisonment. The second daughter, who has entirely discarded her father's views, is an actress—a Catholic and Royalist. Both were profoundly attached to their father,
