(3) The suspension of the constitutional guarantees, or supersession of the civil courts, enabled the authorities to make a sweeping clearance of all the most active rebels against Church and political system in Barcelona. It may also be useful to recall that the President of the Madrid Athenæum selects "the Liberal cacique at Barcelona" as an "eloquent example" of the corruption he so vehemently denounces.
From 1896 to 1906 anti-clericalism and anarchy continued to grow in Catalonia. A new force, a new centre of strength and inspiration, had come into the province—the educational work of Ferrer. Workers were no longer compelled to send their children to learn servility to corrupt priests and corrupt politicians at Catholic schools, or to leave them illiterate. A magnificent enthusiasm ran through the scattered ranks of the rebels. Something tangible, a positive institution, was now before their eyes; and its influence was spreading slowly over all Catalonia and a good deal of Spain. Then, on May 31, 1906, an Anarchist threw a bomb at the young King and his bride. In a few days Ferrer was in jail, and all the Modern Schools were closed.
As the more unscrupulous of the anonymous writers are representing that Ferrer was at least the "moral" author of this outrage—since he stood all the pressure of the Fiscal (Attorney General) for months and had to be entirely acquitted, there cannot be the slightest question of complicity—a few words may be said on the Culprit. Matteo Morral was not a pupil of Ferrer's, as the more ignorant of the slanderers have it, nor was he an out-at-elbows desperado. He was a cultivated, well-to-do young man, speaking several languages. Concealing his disposition to use violence, he won Ferrer's regard for a time, and was employed by him to translate some books for the Modern School. What the precise importance may be of the fact that he was deeply enamoured of Soledad Villafranca, and repelled by her, one hesitates to say. Some attribute his act, in throwing a bomb at the King and Queen, to a desire to implicate Ferrer. I do not believe it. He made no effort to do so, and he unconsciously gave this important testimony to Ferrer, in a letter reproduced by Rochefort in L'Intransigeant: "I don't trust Ferrer, nor Tarrida [del Marmol], nor Lorenzo, nor any of
