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In-Depth Information
After years of orderly study and careful
reporting on his conclusions, Jovellanos
was plunged into the mainstream of high
politics following the accession of C
HARLES
IV in 1788. The new chief minister, M
ANUEL
DE
G
ODOY
, seeking to curry favor with
reformers, appointed Jovellanos minister of
justice in 1797. The appointment was
appropriate, for the polymath had written
extensively on subjects such as the treat-
ment of prisoners and the shortcomings of
the Spanish judiciary. Too honest to play
the political game, Jovellanos was soon out
of office and was in fact imprisoned some
time later (1801) for his protests over
Godoy's improper relations with the queen.
He remained confined, again putting his
time to good use for reflection and writing
until the general breakdown of the country
precipitated by the French invasion of 1808.
Released from prison, Jovellanos had
become a sought-after elder statesman.
When the intrusive Bonaparte king, J
OSEPH
I, invited him to join the puppet govern-
ment, Jovellanos rejected the offer with
indignant patriotism. He was then asked to
give his advice to the provisional govern-
ment being set up in the still-unoccupied
southern area of the country. In support of
this resistance movement Jovellanos
penned his last major work, esteemed by
many as his finest,
Memoria en defensa de la
Junta Central
(Memorial in defense of the
Central Committee, 1810). Unhappily, hav-
ing devoted so much of his life to the
improvement of his country, he would not
live to see it emerge from the chaos into
which it had been plunged.
Jovellanos has been called one of the fin-
est prose stylists of 18th-century Spain and
a literary bridge between neoclasissism and
romanticism. Like so many of the philos-
ophes, Jovellanos had such a wide range of
interests that he could scarcely contain his
enthusiasms and arguments regarding one
before moving on to another issue. This
breadth of reformist vision as well as his
high standards of morality and patriotism
made him the target of those whose self-
centered focus on their main issue made
them successful and led to his frustration.
Juan Carlos I
(1938- )
king of Spain
A grandson of A
LFONSO
XIII, Juan Carlos
was born in Rome and had his early educa-
tion in Switzerland and Britain. Despite the
fact that Don Juan, count of Barcelona, was
a pretender to the throne after Alfonso's
death in 1941, he agreed to send his son to
Spain in 1947 to pursue his further educa-
tion and training under the supervision of
the Franco regime. Neither the count of
Barcelona nor the Spanish dictator had
come to any agreement on the future of the
monarchy, but it was assumed that it would
be restored at an appropriate time. F
RAN
-
CISCO
F
RANCO
subsequently made it clear
that he had no intention of allowing Don
Juan, whom he deemed too liberal, to
ascend the throne. Instead he arranged for
young Juan Carlos to be trained in all three
of Spain's armed forces academies, attend
university courses, and carry out intern-
ships in various government offices. Desig-
nated “Prince of Spain” and acknowledged
as Franco's eventual successor, Juan Carlos
was thus separated from the traditional line
of succession and made dependent on the
whim of the general who had won the
S
PANISH
CIVIL
WAR
and destroyed the repub-
lic, but who refused to let the royalists
resume power during his lifetime. Franco's
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