tionary policy brought in by Ferdinand VII. after the expulsion of
the French from the country; and in the student hero Lazaro he perhaps
displays his own ideas at the period. Violent political clubs were
formed, on the model of the Jacobin Clubs of the French Revolution,
and it is from the name of a cafe that was the meeting-place of the
most famous of these clubs that the name of the story is derived. His
next book was 'El Audaz' (The Fearless: 1872). The period is the same.
The hero is an utterly fearless young radical, who has been driven to
revolt through wrongs done his family by the Count de Cerezuelo. By a
peculiar hazard, though far below her in social station, he meets the
daughter of the count, a very proud and disdainful beauty. It is her
caprice to fall in love with him, and she remains true to him to the
end, when he dies in a street tumult, having first gone mad with his
superheated enthusiasm. These early books are conceived upon
conventional romantic lines, and hardly gave promise of their
author's future fame. They contain however passages of strong
character-drawing, like that of the Porrenos, three ancient spinster
sisters of a fallen patrician house in 'El Audaz,' which are equal to
his later work.

He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began to give
him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a score of
historical romances, after the model of those of Erckmann-Chatrian,
called 'Episodios Nacionales' (National Episodes). They are divided
into two series, the first beginning with 'Trafalgar' (1873), the
second with 'El Equipaje del Rey Jose' (King Joseph's Baggage: 1875).
They deal with the two modern periods comprising the deliverance of
the country from the usurpation of the French, and the more obscure
struggles against Ferdinand VII., who sought to reduce the country
under the same absolutist rule that had prevailed before the ideas of
the French Revolution liberalized the whole of Europe. The history in
these romances is intermingled with personal interests and adventures,
to give it an air of informality; and though each is complete in
itself, some knowledge of Spanish history is desirable as an aid to
understanding them. They are considerably interlinked among
themselves, the same characters appearing more or less in successive
volumes. The hero of the first series is one Gabriel, who narrates
them all in the first person. He is a poor boy who becomes servant to