The First Republic

The First Republic is the fourth novel in the fifth and final series of the National Episodes by Benito Pérez Galdós.
The novel begins with the abdication of King Amadeo I and the proclamation of the First Spanish Republic, which was very brief: from February 11, 1873 to December 29, 1874. From the beginning, the republic enters a ministerial crisis that it will not abandon, with a succession of presidents that gives an idea of its failure. The political environment is one of maximum confusion, with a high fractionation of the parties into small groups that fight each other. The factions of federal republicans, radicals, alfonsinos and carlists clash in Parliament. To this are added armed insurrections of Carlists and cantonalists. So at the end of 1874 the republican dream ends.
Galdós builds the story based on a multitude of scenes, without a specific novelesque thread. The protagonist, again Proteus Liviano, Tito, clearly republican and alter ego of the writer, sees with pain the failures of his beloved republic, its contradictions and its excesses, which will unfortunately lead it to the collapse and return to the absolutism of the Restoration. All this will be told to us by the protagonist of The First Republic from his position in the Ministry of the Interior and as a witness to the sessions of the Cortes. In this case, his love companion will be Floriana, a mysterious and profound woman with whom he makes a strange trip to Cartagena, where they will attend the cantonal uprising.