Ibid., p. 31 ff.

Certain historians, in their desire to incriminate the authorities, have made too much of the fact that the Calle del Turco is normally well-frequented. On the night of the assassination, the street was almost deserted, the consequence of a heavy snow-fall, glacial weather, and winter darkness. For these and other details of the crime, see Francisco J. Orellana, Historia del General Prim (Barcelona, 1872), II, 1055.

This figure is given by Rafael Olivar Bertrand, El caballero Prim (Barcelona, 1952), II, 321. Other historians give slightly different figures for the folios: the Conde de Romanones mentions «más de quince mil» (Sagasta o el politico [Madrid, 1934], p. 102); the most recent investigator, Natalio Rivas Santiago, lowers this to «más de diez mil» («Misterios sobre la muerte de Prim», Narraciones contemporáneas [Madrid, 1953], p. 9).

According to Prim's friend and aide, Ricardo Muñiz, the General recognized the voice of Paúl giving the order to fire; see Ricardo Muñiz, Apuntes históricos sobre la revolución de 1868 (Madrid, 1885), II, 188. Further evidence against Paúl can be found in Francisco Pi y Margall and Francisco Pi y Arsuaga, Historia de España en el siglo XIX, IV (Barcelona, 1902), 677-681. Pi gives the interesting, but probably fallacious, detail that Paul was the deputy who threatened Prim on the night of the assassination with the words: «A cada puerco le llega su San Martín» (bowdlerized in Orellana to «a cada uno» and in Santovenia to «a cada santo»); Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, too young to have personal knowledge of the assassination but closely linked to the republican emigrados in Paris, also attributes these words to Paúl, in Historia de la revolución española (Barcelona, 1892), III, 547. Prim's first biographer, Orellana, does not name Paúl but attributes the threat to an -individuo de la minoría republicana», «un federal» (Historia del General Prim, II, 1054). On this point, Olivar Bertrand follows Orellana (El caballero Prim, II, 315).

José Paúl y Angulo, Los asesinos del general Prim y la política en España (Paris, 1886), p. 116. Paúl's self-defense consists mainly of confused speculation as to the identities of the assassins; the disorder of his account suggests that Paúl may well have known nothing of the conspiracy. For circumstantial arguments against Paúl's involvement, see Olivar Bertrand, II, 320-321, and Rivas Santiago, pp. 7-9.

See Olivar Bertrand, II, 321. Also, Orellana, II, 1054. For speculation suggesting Cuban complicity, see Emeterio S. Santovenia, Prim el caudillo estadista (Madrid, 1933), pp. 277-283. Circumstantial evidence against Serrano, the Regent of Spain before Amadeo's acceptance of the throne, is given by Pi y Margall, who repeats Paúl's assertion that the conspirators enjoyed police complicity, and refers to rumors that disguised men took refuge in Serrano's palace after the murder and that Serrano's wife had been heard to make threatening statements about Prim (Historia, IV, 681). A literary critic, Antonio Begalado García, has recently suggested that Galdós hinted at the guilt of the Regent, although in highly veiled terms, in España trágica; see Antonio Regalado García, Benito Pérez Galdós y la novela histórica española: 1868-1912 (Madrid, 1966), pp. 454-464. Galdós championship of Serrano in the Revista de España and his portrayal in the episodios of Serrano's loyal conduct tend to disprove this hypothesis.

The numerous allusions to tragedy and fate in España trágica refer not only to classical tragedy but also to Shakespeare's julius Caesar and Macbeth. The impending disaster is foreshadowed by Halconero's fears at the beginning of the novel and by the death of the «mujer trágica» Fernanda; Prim is portrayed as both actor and hero, with the equivalent of a tragic flaw, his soberbia; neither Prim, Montpensier, nor Enrique de Borbón can control his destiny; there is even a chorus which comments with ironic optimism on the action at the end of Chap. XXVI. The Shakespearian influence goes beyond the obvious references to Caesar and Brutus and Pilar's dream of a roaring lion to embrace also the mixture of the tragic and the comic: Halconero's love for Pilar is a burlesque of his courtship of Fernanda; Montpensier's tragic duel would, if Destiny had so willed, have ended in comedy; the concept of fate is satirized when Pilar tenns her relationship with Halconero as «un abismo abierto por la fatalidad». (Benito Pérez Galdós, España trágica, in Obras completas [Madrid, 1966], III, 951. Subsequent references to the episodios nacionales will be to this edition and will be given in the text. If no work is named, the reference will be to España trágica.)

Benito Pérez Galdós, «Revista política interior», Revista de España, XXIV, N.º 93 (13 January 1872), 145.

España trágica, III, 987. Examples of Paúl's threats against Prim in El Combate, described by Halconero as «convulsiones epilépticas» and «groseras bravatas», occur en p. 993 and p. 998 of España trágica.

See España trágica, III, 976. Halconero's punning conclusion is that: «Perdido de la cabeza estaba Segismundo, rematados Paúl y los brutos que le seguían» (III, 977).