In 1836 all monastic orders were rigidly suppressed by Mendizabal, minister to Queen Christina.

In 1851 they were all allowed to live again by the same Queen's daughter, Isabel II.

So wags this world into which there came nineteen hundred years ago not peace, but a sword; a world all stirred about by a reformed rake of Spain who, in his own words, came "to send fire throughout the earth;" whose motto was, "Ignem veni metteri in terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur." The road that runs by the bank of the canal was deserted when the Count de Sarrion turned his horse's head that way from the dusty high road leading southwards out of Saragossa.

Sarrion had only been in Saragossa twenty-four hours.

His great house on the Paseo del Ebro had not been thrown open for this brief visit, and he had been content to inhabit two rooms at the back of the house.