Excerpt from The Monarchy and its Attributes by Juan Vázquez de Mella

Juan Vásquez de Mella y Fanjul
(8 June 1861—26 February 1928)

Revolutionary fever may indeed seize the soul and the social body, stirring up deceptive hallucinations in the mind and rebellious appetites in the subjugated will; yet, floating triumphantly above this deluge of error, the holy ark of the Church will bear safely all the great principles of civilization—and, consequently, the Christian Monarchy, through whose ministry that civilization was established in Europe and spread throughout the world. Let sophistries and theories arise in anger, inverting the terms of pagan Caesarism—placing within the collective, as an inalienable right, what the latter fixed as a power inherent in the person of Caesar—and the result will always be the same: under the sovereignty of the people no less than under the sovereignty of Caesar, tyranny merely changes its name and its seat. Yet even if its nature changes—whether through corrupt courtiers who bind the sovereign’s will to their own whims or through representatives who substitute their own will for the supposed will of the people—despotism, whether descending from above or ascending from below, will always cause justice to groan beneath its iron heel.

Thus, when the fever breaks and the waters recede to their original channel, the Christian Monarchy re-emerges from the revolutionary sands like a green oasis; beneath its luxuriant foliage, those who have survived the simoom and the storm may renew their shattered strength and withered health.

Translation by the editor. Excerpt from "La Monarquía y Sus Atributos—Cristiana, Personal," El Correo Español, 6 de enero de 1894; published in Juan Vásquez de Mella, Textos de Doctrina Política, Preliminary Study, Selections and Notes by Rafael Gambra, Madrid, 1953, p.42.