[Illustration: Senor Canovas]
He was sitting reading his paper in the grounds of the bath-house when
he was shot and killed by an Italian ruffian.
In Senor Canovas, Spain has lost one of her greatest statesmen. It was
he who put Alfonso XII., the father of the present king, on the throne
of Spain.
During his whole career Spain has been the scene of many stormy trials.
In 1868 the people forced the old Queen, Isabella II., to resign the
throne. She was a very wicked woman, and did so many bad things that the
people would not be disgraced by her any longer. They rose against her,
and she was obliged to flee to France to seek the protection of Napoleon
III.
On her departure a council was appointed to choose a new sovereign.
There were several claimants, among them Alfonso, the son of the deposed
Isabella, and Don Carlos, the grandson of Don Carlos I. (See p. 563.)
The council rejected all the candidates, and chose a German prince.
Napoleon III. objected on Queen Isabella's account; the Germans were
incensed at his interference, and the argument that followed gave rise
to the Franco-German War in 1870.
The Spanish council, disappointed of their German prince, finally chose
a son of Victor Emmanuel of Italy, and made him King of Spain under the
title of Amadeus I.
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