 improbable in themselves as to escape the
penetration of a rational person.
    Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession in Sta. Marta had
credited him with the possession of sane views, and even with a restraining
power over the general's everlastingly discontented vanity. It could never have
entered his head that Pedrito Montero, lackey or inferior scribe, lodged in the
garrets of the various Parisian hotels where the Costaguana Legation used to
shelter its diplomatic dignity, had been devouring the lighter sort of
historical works in the French language, such, for instance as the books of
Imbert de Saint Amand upon the Second Empire. But Pedrito had been struck by the
splendour of a brilliant court, and had conceived the idea of an existence for
himself where, like the Duc de Morny, he would associate the command of every
pleasure with the conduct of political affairs and enjoy power supremely in
every way. Nobody could have guessed that. And yet this was one of the immediate
causes of the Monterist Revolution. This will appear less incredible by the
reflection that the fundamental causes were the same as ever, rooted in the
political immaturity of the people, in the indolence of the upper classes and
the mental darkness of the lower.
    Pedrito Montero saw in the elevation of his brother the road wide open to
his wildest imaginings. This was what made the Monterist pronunciamiento so
unpreventable. The general himself probably could have been bought off, pacified
with flatteries, despatched on a diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his
brother who had egged him on from first to last. He wanted to become the most
brilliant statesman of South America. He did not desire supreme power. He would
have been afraid of its labour and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito Montero,
taught by his European experience, meant to acquire a serious fortune for
himself. With this object in view he obtained from his brother, on the very
morrow of the successful battle, the permission to push on over the mountains
and take possession of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land of future prosperity, the
chosen land of material progress, the only province in the Republic of interest
to European capitalists. Pedrito Montero, following the example of the Duc de
Morny, meant to have his share of this prosperity. This is what he meant
literally. Now his brother was master of the country, whether as president,
dictator, or even as Emperor - why not as an Emperor? - he meant to demand a
share in every enterprise - in railways, in mines, in sugar estates, in cotton
mills, in land companies, in each and every
