Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3a

Ferrer's Antecedents

Ferrer's Antecedents.

Francisco Ferrer y Guardia to give him his full name, was the son of good Catholic parents of the poorer class in Spain. His father was a small farmer in the province of Catalonia. Despite his humble origin, the future revolutionary inherited a noble name. He was a namesake of the illustrious St. Vincent Ferrer, who was a, wonderful preacher in his page 4 time, and one of the glories of the Dominican Order. But assuredly the Saint would have regarded his modern namesake as a degenerate, and a criminal of the deepest dye.

Up to his sixteenth year young Ferrer, the future Anarchist, was so remarkable for his attachment to religion as to be regarded almost as a "mystic." At that age, an infidel book fell into his hands, and utterly sapped his faith in Christianity. In due course he became an Atheist, a Freemason, and a tireless enemy of the Christian religion.

It is said that Ferrer was at first employed as a railway servant, after which he seems to have worked, in some capacity or other, in a Spanish inn. This latter occupation failed to satisfy his restless spirit, for presently we find him installed as secretary to Zorilla, the Republican leader. He remained some five years in the service of Zorilla, from whom, no doubt, he imbibed his revolutionary Socialism. It is difficult to determine exactly where revolutionary Socialism ends and Anarchism begins. Certain it is, at any rate, that Ferrer, while still a young man, openly avowed himself an Anarchist.

Ferrer was only twenty-six years of age when he took part in a rebellion in Catalonia, in the year 1885. The rebellion failed, and the young Anarchist-revolutionary fled to Paris. There he made many friends, chief of whom was the Jew, Naquet, whose evil mission it has been to introduce divorce into the French code of law. Ferrer earned his livelihood in Paris by teaching Spanish. At this time he was a married man, with a wife and three children.