The Sword of Luchana

Born into obscurity in a rural backwater of central Spain in the waning years of the eighteenth century, Baldomero Espartero (1793–1879) led a life resembling that of a character created by Stendhal or Gabriel García Márquez. As a seventy-five-year-old man he was offered – and turned down – the throne of an industrializing nation. During his illustrious life, he fought against Napoleon, Simón Bolívar, and other Latin American independence leaders; won a seven-year civil war; served as regent for