Miguel's departure into exile on 2 June 1834 marks the final disintegration of the Ancien Régime. Although several historians associate the beginning of the Portuguese contemporaneity with the French invasions (when the old eighteenth- century Portugal collapsed), it was only with the establishment of the Terceira Regency – or perhaps after the ‘Landing at Mindelo’ and even more clearly following the capture of Lisbon – that the Liberal regime finally began to settle down. The period between 1807 and 1834, so often marked by violence, corresponds to the time that Portuguese society needed to prepare itself for a new age and a new order: the epoch of Liberalism.

But there was still a long way to go before Portugal could even remotely be described as a liberal society. In other words, once the ‘political revolution’ had been achieved, further revolutions would be needed. These included economic and social revolutions, but most of all a revolution in outlook and in ways of thinking. As Pulido Valente notes, Portugal still lacked the essential foundation needed to sustain the ‘Liberal edifice’, a strong and selfconfident ‘middle- class’. Without such a class, the Liberal regime would have a poor chance of survival. The question, therefore, was should the Liberals just wait for the middle class to develop – which was likely to take a long time – or should they try to ‘force the pace’ by taking steps to promote or even invent this vital ingredient? The second option, inevitably involving an element of artificiality, was the one adopted. Thus Liberal institutions based on Liberal values were imposed by decree, in much the same way as in Napoleonic France. Portuguese Liberalism began by committing crime against its own doctrine – that is, it sought to impose liberty by force.

However, the imposition of liberty by decree was inherently so unnatural that it could not be achieved without a temporary suppression of freedom, that is to say, without a virtual dictatorship. Perhaps things were not really so different to the days of Pombal. Taking advantage of the exceptional circumstances offered by civil war, Pedro and his collaborators decided to launch their own ‘revolution’.