The last days of Primo de Rivera

Shortly after nine o'clock in the morning on February 11, 1930, a pair of Sûreté Générale inspectors boarded a train at Austerlitz station in central Paris from Cervera de la Marenda, the French border. Traveling on board was a very special passenger. Miguel Primo de Rivera had not yet been present fortnight since, citing health reasons, he had submitted his resignation to Alfonso XIII. After six years, he was no longer dictator. The previously unpublished documentation of the French police surveillance of him in his final days, which La Vanguardia has located in the French National Archives, corroborates his poor state of mind and confirms that, despite the rumors, Primo did not die of poisoning.

At midnight on September 12, 1923, as Captain General of Catalonia, he had launched his coup d'état in Barcelona and the following day had traveled by train to Madrid to receive the monarch's approval. Now, questioned by everyone, unpopular, having lost the favor of the king and most of the military leadership, and weakened by his diabetes, the sixty-year-old soldier from Jerez de la Frontera, widowed for years, decided to take the opposite route. The government of General Dámaso Berenguer, who replaced him as head of the dictatorship, gave him a passport to travel around France and Italy. As Gerardo Muñoz Lorente notes in La dictadura de Primo de Rivera (The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera , 2022), he "understood that he was being invited to undertake an officially voluntary exile."

With little alternative, on February 10, 1930, he left Madrid to return to the Catalan capital, board a train, and leave Spain behind forever. The next morning on the train to Paris, French inspectors questioned a wagon-lit employee about that particular passenger traveling alone. “I recommend that you don't give my name to anyone, not even the police,” he had told the general. At 9:30, the train arrived at Orsay station. No one was waiting for him. Nor did anyone greet him when he got off the train. “It seems he expressed an intention to go unnoticed,” the report noted.

The Spanish ambassador, José Quiñones de León, informed Dámaso Berenguer that Primo was slacking

The former dictator took a taxi to the Pont Royal Hotel, at 7 Rue Montalembert, just two blocks from the station, in the same Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood where he still resides. At the hotel, "where they didn't expect him," Primo rented room number 70 for 80 francs a day. He didn't say how long he would stay. After having his meal delivered to his room at 2:30 p.m., he went for a walk along the other side of the Seine, through the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Élysées. He returned around 5:00 p.m.

An employee who came to pay his respects suggested moving to a more luxurious room. “I see you know who I am,” he replied, “but it’s useless to insist. I like the room; I wanted it with a view of the courtyard because I came to Paris to relax and find peace. I’ll stay for a few days, and I think my eldest daughter will come looking for me soon.” Indeed, four days later, his two daughters, Carmen, 20, and Pilar, 18, entered France through Hendaye to join him. The person who kept him company the most in the following weeks was the Spanish ambassador, José Quiñones de León, who took the opportunity to let his replacement, Dámaso Berenguer, know that Primo was weakening. This was captured by Francisco Alía in Duel of Sabres (2006). The embassy doctor took care of his health. Alberto Bandelac de Pariente tried to put him on a diet, but the Marquis of Estella ignored him.

Primo wrote articles, especially for the Argentine newspaper La Nación, gave several interviews, received friends like Marshal Pétain, and went to the theater. In Miguel Primo de Rivera. Dictatorship, Populism, and Nation (2022), Alejandro Quiroga explains these last days in detail. The reports located by this newspaper corroborate his analysis of the moment.

At the beginning of March, Miguel, another of his sons, traveled to Paris to accompany his father to Frankfurt, Germany, for treatment of his diabetes. He didn't arrive in time. On the 14th, Quiñones de León organized a farewell lunch for him at the embassy. In the afternoon, Primo met with the correspondent for El Debate and confessed that he was feeling a pain that might have been angina. In the evening, however, he went with his three children to a performance of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Théâtre de la Porte St. Martin. His eldest son and future founder of the Falange, José Antonio, Ángela, and Fernando, were missing from Paris.

On the night of March 15, 1930, according to the police report, Primo didn't receive any visitors at the hotel. He had been suffering from the flu and a diabetic crisis for two weeks. The next day, his two daughters stopped by to greet their father before heading back to Mass. They left him feeling cheerful, writing. But when they returned, they found him slumped in his armchair with his glasses on and a few sheets of paper in his hands. After his son was notified, Miguel went to the hotel and left by taxi shortly before 10:30.

According to the Sûreté, "a priest visited the deceased's room twice between 11:45 and noon." At this time, Miguel resuscitated the patient with Dr. Bandelac de Pariente. Only after the latter's arrival at 12:15 was the former dictator's death announced. "Primo died of an embolism." The documentation in no way supports the rumors that the military man was poisoned. Simply put, in the last month, under the weight of depression from the painful end of his mandate, Primo's health had worsened. Paris barely lasted a month.