Nineteenth-century Spanish constitutionalism is usually interpreted as a pendulum swinging between liberal or progressive constitutions and moderate or conservative ones. This interpretation highlights constitutional instability and the minimal impact of constitutional documents on the nation’s political and social life. That is why the French writer Théophile Gautier (1811–1872), after seeing Iruna Square dedicated to the constitution—a phenomenon he would later see in every city and village—described Spain’s constitutional reality during his trip in 1840 as a coat of plaster on a granite building. He meant that the constitution was a mere façade covering a long-sustained reality, the Spanish nation.
Josep M. Castellà Andreu, "Jaime Balmes: Constitutional Politics at the Service of Conciliation," Journal of Markets & Morality 23, no. 1 (2020): 195-199.