ambassador to Uruguay, although he would not assume the post due to the rupture of relations between the two countries. Although he remained in the background, he attended the meetings that the Republican Cortes held in October 1937 and August 1938. As the war progressed, he would serve as advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Paris and as Spanish ambassador to the Soviet Union. Exile and last years Seeing the war irretrievably lost, in 1939 he left Europe and moved to Latin America, settling in Buenos Aires. His departure into exile was followed by repression on the part of Franco's dictatorship. The Special Tribunal for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism sentenced him to thirty years imprisonment and absolute disqualification from practicing his profession, while the National Tribunal for Political Responsibilities imposed a fine of twenty-five million pesetas and the confiscation of all his assets. It was even proposed that he should lose his Spanish nationality. Since 1941 he was president of the Patronato Hispano-Argentino de Cultura, developing a feverish activity as a writer and lecturer.21 In parallel, he would also collaborate actively with the Republican institutions in exile: he was part of the central board of Acción Republicana Española, at the same time he served as delegate in Argentina of the Junta Española de Liberación. After the Second World War, he attended in Mexico City the meeting of the Republican Courts in exile. In August 1945 he became Minister of Finance of the government of the Republic in exile presided over by José Giral, a position he would hold until August 1947. He died in Buenos Aires on June 19, 1961. Private life Throughout his life he was the author of several works of a juridical-political and historical nature. In addition to Spanish, he was also fluent in Italian, French, English and German. He was a member of the Ateneo de Madrid from 1908, an institution in which he was very active and held positions of responsibility, such as general secretary and president (a position he held between December 1932 and June 1933). Between 1925 and 1926 he was president of the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation. He was also a member of the Madrid Press Association (from 1916) and of the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, the latter of which was formed in 1933. Masonic activity Augusto Barcia was an distinguished Mason. Having been initiated in the