on 2 January 1874, the captain general of Madrid, Manuel Pavía, the military man who was going to lead the coup, had his troops ready in case Castelar lost the parliamentary vote. On the opposite side, battalions of ‘‘Volunteers of the Republic’’ were prepared to act if Castelar won – in fact, according to Jorge Vilches, "the Cartagena cantonalists had received a call to resist until January 3, the day that an intransigent government would form that would "legalize" their situation and "cantonalize" Spain ». When the session opened, Nicolás Salmerón intervened to announce that he was withdrawing his support for Castelar. Emilio Castelar replied, calling for the establishment of the "possible Republic" with all the liberals, including the conservatives, and abandoning demagoguery. This was followed by a vote in which the Castelar government was defeated by 100 votes in favor and 120 against. Then the constitutional deputy Fernando León y Castillo forwarded the result to General Pavía, who gave the order to lead the compromised regiments to the Congress of Deputies. It was five minutes to seven in the morning, when the vote was going to elect the federal candidate Eduardo Palanca Asensi. When Salmerón received the order from the captain general in a note delivered by one of his assistants in which he told him to "vacate the premises," he suspended the vote and reported the extremely serious incident to the deputies. Shortly thereafter, the Civil Guard forced entry into the Congress building, firing shots into the air throughout the corridors, causing almost all deputies to leave. Castelar declined General Pavia's offer to preside over the government because he was unwilling to remain in power through undemocratic means, so the presidency of the Executive Power of the Republic and the government was assumed by the leader of the Constitutional Party Francisco Serrano, Duke of la Torre, who set himself the priority objective of ending the cantonal rebellion and the Third Carlist War. In the Manifesto that he made public on 8 January 1874, he justified the Pavia coup, stating that the government that was going to replace Castelar's would have caused the dismemberment of Spain or the triumph of Carlist absolutism and then announced, leaving all possibilities open: Hereditary or elective Republic or Monarchy, which would convene an ordinary Courts that would designate the "form and manner in which they are to elect the supreme Magistrate of the