Franco (and the others) in Peralada
The history of the Mateu family of Peralada, those of the wineries and casinos, is that of a powerful family with a great commercial and industrial start in the 19th century that consolidated itself in the 20th thanks to its proximity to power: first alongside the monarchy, then in close intimacy with the dictator Francisco Franco, and finally with good relations with the autonomous Generalitat. That everything changes so that everything remains the same. Money, well administered, works political miracles.
The Mateus of Peralada. Pride and prejudice The journalist and essayist Xavier Febrés reviews the trajectory of this lineage in Els Mateu de Peralada. Orgull i prejudici (Edicions Cal·lígraf), a well-documented synthesis work that begins with a paradox: the Mateu family has never lived in Peralada castle, intended "exclusively to project an image of prestige for the family." "A lifeless house," Josep Pla described it. The castle was only inhabited by three generations of the Costa butlers until 1979 when it housed the casino.
The Mateu family also established their secondary residence in the early 20th century in Garbet, a fabulous estate by the sea with a private pier (and with a current lawsuit over the coastal path), in the municipality of Llançà. They acquired it in parallel to the castle and the Salatar wetlands of the abbey of Roses (300 hectares), where from 1963 onwards they would promote the chaotic urbanization of the Santa Margarida canals (which should not be confused with Empuriabrava).
The castle belonged to the Rocabertí, a surname with pedigree: the first viscount is documented in the year 971. In 1229 they accompanied Jaume I in the conquest of Mallorca alongside the chronicler Ramon Muntaner, also a native of Peralada. In the 19th century, the Rocabertí restored the castle (also that of Requesens, closer to the border), in the style of Viollet-le-Duc's fanciful neo-Gothic, with crenellated towers included. Over the years they filled it with a valuable collection of antique furniture, art objects (Romanesque carvings, capitals from Sant Pere de Rodes) and books. Everything passed to the Mateu family, who expanded it with a collection of 2,500 antique glass pieces, from Pharaonic Egypt to the 19th century. Likewise, they enlarged the primitive library: today it has 100,000 volumes, including a most notable Cervantean collection (5,000 works) and 195 incunabula.
The origin of the fortune
Where did the Mateu family's fortune come from? They come from Llinars del Vallès, where in 1801 they created an iron trade business that in 1909 moved to Barcelona, specifically to Carrer Peu de la Creu in the Raval, the street where the newspaper ARA is headquartered today. Afterwards, they moved to Carrer del Carme. The great leap was achieved by Miquel Mateu i Bisa, who had already studied law at university and who at 25 years old married Mercedes Pla i Deniel, sister of the future cardinal Enrique Pla i Deniel, a fervent defender of Franco's crusade, with whom he had direct contact.
Mateu i Bisa set up the iron warehouse in the convent of the Angels – it served this function until 1978 –, now integrated into the Macba. In parallel, he created the automobile company Hispano-Suiza, which during World War I experienced great expansion and which in 1920, at the whim of King Alfonso XIII, opened a factory in Guadalajara with the monarch as a shareholder through front men. A ruinous experiment. Also on the monarch's recommendation, in 1923 – the year of the acquisition of the Empordà properties – he took over the
Diario de Barcelona. And during the 1917 crisis, he acted as an intermediary between the king and the Catalanist politician Francesc Cambó.
The couple had three daughters and one son, the heir, Miquel Mateu i Pla, who by 1928 had already taken charge of the businesses. His father died in 1935. On July 18, 1936, Miquel Mateu and his wife, Júlia Quintana, born in Celrà, were arrested in Garbet by an FAI committee and taken to Girona prison. Thanks to the fact that a son of the French president, Léon Blum, worked at Hispano-Suiza in France, negotiations from Paris directly with President Lluís Companys led to their release.
The woman and the months-old daughter went into exile and Miquel Pla went over to the Francoist side, in Salamanca, where his uncle, the cardinal, was. With the end of the war, Miquel Mateu entered Barcelona as mayor. On October 23, 1940, eight days after Companys' execution, he received the head of the German SS, Himmler. Mateu was mayor for five years, presided over La Caixa from 1941 until his death in 1972, the employers' association Foment (1952-1972) and the Efe agency (1967-1972). And he was a lifelong national councilor of Falange from 1943. His position, however, did not prevent the Hispano-Suiza factory in Sagrera from being bombed during the war, nor from being absorbed afterwards, not to say expropriated, by the State: in 1946 it would become Enasa Pegaso.
The dictator was invited to Peralada in 1941, 1951, 1955, 1960, 1966 –that time he arrived in Roses on his ship Azor– and 1970, the latter time with Dalí and Gala. He did not attend the wedding of Carme Mateu with Artur Suqué –Jordi Pujol's desk mate at the German School of Barcelona– in 1957, which Carme Polo de Franco did attend. Years later, already in democracy, in the 90s the Casinos caseof irregular financing of Convergència shook Catalan politics. The judicial case was dismissed in 2000.