Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BLEST GANA ALBERTO BLEST GANA textit{Diplomat; novelist. Alberto Blest Gana, the most notable of the Chilean novelists of his time, was born in Santiago on the twelfth of May, 1831, the son of the Irish doctor Guillermo Blest and Maria de la Luz Gana. He received his early education in the Military Academy and secured a government scholarship which enabled him to continue his studies in Europe. There he pursued courses in the Engineering School at Metz, counting among his acquaintances the man who was later destined to be Marshal of France and First President of the Third Republic— Mac Mahon. On his return to. Chile in 1852 he was appointed Professor of Topography in the Military Academy, and enlisting AND MONOGRAPHS IVthe aid of his pupils, drew up a map of Santjgo. After two years he abandoned the teaching profession to accept a post in the War and Navy Department; in 1857 he was appointed Governor of the province of Colchagua; in 1866 he was sent by the Perez administration to the United States as textit{charge d'affaires; in 1867 he was appointed Minister to England where he arranged the last Anglo-Chilean loan for the construction of the Chillan-Talcahuano Railroad, and then went as Chilean representative to the French Government, but soon returned to his native country. In 1870 he was elected Deputy to the Constituent Congress. His sojourn in Chile was brief; in j 1871 he returned as Minister to France, j where at the time of the war between Spain and Chile he lent valuable aid to his country by forwarding her arms and munitions. After the war he secured the incorporation of Chile in the Postal Union, brought about the suppression BLEST GANA of the British consular postal tax, and terminated the question of the frigate Jeanne Amalia.During the bit...