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In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte's armies invaded and occupied
Portugal obliging the Portuguese royal family to escape to Brazil.
Portuguese territory stayed under French control. The absence of
the royal family and the dissemination of the ideals of the French
Revolution, based on the separation of powers and grant of rights
to all classes, provoked a liberal revolution in 1820 which brought
the absolutist regime to an end and began the construction of the
modern state.
THE 1820s REVOLUTION
The main concern of the revolutionaries was to endow Portugal with
a modern Constitution that would be a break with the past and serve
as a beginning of a group of measures, including economic and social
reforms that allowed the development of the country.
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