José Antonio Primo de Rivera to try to rescue José Antonio. Either way the death of the founder of Falange rid the general of a formidable rival. Perhaps tellingly, it was well known that the two men disliked each other. After one of the two meetings they had, Franco dismissed José Antonio as "a playboy pinturero" (a foppish playboy). Elizabeth Bibesco's last novel, "The Romantic", published in 1940, starts with a dedication to Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, whom she had known during her stay in Madrid where her husband, Prince Antoine Bibesco was an ambassador (1927–1931): “To Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. I promised
Miguel Primo de Rivera often have to cancel in the morning." Between 1909 and 1923, Primo de Rivera's career blossomed, but he became increasingly discouraged with the fortunes of his country. Having returned to Spanish Morocco, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1911, the first graduate of the General Academy to receive such a promotion. Yet social revolution had flared briefly in Barcelona, during the Tragic Week of 1909. After the army had called up conscripts to fight in the Second Rif War in Morocco, Radical republicans and anarchists in Catalonia had proclaimed a general strike. Violence had erupted when the government declared