Lustrum after Lustrum

A privilege of Greatness is to speak in words which send common folk ascurrying to dictionaries. Lustrum is such a word. Last week His Excellency General Don Miguel Primo de Rivera, Marquis de Estella, Prime Minister and Dictator of Spain announced:

"In the evolution of the Spanish government the stages will be counted by lustrums. . . . Now that we are about to enter the second lustrum of our regime we will submit to the nation certain fundamental laws which will be a firm foundation sustaining the future of Spain. . . . [However] we have no intention of modifying our fundamental system, which has served so well during our first lustrum. . . ."

Spanish scurriers to dictionaries were intrigued and mystified by the primary meaning of lustrum: a Latin word signifying the festival at which Romans purified themselves by sacrificing to the Gods many a pig, sheep, bull. Was beefy Dictator de Rivera announcing Spanish sacrifices of pork, mutton, beef?

More appropriate seemed the second but obscure meaning of lustrum: a period of five years. On September 15, 1928, Dictator de Rivera will have been in power for one whole lustrum. "At that time," he declared last week, "my government will address the country respecting the new laws [said to envision merely the creation of an advisory Assembly, with Parliament continuing suppressed]. . . . These measures will be submitted to a national plebiscite. . . .

"Thus far my government has not lacked the goodwill of the country, nor the protection of God, nor the King's confidence. . . . The heirs of my government never will be the leaders of the regime which preceded mine, but will continue my policies and will be drawn from the Party of Patriotic Union [founded by the dictator among military menand staunch monarchists]."