The contradictions of the Revolution: a catholic monk buried with civil rites. 

He had four wives: Josefa, Joaquina, Clara and Rosa, and it was from them that he took the pseudonym by which he was known: José Joaquín de Clara Rosa. The aim of this was not to hide his real name, but rather to shock. He was a passionate revolutionary, and attacked both the Church and the Inquisition in particular. He did not, however, break with religion altogether. He defended the principles of early Christianity: the freedom to interpret the words of Christ, equality without hierarchy and the general brotherhood of man. In other words, he combined Christian teachings with the values of the French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. In addition to his polemical ideas, his literary style also caused a great deal of scandal and earned him many enemies, even among his fellow liberals. 
Indeed, it was in a prison in liberal Cadiz that he died in 1822 after being accused of conspiring against the, in his opinion, too moderate Government. Historians are uncertain as to whether he died from natural causes or from poison, and if this was the case, whether the culprits were his enemies or his allies, who may have feared that he would denounce them. His funeral, like his life, was surrounded by scandal. On his deathbed, he refused to let any monks or priests near him, and he omitted the usual declaration of catholic faith from his last will and testament, telling those by him to stop talking nonsense. He stated his wish to be buried without habit, crosses, religious hymns or churches, all of which he substituted for civil symbols:
It is my wish that, on my death, I be clothed in my everyday trousers, boots and coat and placed  in a coffin with the book of the Constitution lain open in my hands, and copies of all my works placed one by one beside my body. Give 50 paupers from the Hospice one duro each to attend my funeral holding candles and laurel branches. Give every young boy you can find one peseta each to sing patriotic songs with the musicians and let my body be taken through the streets past the plaque of the Constitution before arriving at my final resting place. 
He was, as far as we know, the first Basque to be buried by civil, rather than religious rites. An ex – monk who defied the Church with his writings. He never lost his gift as a preacher, and one of the only things he ever wrote in the Basque language was a phrase taken from the sermons of countless Basque priests: agur, nere adisquideac (goodbye, my friends).