Spanish counterrevolutionary thought was born in the eighteenth century as a reaction against the Rationalism of the Enlightenment which, advancing from France, threatened the ideological apparatus of absolutism. It represented the intellectual aspect of the struggle between the class interests of the rising bourgeoisie and the two partners of traditional monarchic power, the nobility and the clergy. The intelligentsia of the regime based their ideological defense on the traditional myths, opposing that "Reason" which represented in their judgment the spirit of Evil itself.