[2] During his youth, Juan Donoso was tutored by the liberal Antonio Beltran in Latin, French, and other subjects required for entrance to a university.

It was here that Donoso Cortés first encountered philosophy; he fell under the influence of liberal and traditionalist thinkers such as John Locke and Louis de Bonald.

He criticized medieval feudalism but defended the Papacy and the Crusades, which he believed engendered vitality into European civilization.

Donoso's views began to shift after the 1836 rising at La Granja, where soldiers in the royal palace forced Maria Cristina to reinstitute the liberal Constitution of 1812.

At this time Donoso was appointed as a cabinet secretary and elected to the Cortes as a member of the liberal Moderate Party, which represented bourgeois interests and supported a constitutional monarchy.

His drift into conservatism continued during this time; Donoso attacked Victor Hugo's depiction of Mary Stuart, he argued in favor of the use of rich articles in religious rites.

His most extensive article during this time, "Classicism and Romanticism", written in El Correo Nacional in August or September 1838, urged a synthesis between classicist and romantic art forms.

[7] Donoso returned to Spain in late 1843 and played a key role in granting majority status to Queen Isabella II, ending the regency of Baldomero Espartero.

Donoso's liberalism saw a brief upsurge with the early reforms of Pope Pius IX, who appointed Pellegrino Rossi to be prime minister of the Papal States.

In January 1849, Donoso gave a speech in the Cortes, "On Dictatorship," defending the actions of General Narvaez in suppressing any traces of revolutionary activity in Spain.

Donoso spoke out vociferously against the chaos he saw unfolding across Europe in the Cortes; he attacked socialism as the result of the erosion of Christian morality and atheism.

Still, Donoso worked to obtain international recognition for the new regime and he represented Queen Isabella II at the Emperor's marriage to the Spanish countess Eugénie de Montijo.

Donoso's life took on a newfound piety during this time: he went on pilgrimage, wore a hair shirt, volunteered with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, visited slums and prisons, and donated much of his wealth to the poor.

[10] During his last years he also engaged in a series of correspondences that developed his thought further; firstly with the former Queen regent Maria Christina; with Cardinal Fornari, the papal nuncio to France; and Atanazy Raczyński, a Polish nobleman and Prussian ambassador to Spain, who was a close friend of Donoso.