[6] Author of a geodetic manual,[7] back in Spain he engaged in hydraulic engineering[8] and in the 1860s ran a technical college in Barcelona, an institution he founded himself;[9] he also managed a local railway line.

As a 14-year-old he escaped from home to join the legitimists during the Third Carlist War; twice rejected due to his age, he was eventually admitted to Real Cuerpo de Ingenieros; the structure was commanded by his own father.

He practiced in civil engineering, though he tried his hand at many sub-disciplines: railways, roads, hydro technical works, power generation and industrial facilities.

In 1901 Mas was granted a license to exploit waters of the Ter river, flowing through the Northern Catalonia;[33] the business ran into difficulties, was re-defined commercially[34] and continued at least into the early 1910s.

[47] However, information on his partisanship for the cause in the 1890s and 1900s is scarce and limited to various donations and subscriptions, e.g. to erect a monument to Zumalacárregui[48] or to honor the party leader, Marqués de Cerralbo.

[49] An isolated case of his open bid for public post is the 1899 electoral campaign for the local self-government; Mas stood as a Carlist but despite the family prestige and own economic position in the county he failed to make it to the Vich ayuntamiento.

[50] Historiographic works on either Catalan[51] or nationwide[52] Traditionalist politics at the turn of the centuries do not record him as engaged in internal party structures, their propaganda or electoral campaigns, and this is despite Vich having been among most Carlist districts in Spain, with one Cortes ticket won in 1891 and another in 1907.

One scholar counts him among most prestigious party men in Osona county, yet he provides no details and suggests that their activity was mostly about adhering to Catholic rituals and observing traditional social routine.

He stood in the Vich-Granollers district as a Jaimist representative[60] in Coalició Anticaciquista, an alliance posing as anti-establishment alternative to the corrupted Restoration regime.

Itself a lecture of Traditionalist program, the text advocated corporative instead of popular suffrage, separate regional establishments, moderate monarchy headed by Jaime de Borbón, Spain “limited only by the sea and the Pyrenees” and protectionist and regulated economy; unorthodox proposals were only voluntary military service, “properly understood” freedom of education and economic separation between state and the Church.

His manifesto read that “antes los principios que la persona del Rey”;[66] the Jaimista press agonized about Mas’ rebelling against two generations of his ancestors.

[67] In late 1919 he became the Catalan leader of the Mellistas; he co-signed an address to the Carlist infant Don Alfonso Carlos in vain hope to attract him.

Shortly afterwards Mas issued a manifiesto; it saluted “patriótico movimiento que el ejercito español acaba de hacer”, declared total adhesion of the Catalan Mellistas, and noted that the new regime should not only do away with the corrupt system, but its next step should be implementation of Traditionalist principles.

[81] In 1925 he openly voiced skepticism about centralizing policy which he considered anti-Catalan;[82] in the late 1920s the Vich Traditionalists withdrew from primoderiverista structures and few took part in organizations like Unión Patriótica or Somatén.

[87] He did not assume any position in the party[88] and enjoyed rather the status of a Traditionalist patriarch;[89] his role was about occasionally appearing on public rallies, like in 1934,[90] or donating money to the cause, like in 1936.

[91] Upon outbreak of the Civil War Mas fled to his property near Vilanova de Sau, but following few weeks he was tracked down by the anarchist-dominated Comitè Antifeixista of Vich.