Was born at Granada on the 6th of July 1814. He was the son of Colonel Pavía, and after a few years at the Jesuit school in Valencia he entered the Royal Artillery Academy at Segovia. In 1833 he became a lieutenant in the guards of Queen Isabella II, and during the Carlist War from 1833 to 1840 he became general of division in the latter year at the early age of twenty-six. The Moderate party made him war minister in 1847, and sent him to Catalonia, where his efforts to put down a Carlist rising were not attended with success. He had been made a senator in 1845, and marquis in 1848.