Banque d'Espagne
In any case, it was not until the following day, September 14, that the Council of the Bank of Spain (very reduced after the start of the war) was informed of the Government's decision to appropriate the gold and transfer it. Given that the transfer of the gold had commenced hours before the beginning of the session, the Council was unable to prevent such a decision. Nevertheless, the only two stockholder representatives of the Bank of Spain that had not allied themselves with the Nationalists (José Álvarez Guerra y Lorenzo Martínez Fresneda), submitted their resignation. Martínez Fresneda protested, arguing that the transfer was illegal, since the gold was of the exclusive property of the Bank of Spain, and thus neither the State nor the Government could take hold of it; he also pointed out that the gold guaranteed by law the convertibility of Bank notes, and should therefore remain in the security vaults of the Bank: