The term "black legend" was first used by Arthur Lévy about biographies of Napoleon in the context of the opposition between a "golden legend" and a "black legend": two extreme, simplistic, one-dimensional approaches to a character which portrayed him as a god or a demon. "Golden" and "black legends" had been used by Spanish historians and intellectuals with the same meaning in reference to aspects of Spanish history; Antonio Soler used both terms about the portrayal of Castilian and Aragonese monarchs.[citation needed] At an 18 April 1899 Paris conference, Emilia Pardo Bazán used it for the first time to refer to a general view of modern Spanish history: