What crime had Portugal committed? She had of late been singularly pa.s.sive: anxiously she looked on at the gigantic strifes that were engulfing the smaller States one by one. Her conduct towards Napoleon had been far less provocative than that of Denmark towards England.
Threatened with part.i.tion by him and Spain in 1801, she had eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed at peace, and on the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was fain to purchase her neutrality at the cost of a heavy subsidy to France, which she still paid in the hope of prolonging her "existence on sufferance."[168] That hope now faded away.
As far back as February, 1806, Napoleon had lent a ready ear to the plans which G.o.doy, the all-powerful Minister at Madrid, had proposed for the part.i.tion of Portugal; and, in the month of July following, Talleyrand held out to our plenipotentiary at Paris the threat that, unless England speedily made peace with France, Napoleon would annex Switzerland--"but still less can we alter, for any other consideration, our intention of invading Portugal. The army destined for that purpose is already a.s.sembling at Bayonne." A year"s respite was gained for the House of Braganza by the campaigns of Jena and Friedland. But now, with the tenacity of his nature, the Emperor returned to the plan, actually tried in 1801 and prepared for in 1806, of crushing our faithful ally in order to compel us to make peace. On this occasion he counted on certain success, as may be seen by the following extract from the despatch of the Portuguese amba.s.sador at Paris to his Government:
"On Sunday afternoon [August 2nd] there was a diplomatic Levee.
The Emperor came up to me as I stood in the circle, and in a low voice said: "Have you written to your Court? Have you despatched a courier with my final determination?"--I replied in the affirmative.--"Very well," said the Emperor, "then by this time your Court knows that she must break with England before the 1st of September. It is the only way to accelerate peace."--As the place did not permit discussion on my part, I answered: "I should think, Sire, that England must now be sincerely anxious to make peace."--"Oh," replied the Emperor, "we are very certain of that: however, in all cases, you must break either with England or France before the 1st of September."--He then turned about and addressed himself to the Danish Minister, as far as I could judge to the same purport."[169]
Equally confident is Napoleon"s tone in the lately published letter of September 7th:
"As soon as I received news of the English expedition against Copenhagen,[170] I caused Portugal to be informed that all her ports must be closed to England, and I ma.s.sed an army of 40,000 men at Bayonne to join the Spaniards in enforcing this action, if necessary. But a letter I have just received from the Prince Regent [of Portugal] leads me to presume that this last measure will not be necessary, that the Portuguese ports will be closed to the English by the time this is read, and that Portugal will have declared war against England. On the other hand, my flotilla will be ready for action on 1st October, and I shall have a large army at Boulogne, ready to attempt a _coup de main_ on England."
The letter concludes by ordering that all British diplomatists are to be driven _out of Europe_, and that Sweden must make common cause with France and Russia. Such were the means to be used for forcing affrighted Peace again to visit this distracted earth.
In truth, the fate of the British race seemed for the time to hang upon the events at Copenhagen and Lisbon. Very much depended on the action of the Prince Regent of Portugal. Had he tamely submitted to Napoleon"s ukase and placed his fleet and his vast colonial empire at the service of France, it is doubtful whether even the high-souled Canning would not have stooped to surrender in face of odds so overwhelming. The young statesman"s anxiety as to the action of Portugal is attested by many a long and minutely corrected despatch to Viscount Strangford, our envoy at Lisbon. But, fortunately for us, Napoleon committed the blunder which so often marred his plans: he pushed them too far: he required the Prince Regent to adopt a course of conduct repellent to an honourable man, namely, to confiscate the merchandise and property of British merchants who had long trusted the good faith of the House of Braganza. To this last demand the prince opposed a dignified resistance, though on all other points he gave way. This will appear from Lord Strangford"s despatch of August 13th:
" ... The Portuguese Ministers place all their hopes of being able to ward off this terrible blow in the certainty which they entertain of England being obliged to enter into negotiations for a general peace.... The very existence of the Portuguese Monarchy depends on the celerity with which England shall meet the pacific interference of the Emperor of Russia. The Prince Regent gives the most solemn promise that he will not on any account consent to the measure of confiscating the property of British subjects residing under his protection. But I think that if France could be induced to give up this point, and limit her demands to the exclusion of British commerce from Portugal, the Government of this country would accede to them...."
A week later he states that Portugal begged England to put up with a temporary rupture, and reports that a quant.i.ty of diamonds had been taken out of the Treasury and sent to Paris to be distributed in presents to persons supposed to possess influence over the minds of Bonaparte and Talleyrand. It would be interesting to trace the history of these diamonds. But, as Napoleon had recently awarded sums amounting in all to 26,582,000 francs from out of the estates confiscated in Poland,[171] signs of sudden affluence were widespread in Paris and rendered it difficult to detect the receivers of the gems. Talleyrand was the usual recipient of such _douceurs_. But on August the 14th he had retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gaining the t.i.tle of Vice Grand-Elector; and, if we are to be guided, not by the statements of his personal foes, Hauterive and Pasquier, but by the determination which he is known to have formed at Tilsit, that he would not be "the executioner of Europe," we may judge that he disapproved of the barbarous treatment meted out to Prussia and now planned against Portugal.[172]
As has been stated above, the part.i.tion of this kingdom had been planned by G.o.doy in concert with Napoleon early in 1806. That pampered minion of the Spanish Court, angry at the shelving of plans which promised to yield him a third of Portugal, called Spain to arms while Napoleon was marching to Jena, an affront which the conqueror seemed to overlook but never really forgave. Now, however, he appeared wholly to enter into G.o.doy"s scheme; and, while the Prince Regent of Portugal was appealing to his pity, the Emperor (September 25th, 1807) charged Duroc to confer with G.o.doy"s confidential agent at Paris, Don Izquierdo. " ...As for Portugal, I make no difficulty about granting to the King of Spain a suzerainty over Portugal, and even taking part of it away for the Queen of Etruria and the Prince of the Peace [G.o.doy]."
Duroc was also to point out the difficulty, now that "all Italy"
belonged to Napoleon, of allowing "that deformity," the kingdom of Etruria, to disfigure the peninsula. The change would in fact, doubly benefit the French Emperor. It would enable him completely to exclude British commerce from the port of Leghorn, where it was trickling in alarmingly, and also to place the mouths of the Tagus and Douro in the hands of obedient va.s.sals.
Such was the scheme in outline. Despite the offer of the Prince Regent to obey all Napoleon"s behests except that relating to the seizure of British subjects and their property, war was irrevocably resolved on by October the 12th.[173] And on October the 27th a secret convention was signed at the Palace of Fontainebleau for arranging "the future lot of Portugal by a healthy policy and conformably to the interests of France and Spain." Portugal was now to be divided into three very unequal parts: the largest portion, comprising Estremadura, Beira, and Tras-os Montes, was reserved for a future arrangement at the general peace, but meanwhile was to be held by France: Algarve and Alemtejo were handed over to G.o.doy; while the diminutive province of Entre Minho e Douro was flung as a sop to the young King of Etruria and his mother, a princess of the House of Spain, to console them for the loss of Etruria. A vague promise was made that the House of Braganza might be reinstated in the first of these three portions, in case England restored Gibraltar, Trinidad, and other colonies taken by her from Spain or her allies; and Napoleon guaranteed to the King of Spain his possessions in Europe, exclusive of the Balearic Isles, offering also to recognize him as Emperor of the Two Americas.
Meanwhile Junot was leading his army corps from Bayonne towards Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo, to give effect to this healthful arrangement. This general, whom it was desirable to remove from Paris on account of his rather too open _liaison_ with one of the Bonaparte princesses, was urged to the utmost speed and address by the Emperor.
He must cover the whole 200 leagues in thirty-five days; lack of provisions must not hinder the march, for "20,000 men can live anywhere, even in a desert"; and, above all, as the Prince Regent had again offered to declare war on England, he (Junot) could represent that he came as an ally: "I have already informed you that my intention in authorizing you to enter that land as an ally was to enable you to seize its fleet, but that my mind was fully made up to take possession of Portugal."[174] Lisbon, in fact, was to be served as Venice was ten years before, the lion donning the skin of the fox so as to effect a peaceful seizure. But that ruse could hardly succeed twice. The Prince Regent had his ships ready for flight. The bluff and headstrong Junot, nicknamed "the tempest" by the army, was too artless to catch the prince by guile; but he hurried his soldiers over mountains and through flooded gorges until, on November 30th, 1,500 tattered, shoeless, famished grenadiers straggled into Lisbon--to find that the royal quarry had flown.
The Prince Regent took this momentous resolve with the utmost reluctance. For many weeks he had clung to the hope that Napoleon would spare him; and though he accepted a convention with England, whereby he gained the convoy of our men-of-war across the Atlantic and the promise of aggrandizement in South America, he still continued to temporize, and that too, when a British fleet was at hand in the Tagus strong enough to thwart the designs of the Russian squadron there present to prevent his departure. When the French were within two days" march of Lisbon, Lord Strangford feared that the Portuguese fleet would be delivered into their hands; and only after a trenchant declaration that further vacillation would be taken as a sign of hostility to Great Britain, did the Prince Regent resolve to seek beyond the seas the independence which was denied to him in his own realm.[175]
Few scenes are more pathetic than the departure of the House of Braganza from the cradle of its birth. Love for the Prince Regent as a man, mingled with pity for the demented Queen, held the populace of Lisbon in tearful silence as the royal family and courtiers filed along the quays, followed by agonized groups of those who had decided to share their trials. But silence gave way to wails of despair as the exiles embarked on the heaving estuary and severed the last links with Europe. Slowly the fleet began to beat down the river in the teeth of an Atlantic gale. Near the mouth the refugees were received with a royal salute by the British fleet, and under its convoy they breasted the waves of the ocean and the perils of the future.
The conduct of England towards Denmark and that of Napoleon towards Portugal call for a brief comparison. Those small kingdoms were the victims of two powerful States whose real or fancied interests prompted them to the domination of the land and of the sea. But when we compare the actions of the two Great Powers, important differences begin to reveal themselves. England had far more cause for complaint against Denmark than Napoleon had against Portugal. The hostility of the Danes to the recent coalition was notorious. To compel them to change their policy without loss of national honour, we sent the most powerful armada that had ever left our sh.o.r.es, with offers of alliance and a demand that their fleet, the main object of Napoleon"s designs, should be delivered up to be held in deposit. The offer was refused, and we seized the fleet. The act was brutal, but it was at least open and above board, and the capitulation of September 7th was scrupulously observed, even when the Danes prepared to renew hostilities.
On the other hand, the demands of Napoleon on the Court of Lisbon were such as no honourable prince could accept; they were relentlessly pressed on in spite of the offer of the Prince Regent to meet him in every particular save one; the appeals of the victim were deliberately used by the aggressor to further his own rapacious designs; and the enterprise fell short of ending in a ma.s.sacre only because the glamour of the French arms so dazzled the susceptible people of the south that, for the present, they sank helplessly away at the sight of two battalions of spectres. Finally, Portugal was part.i.tioned--or rather it was kept entirely by Napoleon; for, after the promises of part.i.tion had done their work, the sleeping partners in the transaction were quietly shelved, and it was then seen that Portugal had finally served as the bait for ensnaring Spain. To this subject we shall return in the next chapter.
In Italy also, the Juggernaut car of the Continental System rolled over the small States. The Kingdom of Etruria, which in 1802 had served as an easy means of buying the whole of Louisiana from the Spanish Bourbons, was now wrested from that complaisant House, and in December was annexed to the French Empire.
The Pope also pa.s.sed under the yoke. For a long time the relations between Pius VII. and Napoleon had been strained. Gentle as the Pontiff was by nature, he had declined to exclude all British merchandise from his States, or to accept an alliance with Eugene and Joseph. He also angered Napoleon by persistently refusing to dissolve the marriage of Jerome Buonaparte with Miss Paterson; and an interesting correspondence ensued, culminating in a long diatribe which Eugene was charged to forward to the Vatican as an extract from a private letter of Napoleon to himself.[176] Pius VII. was to be privately warned that Napoleon had done more good to religion than the Pope had done harm. Christ had said that His Kingdom was not of this world. Why then did the Pope set himself above Christ? Why did he refuse to render to Caesar that which was Caesar"s?--A fortnight later the Emperor advised Eugene to despatch troops in the direction of Bologna--"and if the Pope commits an imprudence, it will be a fine opportunity for depriving him of the Roman States."
No imprudence was committed. Yet, in the following January, Napoleon ordered his troops to occupy Rome, alleging that the Eternal City was a hotbed of intrigues fomented by England and the ex-Queen of Naples, that Neapolitan rebels had sought an asylum in the Papal States, and that, though he had no wish to deprive the Pope of his territories, yet he must include him in his "system." When Pius VII. refused to commit himself to a policy which would involve war with England, Napoleon ordered that his lands east of the Apennines should be annexed to the Kingdom of Italy (April 2nd, 1808). Napoleon thus gained complete control over the Adriatic coasts, which, along with the island of Corfu, had long engaged his most earnest attention.[177]
True to his aim of forcing or enticing all maritime States into a mighty confederacy for the humiliation of England, Napoleon had given most heed to lands possessing extensive seaboards. Northern Italy, Holland, Naples, North Germany, Prussia, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Central Italy had, in turn, adopted his system. On Austria he exerted a less imperious pressure; for her coast-line of Trieste and Croatia was so easily controlled by his Italian and Dalmatian territories that English merchandise with difficulty found admittance. Yet, in order to carry out there also his policy of "Thorough," he brought the arguments of Paris and St. Petersburg to bear on the Court of Vienna; and on February 18th, 1808, Austria was enrolled in a league that might well be called continental; for in the spring of that year it embraced every land save Sweden and Turkey.
His activity at this time almost pa.s.ses belief. While he fastened his grip on the Continent, gallicized the inst.i.tutions of Italy and Germany, and almost daily instructed his brothers in the essentials of successful statecraft, he found time to turn his thoughts once more to the East, and to mark every device of England for lengthening her lease of life. Noticing that we had annulled our blockade of the Elbe and Weser, with the aim of getting our goods introduced there by neutral ships, Napoleon charged his Finance Minister, Gaudin, to prepare a decree for pressing hard on neutrals who had touched at any of our ports or carried wares that could be proved to be of British origin.[178]
He was perfectly correct in his surmise that English goods were about to be sent into the Continent extensively on neutral vessels. After the consequences of the Treaty of Tilsit had been fully developed, that was almost their only means of entry. "In August, September and October, British commerce lay prostrate and motionless until a protecting and self-defensive system was interposed by our Orders in Council."[179] The first of these ordered reprisals against the new Napoleonic States (November 4th): a week later came a second which declared that, as the Orders of January had not induced the enemy to relax his commercial hostilities, but these were now enforced with increased rigour, any port whence the British flag was excluded would be treated as if it were actually blockaded; that is, the principle of the legality of a nominal blockade, abandoned in 1801, was now reaffirmed. The carriage of hostile colonial products was likewise prohibited to neutrals, though certain exceptions were allowed. Also any neutral vessel carrying "certificates of origin"--a device for distinguishing between British and neutral goods--was to be considered a lawful prize of war. A third Order in Council of the same date allowed goods to be imported into the United Kingdom from a hostile port in neutral ships, subject to the ordinary duties, and bonding facilities were granted for the re-exportation of such goods to any friendly or neutral port.[180] These orders were designed to draw neutral commerce through our ports, and to give secret facilities for the carriage of our goods by neutrals, while pressing upon those that obeyed Napoleon"s system.
The harshest of them was that which encouraged the searching of neutral vessels for certificates of origin--a measure as severe as the confiscation of British property by Napoleon, which it was designed to defeat. And we may note here that the friction resulting from our Orders in Council and our enforcement of the right of search led to the United States pa.s.sing a Non-Intercourse Act (December 23rd, 1807) that preluded active hostilities against us. It also led Napoleon to confiscate all American ships in his harbours after April 17th, 1808.
The November Orders in Council soon drew a reply from Napoleon. He heard of them during a progress through the north of Italy, and from Milan he flung back his retort, the famous Milan Decrees of November 23rd and December 17th. He thereby declared every neutral ship, which submitted to those orders, to be denationalized and good prize of war; and the same doom was p.r.o.nounced against every vessel sailing to or from any port in the United Kingdom or its colonies or possessions.
But these measures were not to affect ships of those States that compelled Great Britain to respect their flag. The islanders might well be dismayed at the prospect of a seclusion which promised to recall the Virgilian line:
"penitus toto divisos...o...b.. Britannos."
Yet they resolved to pit the resources of the outer world against the militarism of Napoleon; and, drawing the resources of the tropics to the new power-looms of Lancashire and Yorkshire, they might well hope to pour their unequalled goods into Europe from points of vantage such as Sicily, Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and Heligoland. There were many Englishmen who believed that the November Orders in Council brought nothing but harm to our cause. They argued that our manufactured goods must find their way into the Continent in spite of the Berlin Decrees; and they could point to the curious fact that Bourrienne, Napoleon"s agent at Hamburg, when charged to procure 50,000 overcoats for the French army during the Eylau campaign, was obliged to buy them from England.[181]
The incident certainly proves the folly of the Continental System. And if we had had to consult our manufacturing interests alone, a policy of _laisser faire_ would doubtless have been the best. England, however, prided herself on her merchant service: to that she looked as the nursery for the royal navy: and the abandonment of the world"s carrying trade to neutrals would have seemed an act of high treason.
Her acts of retaliation against the Berlin Decrees and the policy of Tilsit were harsh and high-handed. But they were adopted during a pitiless commercial strife; and, in warfare of so novel and desperate a kind, acts must unfortunately be judged by their efficacy to harm the foe rather than by the standards of morality that hold good during peace. Outwardly, it seemed as if England were doomed. She had lost her allies and alienated the sympathies of neutrals. But from the sea she was able to exert on the Napoleonic States a pressure that was gradual, c.u.mulative, and resistless; and the future was to prove the wisdom of the words of Mollien: "England waged a warfare of modern times; Napoleon, that of ancient times. There are times and cases when an anachronism is fatal."
Moreover, at the very time when the Emperor was about to complete his great experiment by subduing Sweden and preparing for the part.i.tion of Turkey, it sustained a fatal shock by the fierce rising of the Spanish people against his usurped authority.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SPANISH RISING
The relations of Spain to France during the twelve years that preceded the rising of 1808 are marked by acts of folly and unmanly complaisance that promised utterly to degrade a once proud and sensitive people. They were the work of the senile and spiritless King, Charles IV., of his intriguing consort, and, above all, of her paramour, the all-powerful Minister G.o.doy. Of an ancient and honourable family, endowed with a fine figure, courtly address, and unscrupulous arts, this man had wormed himself into the royal confidence; and after bringing about a favourable peace with France in 1795, he was styled The Prince of the Peace.
In the next year the meaning of the French alliance was revealed in the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, which required Spain to furnish troops, ships, and subsidies for the war against England, a state of va.s.salage which was made harder by Napoleon. The results are well known. After being forced by him to cede Trinidad to us at the Peace of Amiens, she sacrificed her navy at Trafalgar, saw her colonies and commerce decay and her finances shrivel for lack of the golden streams formerly poured in by Mexico and Peru.
In the summer of 1806, while sinking into debt and disgrace, the Court of Madrid heard with indignation of Napoleon"s design to hand over the Balearic Isles to the Spanish Bourbons whom he had driven from Naples and proposed to drive from Sicily. At once Spanish pride caught fire and clutched at means of revenge.[182] G.o.doy was further incensed by the sudden abandonment of the plans which he had long discussed with Napoleon for the part.i.tion of Portugal, plans which gave him the prospect of reigning as King over the southern portion of that realm.[183] Accordingly, when the Emperor was entering upon the Jena campaign, he summoned the Spanish people to arms in a most threatening manner. The news of the collapse of Prussia ended his bravado.
Complaisance again reigned at Madrid, and 15,000 Spaniards were sent, at Napoleon"s demand, to serve on the borders of Denmark, while the autocrat of the West perfected his plans against the Iberian Peninsula. As was noted in the previous chapter, the Emperor renewed his offers of a part.i.tion of Portugal in the early autumn of 1807; and in pursuance of the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, Junot"s corps marched through Spain into Portugal, where they were helped by a Spanish corps.
It is significant that, as early as October 17th, 1807, Napoleon ordered his general to send a detailed description of the country and of his line of march, the engineer officers being specially charged to send sketches, "_which it is important to have_." Other French divisions then crossed the Pyrenees, under plea of keeping open Junot"s communications with France; and spies were sent to observe the state of the chief Spanish strongholds. Others were charged to report on the condition of the Spanish army and the state of public opinion; while Junot was cautioned to keep a sharp watch on the Spanish troops in Portugal, to allow no fortress to be in their hands, and to send all the Portuguese troops away to France. Thus, in the early days of 1808, Napoleon had some 20,000 troops in Portugal, about 40,000 in the north of Spain, and 12,000 in Catalonia. By various artifices they gained admission into the strongholds of Pamplona, Monjuik, Barcelona, St. Sebastian, and Figueras, so that by the month of March the north and west of the peninsula had pa.s.sed quietly into his hands, while the greater part of the Spanish army was doing his work in Portugal or on the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic.[184]
These proceedings began to arouse alarm and discontent among the Spanish people; but on its Government their influence was as benumbing as that which the boa-constrictor exerts on its prey. In vain did Charles IV. and G.o.doy strive to set a limit to the numbers of the auxiliaries that poured across the Pyrenees to help them against fabled English expeditions. In vain did they beg that the part.i.tion of Portugal might now proceed in accordance with the terms of the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau. The King was curtly told that affairs were not yet ripe for the publication of that treaty.[185] And the growing conviction that he had been duped poured gall into the cup of family bitterness that had long been full to overflowing.
The scandalous relations of the Queen with G.o.doy had deeply incensed the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias. His att.i.tude of covert opposition to his parents and their minion was strengthened by the influence of his bride, a daughter of the ex-Queen of Naples, and their palace was the headquarters of all who hoped to end the degradation of the kingdom. As later events were to prove, Ferdinand had not the qualities of courage and magnanimity that command general homage; but it was enough for his countrymen that he opposed the Court. In 1806 his consort died; and on October 11th, 1807, without consulting his father, he secretly wrote to Napoleon, requesting the hand of a Bonaparte princess in marriage, and stating that such an alliance was the ardent wish of all Spaniards, while they would abhor his union with a sister of the Princess of the Peace. To this letter Napoleon sent no reply. But Charles IV. had some inkling of the fact that the prince had been treating direct with Napoleon; and this, along with another unfilial action of the prince, furnished an excuse for a charge of high treason. It was spitefully pressed home and was revoked only on his humble request for the King"s pardon.
Now, this "School for Scandal" was being played at Madrid at the time when Napoleon was arranging the part.i.tion of Portugal; and the schism in the Spanish royal House may well have strengthened his determination to end its miserable existence and give a good government to Spain. At the close of the so-called palace plot, Charles IV. informed his august ally of _that frightful attempt_, and begged him to _give the aid of his lights and his counsels_.[186] The craven-hearted King thus himself opened the door for that intervention which Napoleon had already meditated. His resolve now rapidly hardened. At the close of January, 1808, he wrote to Junot asking him: "If unexpected events occurred in Spain, what would you fear from the Spanish troops? Could you easily rid yourself of them?"[187] On February the 20th he appointed Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to be his Lieutenant in Spain and commander of the French Forces. The choice of this bluff, headstrong cavalier, who had done so much to provoke Prussia in 1806, certainly betokened a forward policy. Yet the Emperor continued to smile on the Spanish Court, and gave a sort of half sanction to the union of Ferdinand with a daughter of Lucien Bonaparte.[188] In fact, the hope of this alliance was now used to keep quiet the numerous partisans of Ferdinand, while Murat advanced rapidly towards Madrid. To his Lieutenant the Emperor wrote (March 16th): "Continue your kindly talk. Rea.s.sure the King, the Prince of the Peace, the Prince of Asturias, the Queen. The chief thing is to reach Madrid, to rest your troops and replenish your provisions. Say that I am about to come so as to arrange matters."
As to Napoleon"s real aims, Murat was in complete ignorance; and he repeatedly complained of the lack of confidence which a brother-in-law had a right to expect.[189] But while the Grand Duke of Berg beamed on the Spaniards with meaningless affability, Izquierdo, G.o.doy"s secret agent at Paris, troubled his master with gloomy reports of the deepening reserve and lowering threats of Ministers at Paris. There was talk of requiring from Spain the cession of her lands between the Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a b.u.t.t to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World betimes, with the needful treasure.
But there, too, Napoleon forestalled them. On February 21st a secret order was sent to a French squadron to anchor off Cadiz and stop the King and Queen of Spain if they sought to "repeat the scene of Lisbon."[190] Their escape to America would be even more favourable to England than the flight of the Court of Lisbon had been; and Napoleon took good care that the King, to whom he had awarded the t.i.tle of Emperor of the two Americas, should remain a prisoner in Europe.
Scared, however, by the approach of Murat and the news from Paris, Charles still prepared for flight; and the Queen"s anxiety to save her favourite from the growing fury of the populace also bent her desires seawards.
The Court was at the palace of Aranjuez, not far from Madrid, and it seemed easy to escape into Andalusia, and to carry away, by guile or by force, the heir to the throne. But Ferdinand, who hoped for deliverance at the hands of the French, thwarted the scheme by a timely hint to his faithful guards. At once his partisans gathered round him; and the people, rushing to G.o.doy"s residence, madly ransacked it in the hope of tearing to pieces the author of the nation"s ruin. After thirty-six hours" concealment, G.o.doy ventured to steal forth; at once he was discovered, was kicked and beaten; and only the intervention of Ferdinand, prompted by the agonized entreaties of his mother, availed to save the dregs of that wretched life. The roars of the crowd around the palace, and the smashing of the royal carriage, now decided the King to abdicate; and he declared that his declining years and failing health now led him to yield the crown to Ferdinand (March 19th, 1808).
Loud was the acclaim that greeted the young King when he entered Madrid; but the rejoicings were soon damped by the ambiguous behaviour of Murat, who, on entering Madrid at the head of his troops, skilfully evaded any recognition of Ferdinand as King. In fact, Murat had received (March 21st) a letter from Charles IV."s daughter begging for his help to her parents at Aranjuez; and it soon transpired that the ex-King and Queen now repented of their abdication, which they represented as brought about by force and therefore null and void. The Grand Duke of Berg saw the advantage which this dispute might give to Napoleon; and he begged the Emperor to come immediately to Madrid for the settlement of matters on which he alone could decide. To this Napoleon replied (March 30th) commending his Lieutenant"s prudence, and urging him to escort Charles IV. to the Escurial as King, while G.o.doy was also to be protected and sent to Bayonne.
To this town the Emperor set out on April the 2nd, as though he would thence proceed to Madrid. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was treated with guarded courtesy that kept alive his hope of an alliance with a French princess. To favour this notion, Napoleon despatched the wariest of his agents, Savary, who artfully persuaded him to meet the Emperor at Burgos. He succeeded, and even induced him to continue his journey to Vittoria. At that place the citizens sought to cut the traces of the royal carriage, so much did they fear treachery if he proceeded further. Yet the young King, beguiled by the Emperor"s letter of April 16th, which offered the hand of a French princess, prolonged his journey, crossed the frontier, and was received by Napoleon at Bayonne (April 20th). His arguments, proving that his father"s abdication had been voluntary, fell on deaf ears. The Emperor invited him to dinner, and afterwards sent Savary to inform him that he must hand back the crown to his father. To this Ferdinand returned a firm refusal; and his advisers, Escoiquiz and Labrador, ventured to warn the Emperor that the Spaniards would swear eternal hatred to France if he tampered with the crown of Spain. Napoleon listened good-humouredly, pulled Escoiquiz by the ear as a sign of his personal regard, and added: "You are a deep fellow; but, I tell you, the Bourbons will never let me alone." On the next day he offered Ferdinand the throne of Etruria. It was coldly declined.[191]