LII. 1807. Charles IV., too weak to divine the ambitious designs of CHAP. the ruling favourite, and entirely under his direction, was not only blind to the infamy the Prince of the Peace was bringing on his house, but insensible to the dangers which it ran from his ambition. He created him Grand-Admiral of Spain, and gave him the entire command of the whole forces, naval and military, of his dominions. The Royal Guard, of which he was commander, was commanded by his creatures; the royal treasures were at his disposal. Thus encouraged, Godoy began to entertain the extravagant projects, and had already sounded the ing members of the councils of Castile and the Indies, and Toreno, i. the parliament of Spain, on the possibility of changing the order of succession to the throne, and securing the regency, if not the crown, to himself.1 1 Hard. x. most 85, 87. lead- Thib. vi. 277, 278. 9, 12. Nell. 3, 4. Thiers, viii. 277, 278. 11. of Asturias, his The Prince of Asturias, afterwards so well known in Europe under the title of Ferdinand VII., was born on The Prince the 14th October 1784; and was consequently twenty- and Escoifour years of age when the troubles of Spain commenced. quiz confidential Facile and indolent in general, though at the same time adviser. irascible and impetuous on particular occasions, he had fallen entirely under the guidance of those by whom he was surrounded. They were all creatures of the Prince of the Peace-with the exception of the virtuous Count Alvarez, whose principles were too unbending to allow him to remain long in the corrupted atmosphere of a already loaded with honours and titles before the treaty of Bale, in 1795, which procured for him the title of Prince of the Peace. From that time, down to the period of the French invasion, his ascendant at court was unbroken, and his influence over both the King and Queen unbounded. At the special desire of the King, he at length espoused the daughter of Don Louis, brother of that monarch; and his daughter was destined in marriage to the young King of Etruria. He had all the passion for show and splendour which usually belongs to those who are elevated to a rank which they have not held from their infancy: this prodigality occasioned a perpetual want of money, which was supplied by the sale of offices and the receipt of bribes of every description; and under his administration a frightful system of corruption overspread every branch of the public service. Many public improvements, however, also signalised it. The impulse given by the Bourbons to the sciences and arts was continued and increased; greater benefits were conferred on public industry during the fifteen years of his government than during the three preceding LII. 1807. CHAP. despotic court; and the Canon Escoiquiz, an ecclesiastic of remarkable talents, extensive knowledge, and profound dissimulation, who, by his capacity and zeal in his service, had at length acquired the absolute direction of his affairs. The Prince of Asturias had been early married to a princess of the Neapolitan house of Bourbon, whose talents, high spirit, and jealousy of the exorbitant influence of Godoy, had fomented the divisions almost inseparable from the relative situations of heir-apparent and ruling monarch in an absolute government. Two parties, as usual on such occasions, formed themselves at the Spanish court; the one paying their court to the ruling power, the other worshipping the rising sun. The Prince of the Peace was the object of universal idolatry to the former, Escoiquiz was the soul of the latter. The Princess of Asturias, after four years of a brilliant existence, died, universally regretted, in May 1806, leaving the Spanish monarchy, at the approaching crisis of its fate, exposed, in addition to the divisions of a distracted court, to the intrigues consequent on the competition for the hand of the heir-apparent to the throne.1 May 21, 1806. 1 Hard. x. 88, 89. Thib. vi. 277, 278. Cevallos, 12, 13. 12. opens a with the Godoy saw the advantage which his future rival was Escoiquiz likely to derive from his ascendant over the mind of negotiation Ferdinand, and therefore he had long before taken the French am- decisive step of exiling him from Madrid to the place of his ecclesiastical preferment at Toledo. He afterwards Prince of adopted the design of extending the influence he held over the reigning monarch to the heir-apparent, by marrying him to Donna Maria Louisa de Bourbon, sister bassador, and the Asturias writes to Napoleon. reigns. Schools were established for the encouragement of agriculture, the spread of medical information, and the diffusion of knowledge in the mechanical arts. He braved the Inquisition, and snatched more than one victim from its jaws. He arrested the alienation of estates held by mortmain, which threatened to swallow up half the land of the kingdom. But he was unfit for the guidance of the state in the trying periods of the revolutionary wars; and drew on Spain the contempt of foreign powers by the subservience and degradation of his foreign administration.-See GODOY's Mem. i. 1, 217; and Foy, ii. 250, 262. LII. 1807. of his own wife; and even went so far as to propose that CHAP. alliance to the Prince. This project, however, miscarried, and Godoy again returned to his ambitious designs, independent of the heir-apparent, who resumed his relations with Escoiquiz and the malcontent party among the nobility. No sooner, therefore, did Napoleon turn his eyes towards Spain in spring 1807, than he opened secret negotiations with him; while, at the same time, Escoiquiz, who, though banished to Toledo, was still the soul of the Prince's party, commenced underhand intrigues in the same quarter, and came privately to Madrid to arrange with the Duke del Infantado, the Duke de San Carlos, and the other leaders of the Prince's party, the means of permanently emancipating him from the thraldom of the ruling favourite. It was in order to foment and take advantage of these divisions that Napoleon sent Beauharnais as his ambassador to Madrid in July 1807; and that skilful diplomatist was not long of opening secret conferences with the Duke del Infantado, in which it was mutually agreed that, both for the security of the Spanish monarchy, and to form a counterpoise to the enormous power and ambitious projects of the Prince of the Peace, it was indispensable that the Prince of Asturias should espouse a princess of the imperial family of Buonaparte. There was no difficulty in coming to an understanding, and establishing a secret and clandestine correspondence between the Prince of Thib. vi. Asturias and the French ambassador; for he and all his 280, 282. advisers were in the utmost alarm at the ambitious jects of the Prince of the Peace; and although Beauhar- Ceval. 13. nais was sent by Napoleon to conduct the intrigue, it is Feb. 5,1810. quite certain that the first proposals for the marriage 290, 294. came from the counsellors of the Prince.1 * Beauharnais, pro * "Vous me permettrez, monsieur l'ambassadeur, de vous exprimer toute ma reconnaissance pour les preuves d'estime et d'affection que vous m'avez données dans la correspondance secrète et indirecte que nous avons eue jusqu'à présent par le moyen de la personne que vous savez, qui a toute ma confiance. Je dois enfin à vos bontés ce que je n'oublierai jamais, le bonheur de pouvoir Tor. i. 12, 13. Hard. x. 89, 90. Moniteur, Thiers, viii. CHAP. LII. 1807. Sept. 30. Oct. 10. 13. Treaty of Fontainebleau be tween Na Charles IV. Oct. 27. on finding the dispositions thus mutual, soon wrote to Escoiquiz, calling on him to " give a specific guarantee, and something more than vague promises, on the subject." Thus encouraged, the Prince of Asturias wrote directly to Napoleon a letter, in which, after the most exaggerated flattery, and a declaration that his father was surrounded by evil counsellors, who misled his better judg ment, he implored him to permit him the honour of an alliance with his imperial family.* Beauharnais had warmly entered into these views of the Prince of Asturias, in the hope that, if the proposed alliance took place, the choice of the prince would be poleon and directed to a niece of the Empress, and relation of his own, who was afterwards bestowed on the Duke d'Aremberg. But when the letter reached Napoleon, he had other views for the disposal of the Spanish throne. By means of Isquierdo, a Spanish agent at Paris, who was a mere creature of the Prince of the Peace, he had for some time been negotiating a treaty with Charles IV., the object of which was at once to secure the partition of Portugal, and bestow such a share of its spoils on Godoy as might secure him to the French interest, and prevent him from opposing any serious obstacle to the total dethronement of the Spanish royal family. This negotiation took place, and the treaty in which it ter1 Dated May minated was signed by Isquierdo, in virtue of full powers and renewed from Charles IV., without the knowledge of the Prince of Masserano, the Spanish ambassador at Paris:1 a sufficient proof of the secret and sinister designs it was 26, 1806, October 8, 1807. exprimer, directment et sans risque, au grand Empereur votre maître, les sentiments si longtemps retenus dans mon cœur. Je profite donc de ce moment heureux pour adresser par vos mains la lettre adjointe, à S. M. I. et R. (Napoleon.)"-PRINCE OF ASTURIAS to BEAUHARNAIS, Oct. 11, 1807; THIERS, viii. 294. * "The world daily," said he, "more and more admired the goodness of the Emperor; and he might rest assured he would ever find in the Prince of Asturias the most faithful and devoted son. He implored, then, with the utmost confidence, the paternal protection of the Emperor, not only to permit him the honour of an alliance with his family, but that he would smooth away all diffi LII. intended to serve, and of the dark, crooked policy which CHAP. the Emperor Napoleon had already adopted in regard to Spanish affairs. 1807. 14. ratified by Plate 48. By this treaty it was stipulated that, in exchange for Tuscany, which was ceded to France, the province of Which is Entre-Douro-e-Minho, the northern part of Portugal, Napoleon, comprehending the city of Oporto, should be given to the Oct. 29, King of Etruria, with the title of King of Northern Lusi- Atlas, tania, to revert, in default of heirs, to his Most Catholic Majesty, who, however, was not to unite it to the crown of Spain: that the provinces of Alentejo and Algarves, forming the southern part of the kingdom, should be conferred on the Prince of the Peace, with the title of Prince of Algarves; and in default of heirs-male, in like manner, and on the like conditions, revert to the crown of Spain : that the sovereigns of these two new principalities should not make war or peace without the consent of the King of Spain that the central parts of Portugal, comprehending the provinces of Beira, Traz-oz-Montes, and Portuguese Estremadura, should remain in sequestration in the hands of the French till a general peace, to be then exchanged for Gibraltar, Trinidad, and the other Spanish colonies conquered by the English; that the sovereign of these central provinces should hold them on the same tenure and conditions as the King of Northern Lusitania: and that the Emperor Napoleon "should guarantee to his Most Catholic Thiers, vii. Majesty the possession of all his states on the continent the treaty in of Europe, to the south of the Pyrenees," and concede to Tor. i. 384. him the title of King of Spain and Emperor of the Indies, vii. 701. which that weak monarch was most anxious to obtain.1 culties, and cause all obstacles to disappear before the accomplishment of so long-cherished a wish. That effort on the part of the Emperor was the more necessary, that the Prince was incapable of making the smallest exertion on his own part, as it would infallibly be represented as an insult to the royal authority of his father: and all that he could do was to refuse, as he engaged to do with invincible constancy, any proposals for an alliance which had not the consent of the Emperor, to whom the Prince looked exclusively for the choice of his future Queen."-FERDINAND to NAPOLEON, 11th October 1807; THIBAUDEAU, vi. 281, 282; Moniteur, 5th February 1810. VOL. VIII. U 259. See Foy, ii. 406. Martens, |