royal family and of all who had attended them in their CHAP. flight. LII. 1808. 28. occupation the inhabi These orders were instantly carried into effect. The Portuguese arms were everywhere taken down from the Complete public offices and buildings, and those of imperial France of the kingsubstituted in their room. Justice was administered in dom by the French, and the name of the French Emperor, and by the Code despair of Napoleon; the whole revenue was collected by the French tants. authorities, and the regiments assigned for the foreign army moved towards the frontiers. A universal despair seized all classes at this clear manifestation of the subjugation of their country. The peasants, heart-broken and desperate, refused to sow their fields with grain; the soldiers, wherever they were not overawed by a superior force of the French army, disbanded and returned home, or betook themselves to the mountains as robbers; the higher classes almost all fled from Lisbon, as from a city visited by the plague; and, notwithstanding the presence and influence of the French, only three houses were lighted on occasion of the general illumination ordered by the invaders, in honour of the change of government. In the provinces, the general indignation was manifested in still more unequivocal colours. The growing insolence and rapacity of the French soldiers brought them into frequent conflicts with the now aroused population; tumults, massacres, and military executions, occurred in almost every city, village, and hamlet of Portugal; and Junot, alarmed at the increasing ferment, formally disbanded the whole of the army* which had not been ordered to The Portuguese legion thus drafted off for France was at first nine thousand strong, but five thousand deserted or died on the march through Spain, and not four thousand reached Bayonne. Napoleon, however, who there reviewed them, said to Prince Volkonski, "These are the men of the South; they are of an impassioned temperament; I will make them excellent soldiers." They served with distinction both in Austria and Russia, and were particularly noticed for their good conduct at Wagram in 1809, and Smolensko in 1812. They were faithful to their colours and oaths, though still in their hearts attached to their country, and bore on their standards this striking device"Vadimus immixti Danais; haud numine nostro." -Foy, iii. 40, 41, note. VOL. VIII. X LII. 1808. CHAP. proceed to France. Meanwhile plunder was universal from the highest rank to the lowest; and the general-inchief set the example of general spoliation, by appropriating to himself plate and valuable articles of every description, collected from the churches and royal palaces. No sooner had Napoleon received intelligence of the subjugation of the kingdom, however, than, disregarding alike the declared wishes of the inhabitants and the stipulations of the treaty of Fontainebleau, so recently signed by himself, he made offer of the crown of Portugal to his brother Lucien, accompanied with a hint that his daughter by his first marriage might obtain the hand of the Prince March 15, of Asturias, an alliance which that prince had already 54. South. i. solicited. Lucien, however, with honourable disinterestedness, refused both offers, as they were coupled with Foy, ii. 5, the condition that he should repudiate his second wife, Miss Paterson, an American by birth, to whom he was much attached.1 Lond. i. 13. 152, 162. Nevis, i. 240, 249. 38. Bign. vii. 84. 29. Arrest of of his pa pers. While the fate of Portugal was thus to all appearance sealed by the usurpation of Napoleon, events of still and seizure greater importance were in progress in relation to the Spanish monarchy, which, in their immediate effects, precipitated the explosion of the Peninsular war. Whatever care the advisers of Ferdinand may have taken to conceal from the reigning monarch his letter of 11th October, proposing, without his father's knowledge, an alliance with the imperial family, so important a step did not long remain unknown to the Prince of the Peace. The numerous spies in his employment who surrounded the heir-apparent, both in the French capital and his palace of the Escurial, got scent of the secret; Isquierdo transmitted from Paris intelligence that some negotiation of importance was in progress, in consequence of which the Prince was more narrowly watched; and as the evident anxiety and preoccupation of his mind seemed to justify the suspicions which were entertained, he was at length arrested by orders of his father, and LII. 1807. seals put on all his papers. He was privately examined CHAP. before the privy council, and afterwards reconducted as a prisoner by the King himself, in great state at the head of his guards, to the palace of the Escurial, whose Oct. 29. walls, still melancholy from the tragic catastrophe of Foy, ii. 99. the unfortunate Don Carlos in a preceding reign, were 187. fraught with the most sinister presages.1 1 Tor. i. 22. South. i. 30. important Among his private papers were found one written entirely by the hand of the Prince, blank in date, and Contents of with a black seal, bestowing on the Duke del Infantado the more the office of governor-general of New Castile, and all ones. the forces within its bounds, in the event of the King's death; a key to the correspondence in cipher formerly carried on by the late Princess of Asturias and the Queen of Naples, her mother; and a memorial of twelve pages to the King, filled with bitter complaints of the long-continued persecution of which the prince had been the object, denouncing the Prince of the Peace as guilty of the most wicked designs, even that of mounting the throne by the death of his royal master, and proposing a variety of steps to secure the arrest of that powerful favourite. A paper of five pages was also discovered, written, like the preceding, by Escoiquiz, detailing the measures adopted by the Prince of the Peace to bring about a marriage between the heir-apparent and his wife's sister, and the best mode of avoiding it; and hinting at the prospect of an alliance between the Prince of Asturias and a member of the imperial family of France. In these papers, thus laid open without reserve to the royal scrutiny, there was nothing, with the exception of the first, which had even the appearance of implicating the Prince in any design against his father's life or authority; though much descriptive of that envenomed rancour between his confidants and those of the reigning monarch, which the long ascendant of the Prince of the Peace, and the animosity which had prevailed between him and the heir-apparent, were so well calculated to LII. 1807. CHAP. produce. Even the first, though it indicated an obvious preparation for the contemplated event of the King's decease, and fairly inferred an anxiety for that event, could not, when taken by itself without any other evidence, be considered as a legitimate ground for concluding that so atrocious an act as the murder or deposition of the King was in contemplation; since it was equally 23. Thib. vi. referable to the anxiety of the heir-apparent, who had given no indications of so depraved a disposition, to secure the succession, menaced as he conceived it to be, upon his father's natural demise.1 1 Tor. i. 22, 283, 284. Foy, ii. 99. South. i. 187, 188. 31. tion of the correspond Napoleon. Revealed, however, to a corrupted court, and falling Proclama into the hands of persons actuated by the worst suspicions, King on the because themselves capable of the most nefarious designs, subject, and these papers afforded too fair an opportunity to Godoy ence with and his party of ruining the prince, and at the same time gave a clear indication of the danger which they would themselves run upon his accession to the throne, to be laid aside without being made the foundation of decisive measures. On the very next day, accordingly, a proclamation was issued from the Escurial by the King, in which the Prince of Asturias was openly charged with having engaged in a conspiracy for the dethronement 24. Nell. i. and death of his father; and the immediate prosecution vi. 284, 285, and trial of all his advisers was announced to the bewilThiers, viii. dered public.* At the same time despatches were forwarded to Napoleon, reiterating the same charges, and Oct. 30. 2 Tor. i. 23, 4, 5. Thib. 303, 304. * It was stated in this proclamation-" I was living persuaded that I was surrounded with the love due to a parent by his offspring, when an unknown hand suddenly revealed to me the monstrous and unheard-of conspiracy which had been formed against my life. That life, so often endangered, had become a burden to my successor, who, preoccupied, blinded, and forgetful of all the Christian principles which my care and paternal love have taught him, had engaged in a conspiracy for my dethronement. I was anxious myself to ascertain the fact, and, surprising him in his own apartment, I discovered the cipher which enabled him to correspond with his companions in iniquity. Everything necessary has been done, and the proper orders given for the trial of these guilty associates, whom I have ordered to be put under arrest, as well as directed the confinement of my son to his own apartments."Proclamation, 30th October 1807; TORENO, i. 34. LII. earnestly imploring his counsel and assistance in extri- CHAP. cating his unfortunate ally from the difficulties with which he was surrounded.* 1807. 32. conduct of reading it. When Napoleon, however, received this letter, he was noways disposed to lend any assistance to Charles IV., Cautious on whose dethronement he was fully resolved, though he the latter on was as yet uncertain as to the particular means or course to be followed in order to effect that object. He deter-. mined, accordingly, to keep himself entirely clear from these dissensions, took the utmost care that his name should not in any way be mixed up with them, and resolved only to take advantage of their existence, to get quit, if possible, of both father and son. Ile said, therefore, on receipt of the letter,-"These are domestic concerns of the King of Spain; I will have nothing to do with them." At the same time Champagny, minister of foreign affairs, wrote to the Prince of the Peace, that on no account was the Emperor's name to be implicated in this affair:† and Talleyrand gave the same assurances in the strongest terms to Isquierdo; protesting at the same time Napoleon's fixed resolution to carry into exe "Sire, my brother-At the moment when I was exclusively occupied with the means of destroying our common enemy, and fondly hoped that all the plots of the late Queen of Naples were buried with her daughter, I discovered with horror that the spirit of intrigue had penetrated the interior of my palace, and that my eldest son, the heir-presumptive to the throne, had not only formed the design to dethrone, but even to attempt the life of myself and his mother. Such an atrocious attempt merits the most exemplary punishment; the law which calls him to the succession should be repealed; one of my brothers will be more worthy to replace him in my heart, and on the throne. I pray your majesty to aid me by your wisdom and counsel."-CHARLES IV. to NAPOLEON: St Lorenzo, 30th October 1807. SAVARY, iii. 143. "The Emperor insists that on no account should anything be said or published in relation to this affair, which involves him or his ambassador. He has done nothing which could justify a suspicion that either he himself or his minister have known or encouraged any domestic intrigues of Spain. He declares positively that he never has, and never will, intermeddle with them. He never intended that the Prince of Asturias should marry a princess of France, or Mademoiselle Tascher, long since affianced to another; he will oppose no marriage of the Prince of Asturias with any person he pleases; his ambassador Beauharnais has instructions to take no part in the affairs of Spain."-CHAMPAGNY to the PRINCE OF THE PEACE, 15th November 1807; THIBAUDEAU, vi. 291, 292. |