LII. 1808. May 3. May 4. May 7. CHAP. that the semblance of popular election should be kept up; and with that view, the moment that the Emperor had obtained the consent of Ferdinand to his resignation, he despatched instructions to Murat, to obtain a petition from the junta of government, and the principal public bodies of Madrid, for the conferring of the throne upon the King of Naples. At the same time, to supply any interim defects of title which might be thought to exist in the Emperor's lieutenant to act in Spain in civil concerns, a decree was signed by Charles IV. on the very day of his renunciation, and transmitted to Madrid, where it arrived three days afterwards, which conferred on Murat the title of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, with the presidency of the junta of government, which in effect put that important body, now reduced merely to the official ministers, entirely at his disposal. This nomination was accompanied by a proclamation of the old King, drawn up by Godoy, in which he counselled his former subjects, "that they had no chance of safety or prosperity for themselves but in the friendship of the Emperor his ally." This was followed by another, the work of EscoiF4 quiz, from the Prince of Asturias, dated from Bordeaux 92. Thiers, on the 12th; in which he also advised his countrymen 622, 624. "to remain tranquil, and to look for their happiness only in the wise dispositions and power of Napoleon."1 May 12. 161167 Foy, iii. 181. viii. 604, Though profoundly mortified at not obtaining for himself the throne of Spain, which he had confidently expected, Murat exerted himself to pave the way for that elevation of Joseph which promised so immediately to had them all assembled at Bayonne, I found myself in command of much more than I could have ventured to hope for; the same occurred there, as in many other events in my life, which had been ascribed to my policy, but in fact were owing to my good fortune. Here I found the Gordian knot before me; I cut it. I proposed to Charles IV. and the Queen that they should cede to me their rights to the throne. They at once agreed to it, I had almost said voluntarily; so deeply were their hearts ulcerated towards their son, and so desirous had they and their favourite now become of security and repose. The Prince of Asturias did not make any extraordinary resistance: neither violence nor menaces were employed against him: and if fear decided him, which I well believe was the case, it concerns him alone."-LAS CASES, iv. 210, 211. LII. 1808. efforts at forward promote his own advantage. The most energetic measures CHAP. were immediately adopted to obtain at Madrid declarations in favour of the new dynasty; and the leading 84. authorities, perplexed and bewildered in the unparalleled Murat's situation in which they were placed, and by the earnest Madrid to exhortation to submission which they received from their these prolawful sovereign, were without difficulty won over to the jects. interest of the rising dynasty. The junta of government, indeed, at first protested against the abdication at Bay- May 12. onne, and refused to connect themselves in any way with these proceedings; but they were soon given to understand that their lives would be endangered if they continued to uphold the rebel authority of the Prince of Asturias; and at the same time the most flattering prospects were held out to them, if they took the lead in recognising the new and inevitable order of things. These artifices proved successful; and the junta, satisfied with protesting that they in no way recognised the acts of Charles IV. and Ferdinand, and that the designa- May 13. tion of a new monarch should not prejudice their rights or those of their successors, concluded with the resolution that the Emperor's choice should fall on his elder brother the King of Naples. The municipality of Madrid also presented a petition to the same effect; and Napoleon, satisfied with having thus obtained the colour of public consent to his usurpation, issued a proclamation convok- May 25. ing an assembly of one hundred and fifty Notables, to meet at Bayonne on the 15th June following. Joseph, 1 Thib. vi. who had no choice but submission, quitted with regret Tor. i. 161, the peaceful and smiling shores of Campania, set out for 168. Foy, his new kingdom, and arrived at Bayonne on the 6th Nell. i. 84, June, where he was magnificently received by Napoleon, i, 325, 332. and on the same day proclaimed King of Spain and the 625, 629. Indies.1* June 6. 388, 392. iii. 181, 185. 92. South. Thiers, viii. * On this occasion the Emperor addressed the following proclamation to the Napoleon's proclamaSpanish people:-" Spaniards! after a long agony, your nation was on the tion to the point of perishing: I saw your miseries, and hastened to apply a remedy. Your Spaniards, grandeur, your power, form an integral part of my own. Your princes have May 25. CHAP. LII. 1808. 85. on this un chain of fraud. Such is a detailed account of the artifices by which Napoleon succeeded in wresting the crowns of Spain and Portugal from their lawful possessors, and placing the Reflections first on the head of one of his own brothers, while the paralleled second remained at his disposal for the gratification of one of his military lieutenants. Not a shot was fired, not a sword was drawn, to effect the vast transfer. The object for which Louis XIV. unsuccessfully struggled during fourteen years, was gained in six months; present fraud, the terrors of past victory, had done the work of years of conquest. But these extraordinary successes were stained by as great vices; and perhaps in the whole annals of the world, abounding as they do in deeds of wickedness, there is not to be found a more atrocious system of perfidy, fraud, and dissimulation, than that by which Napoleon won the kingdoms of the Spanish peninsula. 86. perfidy gen erally toward the nation. He first marched off the flower of its troops into the Napoleon's north of Germany, and, by professions of amity and friendship, lulled asleep any hostile suspicions which the cabinet of Madrid might have conceived. Next he entered into an agreement with Alexander for the dethronement of its sovereigns, and bought the consent of Russia to that spoliation of the faithful allies of ten years' duration, by surrendering to its ambition the more recent confederates which he had roused into hostility on the banks of the Danube during the desperate struggle of the last six months. He then concluded a treaty with Spain at Fontainebleau, in which he purchased the consent of that power to the partition of his ally Portugal, by promising to the ceded to me their rights to the crown of Spain. I have no wish to reign over your provinces, but I am desirous of acquiring eternal titles to the love and gratitude of your posterity. Your monarchy is old; my mission is to pour into its veins the blood of youth. I will ameliorate all your institutions, and make you enjoy, if you second my efforts, the blessings of reform without its collisions, its disorders, its convulsions. I have convoked a general assembly of deputies from your provinces and cities; I am desirous of ascertaining your wants by personal intercourse; I will then lay aside all the titles I have acquired, and place your glorious crown on the head of my second self, after having LII. 1808. court of Madrid a share of its spoils, and to its minister CHAP. a princely sovereignty carved out of its dominions; and in return for this forbearance solemnly guaranteed all its possessions. Hardly was the ink of this treaty dry, when he directed his armies across the Pyrenees, in such force as to evince an intention not merely of appropriating to himself the whole dominions of his old tributary dependant Portugal, but of seizing upon at least the northern provinces of Spain; while the remaining forces of that monarchy were dissipated in the south and north of Portugal, in search of elusory acquisitions at the expense of the cabinet of Lisbon. The sentence, at the same time, went forth from the Tuileries, "The house of Braganza has ceased to reign," and the royal family at Lisbon were driven into exile to Brazil; while the Queen of Etruria was obliged to resign the throne of Tuscany, on a promise of an indemnity in the northern provinces of Portugal. Scarcely, however, is the resignation elicited under this promise obtained, when that promise too is broken; the dispossessed Queen, albeit a creation of Napoleon's own, is deprived of her indemnity; the stipulated principality in favour of the Prince of the Peace is cast to the winds; and orders are issued to Junot to administer the government of the whole of Portugal in name of the Emperor Napoleon. 87. dious con Meanwhile, the French armies rapidly inundate the northern provinces of the Peninsula: the frontier for- His perfitresses are seized, in the midst of profound peace, by a duct towards power in alliance with Spain, and which, only four months the Spanish before, had formally guaranteed the integrity of its dominions: a hundred thousand men overspread the provinces secured for you a constitution which may establish the sacred and salutary authority of the sovereign, with the liberties and privileges of the people. Spaniards! reflect on what your fathers were; on what you now are! The fault does not lie in you, but in the constitution by which you have been governed. Conceive the most ardent hopes and confidence in the results of your present situation; for I wish that your latest posterity should preserve the recollection of me and say-He was the regenerator of our country.”— THIBAUDEAU, vi. 390, 391. princes. LII. 1808. CHAP. to the north of the Ebro, and approach the capital. These disastrous events excite the public indignation against the ruling monarch and his unworthy favourite; they are overthrown by an urban insurrection, and the Prince of Asturias, by universal consent, is called to the throne. No sooner is he apprised of this event, than Napoleon despatches Savary to induce the new King to come to Bayonne, under a solemn assurance, both verbally and in writing, that he would at once recognise him, if the affair at Aranjuez was explained; and that in a few minutes everything would be satisfactorily adjusted. Agitated between terror and hope, Ferdinand, in an evil hour, and when his capital is occupied by French troops, consents to a step which he had scarcely the means of avoiding, and throws himself on the honour of the French monarch. Napoleon, in the interim, sends for Charles IV. and the Prince of the Peace, and between the terror of his authority and the seductions of his promises, contrives to assemble all the royal family of Spain with their confidential counsellors at Bayonne. 88. And atro cious treachery at Bayonne, by which the whole was concluded. No sooner are they arrived than he receives and entertains them in the most hospitable manner, and when they are beginning to indulge the hopes which such flattering conduct was fitted to inspire, suddenly salutes them with the announcement that the house of Bourbon has ceased to reign, and closes this matchless scene of duplicity, fraud, and violence, by extorting, by means of persuasion, menaces, and intimidation, a resignation of the throne from both the father and son, whom he had so recently solemnly bound himself to maintain in their possessions! To crown the whole, while alluring, like the serpent, his victims into his power, he is secretly offering their dominions to one of his brothers after another; he is, underhand, holding out promises of support both to the old and the new King of Spain, and he has all the while irrevocably resolved upon the dethronement of both, and upon supplanting the house of Bourbon by that of |