HOW NAPOLEON I. CHECKMATED THE SPANISH ROYAL FAMILY

1808–1814

As Napoleon was not quite satisfied with Murat’s reports, he determined to go himself to Spain, and Ferdinand was advised by Escoiquiz to go to Bayonne to meet the Emperor. After holding a council on the subject at Vittoria in the bedroom of Escoiquiz, who was ill, Ferdinand wrote a humble letter to the Emperor, promising to go and meet him, in spite of Savary’s objections to the want of dignity in the suggested proceeding. In his letter to Napoleon, Ferdinand declared that he had been raised to the throne by the free and spontaneous abdication of his father, and to this epistle the Emperor replied:[7]

The King, oblivious of the veiled insult of the Emperor, that he had no right to the throne beyond that transmitted by his mother, still cringed to the Frenchman, and wrote:

When Ferdinand arrived at Bayonne, the Emperor went to see him at once, and Ferdinand went down to the door to meet him. The interview was short, but the Spanish King was invited to dinner that night. It was noticeable that, although Napoleon was very friendly, he never addressed his guest as “Majesty”; and hardly was Ferdinand back in his rooms, when a message was conveyed to him by Savary to the effect that the Emperor had determined that the Bourbons should not return to the throne of Spain, and that, as he had determined to put a French Prince upon the throne, he required the son of Charles IV. to renounce the diadem of both worlds in his own name and in that of all his family.

Pedro Ceballos was loud in his indignation at such usurpation, when Napoleon, who had heard his remarks from the next room, entered the apartment, upbraided him for his treachery to Charles, and declined to enter further into the matter until Ferdinand’s father was there to speak for himself.

After Charles had sent Napoleon a protest against his abdication, he concentrated all his efforts on gaining the liberty of the Prince of the Peace. Indeed, the old man seemed more upset at the risks run by his ex-Minister than he was at the treatment he had himself received.

Pursuant to Murat’s advice, Charles and his wife repaired to the Escorial, and there, in this imposing but gloomy abode, they brooded over the turn in their affairs until despair filled their hearts.

Murat, faithful to the promise made to Charles in the presence of the Queen of Etruria on the eve of his departure for the Escorial, did his best for the dethroned Sovereigns, and persuaded the Union to depute him to accompany them to Bayonne to take part in the conference with Napoleon. The fact of Godoy being in Bayonne was another reason for the royal couple to wish to go there, as they had not seen him since his release from captivity. The following letter, which the King wrote to Napoleon announcing his departure for Bayonne, shows the esteem in which they held Bonaparte:

The Queen’s letter to Napoleon ran thus:

The affectionate tone of these royal letters shows that the royal couple thought that Napoleon was about to restore to them the sceptre which had been torn from their hands.

When the King and Queen arrived at Villareal, they asked what reports were circulated about affairs, and the Duke of Mahon replied: “It is said that the Emperor of the French is calling the Royal Family of Spain together at Bayonne in order to deprive them of the throne.”

The Queen looked surprised, but she thought for a moment, and then said:

“Napoleon has always been a great enemy of our family. Nevertheless, he has made Charles repeated promises to protect him, and I cannot believe he is now acting with such scandalous perfidy.”

The royal arrival at Bayonne was announced by a salute of 101 guns, the garrison lined the streets, and Charles, on dismounting from his carriage, showed his pleasure at the reception vouchsafed to him by talking even to those he did not know.

A shadow came over the King’s genial countenance when he saw Ferdinand standing with his brother at the foot of the staircase, and it was only the younger Prince who was given a cordial “Good-day” by the King, and who was embraced fondly by his mother. Although Ferdinand saw that he was ignored, he made a step forward to greet his parents. But Charles stopped, made a movement of indignation, and began mounting the stairs with a severe face. The Queen, however, who was behind, could not forget that she was a mother, and folded her treacherous son to her bosom.

Then the Princes repaired to their apartments, and their parents hastened to greet the exile Godoy with tears of joy.

The Emperor of the French lost no time in paying his respects to the royal travellers, but he did not ask them to dinner until the following day.

As Charles’s rheumatism gave him some difficulty in mounting the stairs of the imperial abode, he gladly accepted Napoleon’s arm, saying: “I have not the strength that I had. It has been all knocked out of me.”

“We will soon see about that,” returned the Emperor. “Lean on me, and I will find strength for both.”

Thereupon the King stopped, and said emphatically: “So I believe, and I base all my hopes upon you.”

On taking their seats at the table, Charles noticed the absence of Godoy, and he exclaimed with tender concern: “And Manuel? Where is Manuel?”

So Napoleon, anxious to please his ally, sent for the Prince of the Peace, and the party was complete.

At the meeting at which it was hoped Napoleon would bring the Royal Family to a satisfactory understanding there were very violent scenes. It was natural that the sight of their renegade son should revive all the bitterness of the King and Queen’s recent trials, but it was a pity that they did not restrain the passions which made them lose their royal dignity.

The Emperor announced that Ferdinand would restore on the morrow to His Majesty the crown he had snatched from his father’s brow. This Ferdinand stoutly declared he would not do, and Maria Luisa, who had destroyed the proofs of her son’s guilt in the conspiracy of the Escorial, was now so mad with rage that, according to the report of Caballero, she cried to the Emperor to punish the crimes of her son by committing him to prison.

Ferdinand was silent during the interview, but a few hours later he wrote to his father, maintaining that the abdication had been a fait accompli and declaring that he would only give up the crown at the request of the Cortes and all the tribunals.

To this letter the King replied:

However, Ferdinand was obstinate, and there seemed no chance of a peaceful settlement of the disgraceful family feud.

The above letter was dated May 2, 1808, and it was on that day that the historic blow was struck in Madrid for Spain’s emancipation from the French. It was the sight of the young Infante Francisco’s tears at leaving the Palace of Madrid at the call of Napoleon which acted like a match to gunpowder. The valiant Velarde, Daoiz, and Ruiz were martyrs on this occasion, and the dramatic way in which the Spaniards always keep this anniversary shows that those who struck that blow are not forgotten in the land.

When Charles IV. heard the news of the riot, he at once thought that it had been instigated by his sons.

“Manuel, send for Charles and Ferdinand,” he said, in a firm tone.

Napoleon remained in the room restless and gloomy; Charles and Maria Luisa looked worried and anxious. They were all seated when Ferdinand appeared and silently stood alone before them, for his brother was ill in bed.

The King then asked his son if he had heard the news from the capital. When Ferdinand replied in the negative, Charles returned vehemently, “Very well, I will tell you,” and rapidly related what had happened. “Judge, then,” he added, “if it be possible to persuade me that you had no part in this? And did you hasten your miserable associates to dethrone me in order to massacre my subjects? Who advised you to this carnage? Do you only aspire to the glory of a tyrant?”

The Duke of Rovigo, who gives us this scene in his “Mémoires,” says that he and the other people who were listening in the adjoining salon could not catch Ferdinand’s reply, but they heard the Queen exclaim: “Didn’t I always presage your perdition? See into what abysses you throw yourself and us! Ah, you would have killed us if we had not left Spain! What! you have made up your mind not to answer? You do not forget your old ways. You never know anything when you do something bad.”

During this dialogue Charles IV. angrily moved about the cane which he used when walking, and he so far forgot his dignity as to raise it in a threatening way to his son, in his anger at his impenetrable countenance. When Maria Luisa finished her diatribe, she lifted her hand as if to strike the Prince, but she checked herself in time.

The final touch to Ferdinand’s humiliating position was given when the Emperor said in cold, clear, chilling tones:

“Prince, I had formed my resolution from the events which brought you to France, and now the blood spilt in Madrid confirms my decision. This carnage can only be the work of the band which calls you chief, and I will never recognize as King of Spain one who breaks the old alliance of two nations and orders the assassination of the French soldiers, whilst asking me to sanction the impious act of dethroning your father. Such is the result of bad counsels. You are brought to the precipice. It is to your father alone that I am in any way bound, and if he wish it I will restore him to his throne and accompany him to his capital.”

But Charles IV. exclaimed vehemently: “But I don’t wish it. What could I do in a country where they have worked up such passions against me? And I, who have always rejoiced at seeing my country peaceful in the midst of the upset of Europe—I should dishonour my old age if I made war in the provinces and condemned my subjects to prison. No, no; I don’t wish it. My son will undertake it with more pleasure than I.” Then, looking at Ferdinand with majesty mingled with pity, he said: “Do you think it costs nothing to reign? You have followed these perfidious counsels. I neither aspire to command nor can I do anything. Now you must avoid the precipice as best you can.”

As Napoleon told Ferdinand that resistance about his resignation was useless, and would only make his fate worse, it was agreed that the crown should be handed over to France.

So the Treaty of Bayonne was formally signed on May 6 by the Prince of the Peace for Charles IV., and by Marshal Duroc for Napoleon, and this step, disastrous to the nation, can thus be distinctly traced to the family feuds induced by the Queen’s unbridled passion for the Prince of the Peace.

Charles had passed the twenty years of his reign in a self-indulgent, simple life, and although he did nothing to show great devotion to his kingdom, he certainly of his own accord would have done nothing to disturb its peace. The Count of Toreno repeats the account which Charles gave of his daily routine to the Emperor:

“Every day, winter and summer, I hunt till twelve o’clock, when I dine. Directly afterwards I hunt again till evening. Manuel tells me how things are going on, and I go to bed, to begin the same life next day, unless there is some important ceremony.”

With a Sovereign so inert, Godoy did not demur on signing the deed of renunciation of the throne, and as Escoiquiz sanctioned the deed, it shows that he also felt that Ferdinand was but a broken reed.

After the humiliating events of Bayonne, the poor Queen of Etruria sought to return to Etruria, but was detained at Nice. Miserable at having been obliged to leave her young son ill at Compiègne, she tried to escape to England, but, the plot being discovered, one of her two agents was shot, the other died in prison, and she herself was condemned to confinement in a convent at Rome; so she did not recover her liberty nor see her child again until the fall of Napoleon. The Queen’s claims on Etruria were subsequently nullified by the Congress of Vienna, and she had to be contented with the nomination of her sons to the dukedom of Lucca.

Although after the Treaty of Bayonne the city of Madrid was in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte, the palace could not count the Emperor as one of the residents in the palace, for during his stay in the Spanish capital he was installed in the mansion of the Duque del Infantado at Chamartin, and it was from this house that he made his entry into Madrid. “Je la tiens en fin cette Espagne si désirée,” said the French conqueror as he passed up the magnificent staircase of the royal palace, and placed his hand upon one of the lions on the balustrade; then, as his eyes travelled up the matchless marbles and fine panels and pictures of the staircase, he turned to his brother Joseph and said: “Mon frère, vous serez mieux logé que moi.”

When passing through the magnificent apartments, he stopped before a portrait of Philip II., and after gazing at it for some minutes in silence turned away. Who knows what recollections may have passed through the conqueror’s mind, of stories of this Sovereign read in boyhood, and how little he had then thought that the throne of this King would ever be at his disposal!

Thus ended the rapid and only visit of Napoleon to the Spanish capital, for he went back to Chamartin, and from thence set out for Galicia.

King Joseph soon found he had a difficult part to play at the royal palace as ruler of a foreign nation, but, although the Spaniards could not be supposed to be fond of him, tribute was paid to the kindness of his heart. After a meeting held at the palace to concert steps for dealing with the fearful famine which was devastating Madrid, the father of Mesoneros Romanos said to his son: “Joseph has certainly not lost his head at his elevation, neither is he unduly set up by his rank. He seemed profoundly moved at the misery of the people, and proclaimed his intention to do all in his power to assist them. Certainly,” concluded the speaker, “the man is good. It is only a pity he is called Bonaparte!”

The preference entertained by Joseph Bonaparte for a beautiful lady, the Countess Jaruco, widow of the Governor of Havana, is well known. The lady died, and on the night of her burial her body was exhumed (one can imagine by whose orders), and was interred under a shady tree in her own garden. Joseph subsequently married the Countess’s daughter by General Merlin. The hatred of the people got on the poor Frenchman’s nerves, and for the last four years of his enforced reign in Madrid he kept quite in retirement, spending a good deal of time in the Casa del Campo, to which he passed by a tunnel entrance.

But it was not very long, as we know, before the day came for Joseph to leave Spain.

“The excitement in our house,” writes Mesoneros Romanos, “at the news of the evacuation of the royal palace by the French was extreme, and it was the same in every Spanish home. The hatred of the foreigners who had taken possession of us was very deep-rooted, and those who had joined the Gallic banner were not safe from actual persecution.

“The shades of a dreadful nightmare were passed, and men talked excitedly, and women and children laughed for joy. The Virgins del Carmen and of the Paloma were promised new robes, and the children ran to light up the altar, backed with a valuable picture of the Immaculate Conception—a relic of the sacking of Godoy’s house; and after a Paternoster and a Salve my father said: ‘Now we must go to bed, for we must be up early to-morrow to see the entry of our friends.’

“By this was meant the Anglo-Spanish army, with its chief, Lord Wellington, and the Generals Alava, España, and Conde de Amarante. It was indeed a fine sight; the streets were decorated, and after a repast served in the Town Hall the English Commander-in-Chief appeared at the windows in response to the vociferous cheers of the crowds, and his speech, which was as cordial as was compatible with the stiff English manner, was received with the enthusiasm of our Southern nature.”

Then Wellington repaired to the royal palace, which the municipality had put at his disposal. The English General’s official proclamation, placed at the corners of the streets, struck cold on the hearts of the Spaniards, for it savoured more of a fierce Murat than of the General of a liberating force. The following copy is taken from the only remaining one in the archives of the city:

It was soon seen that Wellington did not intend to rest upon his laurels, for he scoured the rural park of the Retiro, where a French detachment still lingered, and took 2,000 prisoners and 200 pieces of artillery. This act completely confirmed the confidence of the Spaniards in the English commander, and the heads of families eagerly repaired to the churches to take the oath of the Constitution, which, however, conveyed little to them beyond their emancipation from the French and the approaching return of King Ferdinand VII.

It cannot be said that Wellington made himself very popular whilst he was at the royal palace. He received the attentions showered upon him in his cold and stiffly courteous way, and took little pains to be cordial with the people of importance who called upon him.

Wellington’s fancy to have his portrait painted by Goya nearly led to the future hero of Waterloo losing his life.

For, be it known, the illustrious Spanish painter was irascible to a degree, the more so that he was completely deaf. So when the great General made his appearance in the studio on the banks of the river Manzanares, the painter’s son interpreted the Englishman’s wishes in deaf and dumb language to his father.

The sittings took place, and the artist worked assiduously; and when he thought the portrait was far enough advanced to be seen by the General, he placed it before him. But, unfortunately, the picture did not please the commander, who shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and said in English to his friend that he would not accept such a caricature as a gift. General Alava declined to translate this depreciatory remark; but the artist had noticed the scornful gestures of the Englishman, and the son in alarm saw his father turn his eyes to the loaded pistols which always lay ready to hand on the table. The young man’s fear was increased when Wellington rose from his seat in a discourteous way, and put on his hat preparatory to departure. Then Goya, enraged at the officer’s contemptuous manner, seized the pistols, and the General clapped his hand to his sword.

The scene would have ended in a tragedy had not Lord Alava assured the irate General that the artist was suffering from sudden mental aberration, and young Goya restrained his father by force from using the deadly weapons.

Wellington gave a great ball at the Town Hall the night before he left Madrid, and with this return for the bull-fights, serenades, and fêtes, which had been given in his honour, he took his departure from the Spanish capital.

The English camp in the Retiro was raised a month later by General Hill, and it is a matter of regret that the step was accompanied by the blowing up of the royal manufactory of porcelain, for the fabrication is now extinct. The magnificent walls and ceilings of one of the salons of the royal palace, decorated with cherubs, fruit, and flowers, in this beautiful ware, show that Spain boasted an industry which rivalled that of Sèvres, Dresden, or Worcestershire.

The reason given for this act of vandalism was that the French might have used the building as a barrack; but it did not satisfy the Spanish, who could not contain their indignation at the deed, which was made worse by the English withdrawing to Portugal and leaving the capital.

Ferdinand, with his usual duplicity, wrote to Berthémy from Valençay, where he was practically a prisoner. In this letter he pleaded in a cringing way for the protection of Napoleon, who had robbed him of his crown.

When Napoleon decided to publish this correspondence with Ferdinand, he wrote and asked him to send a letter to show that he had his authorization for doing so.

So, before the appearance of the letters in Le Moniteur, Ferdinand, in obedience to the imperial request, wrote to Napoleon:

Charles Leopold, Baron de Colly, an astute and intriguing youth, proposed to the Duke of Kent a plan for releasing Ferdinand from his ignoble position at Valençay by taking him on board an English man-of-war to a port of Spain.

The Duke of Kent referred the matter to his father, who sent Ferdinand two letters by the Baron. Provided with a set of passports and all papers necessary for the undertaking, besides supplies, in the form of diamonds and an open draft on the house of Maensoff and Clanoy, and a ship loaded with provisions for five months, Colly commenced operations. He reached Paris in safety, sold part of the diamonds, and began his preparations; but the police got wind of the plot through Colly’s secretary Albert, and he was promptly shut up in the Castle of Vincennes.

Fouché tried to persuade Colly to continue his work, so that Ferdinand might be caught in the act of escaping; but the Englishman preferred his prison to such treachery, and in this prison he remained until the fall of Napoleon.

In the meanwhile Fouché sent to Ferdinand a man called Richard, personating Colly. But the Prince was not caught in the trap, for, in his rooted desire to conciliate the Emperor of the French, he sent at once for Berthémy, the Governor, and said to him:

“The English have done great harm to the Spanish nation by using my name, and they are now the cause of the blood which is being spilt. The English Ministry, in their mistaken idea that I am kept here by force, have sent an emissary to me who, under the pretext of selling me curios, has given me a letter from His Majesty the King of England.”

The letter from George III. to Ferdinand, which was subsequently published in Le Moniteur, ran thus:

But Ferdinand’s cross-grained nature was unable to follow any straightforward advice or adopt any clear course. However, we all know how the people’s desire to have a Spaniard on the throne, aided by the troops of England, was finally successful, and Ferdinand the Desired entered his capital on May 13, amid cries of delight from his people, who were wild with joy.