THE AWAKENING OF SPAIN[21]
[Footnote 21: See Baumgarten: Geschichte Spaniens vom
Ausbruch der Franzoesischen Revolution bis auf unsere Tage.
Manini: Historia de la marina real espanola. Arteche y Maro:
Guerra de la Independencia. Torino: Guerra de la
Independencia.
On the question of the national rising in Spain see an
article by J. B. Rye and R. A. Bence-Pembroke, of Oxford, in
the Army Service Corps Quarterly, October, 1905.]
The National Spirit -- The Spaniards and their Dynasty -- Murat's
Fatal Blunder -- Louis Napoleon and the Spanish Throne --
Napoleon's Subterfuge -- A Trap for Charles and Ferdinand -- The
Course of Savary -- Napoleon and Ferdinand -- Dethronement of the
Spanish Bourbons -- Quarrels of Father and Son -- The Madrid
Massacre -- Ferdinand a Prisoner -- Napoleon's Idea of Legitimacy
-- The Spanish Cortes at Bayonne -- Joseph, King of Spain -- The
Spanish People -- Agitations in Madrid -- Uprising of Spain.
If there be a time when the turn of Napoleon's fortunes is evident, it
is the spring of 1808. Between the determination to complete his
system of commercial warfare in western Europe and the contempt which
he entertained for the Spanish throne, he appears to have fallen into
a deadly snare--the failure to appreciate how strong and lively was
the popular passion for nationality in Spain, a feeling so long
eclipsed by the failures of Spanish government, the licentiousness of
the Spanish court, and the turbulence of personal ambitions
indifferent to the public welfare. The measures he devised and ordered
taken were ruthless in their purpose to cow officials and monarch, in
their stern repression of disorder, in their intent to give a bitter
lesson to all opposing his designs. But rude as was his procedure,
admirable as were his military dispositions, there is abundant
evidence of his consciousness that ultimately he must reckon with the
national pride of a people which, though crushed to earth, was eager
to rise again. But such reckoning must be postponed until after
conquest and the effort to rise was put forth in the resistance to
invasion with a speed and vigor no one could have foreseen.
Ferdinand's first act as king was to request Napoleon's favor and
protection. His letter was written on March twentieth, and intrusted
to an embassy of three grandees. Charles and Louisa had, however,
repented almost before the formalities of abdication were over, and
the newly arrived Queen of Etruria supported them in their fickleness.
With despicable inconsistency they too despatched an embassy, but to
Murat, imploring his interference on their behalf and his favor for
Godoy. In reply, Murat, whether from slyness or from a desire to gain
time, requested a formal, written demand to that effect. He was
promptly furnished with a paper, signed by both King and Queen,
declaring that they had acted under fear, and begging to be
reinstated. This document was a precious arrow for Napoleon's quiver.
Still, the perplexity of the French commander was great; he knew
nothing of Napoleon's plans, he dared not acknowledge Ferdinand as
king, and he dared not restore Charles, whose sovereignty he had been
virtually menacing by his march. In this dilemma he despatched an
aide-de-camp to Aranjuez with verbal messages of comfort, and,
hurrying forward, entered Madrid with his army on the twenty-third.
Napoleon had frequently enjoined his brother-in-law to enter the city,
recruit his supplies, and give his troops a rest; but with those
injunctions he had likewise given strict commands to allay any fears
in the court. These instructions had not contemplated the revolution
of Aranjuez, and by it every condition was changed. Murat would have
been wise if he had disobeyed the letter of his orders; but he did
not, for new circumstances breed new ideas, and within twenty-four
hours he had made up his mind. Here was a new kingdom; the other men
of the family--Louis, Jerome, and Joseph--all had crowns; the grand
duchy of Berg was very well, but a kingdom was better, and he might
secure that of Spain for himself. For this end he must throw Ferdinand
altogether into the shade, while placing the glory and power of France
in the most brilliant illumination. It was a fatal step to occupy
Madrid, more fatal still for the French general to exhibit himself in
a martial splendor which sadly contrasted with the troops of beardless
boys at his back. He was received by the inhabitants with cool
contempt. Next day Ferdinand made his royal entry. The populace went
mad with delight, and displayed a passionate devotion which augured
ill for the schemes of Prince Joachim of Berg. A less egoistic man
would have seen that a national uprising was imminent. But Murat was
neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry
general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a
statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a
knot which only war could sever.
His course did not even ultimately lead to the goal, but to
consequences far different. When on March twenty-fifth Napoleon
received the despatch announcing the revolution of Aranjuez and
Murat's neutral attitude, he replied in commendatory language,
instructing his brother-in-law to keep the balance as it was, neither
recognizing the new King until further directions, nor indicating by
any action that the old one had ceased to reign. The same day, the
twenty-fifth, a letter was despatched to King Louis at The Hague,
asking for an answer in categorical terms as to whether he would
accept the Spanish throne. Joseph had hesitated and was momentarily
out of favor, while the perpetual smuggling of the Dutch had convinced
Napoleon that the only means to secure the continental embargo was to
incorporate Holland with France. Three days later Murat received still
higher praise, with a perfectly irrelevant clause interjected: "I
suppose Godoy will come by way of Bayonne." This was, of course, a
hint to send the Prince of the Peace into France. If the commander of
the French forces should act on the suggestion, he would do the work
thoroughly; and under the same date Bessieres was instructed to treat
the old King and Queen with distinction if they should pass his way.
Publicly it was to be made known in Madrid that the long-talked-of
visit by the Emperor would not be further postponed. Such was
Napoleon's confidence in the quick apprehension of his subordinates
that henceforward he regarded the whole royal household of Spain as
his prisoners.
There is in existence what purports to be a letter from Napoleon to
Murat, dated March twenty-ninth.[22] It is undoubtedly by Napoleon,
but it was either written at the time, for public effect, and not
sent, or it was a later fabrication intended to mislead posterity,
because its formal style is not used elsewhere in the correspondence.
It explains to "His Imperial Highness" what was not known until ten
years later, namely, that the Spaniards were a people with violent
political passions, capable of indefinite warfare; that the nation
could and must be regenerated only by careful management; and that
nothing must be done precipitately. At the same time it gives the
Protector, as Murat is designated, his own option in regard to a
recognition of Ferdinand, expresses disapproval of the precipitate
seizure of Madrid, and warns him that he must not create an
irrepressible opposition. Whether the letter be authentic or not,
whether it was sent or not, really matters but little as regards our
judgment of the facts. The disorganization of Spain had been its own
work; the court intrigues were already burning before they were fanned
by Napoleon's agents in the hope that, like the royal house of
Portugal, the incapable Spanish Bourbons would fly to America. The
revolution of Aranjuez was a bitter disappointment to the great
schemer, and disconcerted his plans. But Murat's conduct and
Ferdinand's character rendered difficult, if not impossible, any
course which would combine the consummation of his fixed designs with
even the slightest degree of popular good will in Spain. Nothing was
to be gained at such a supreme moment by the ordinary brutal abuse
which the Emperor was accustomed to heap on his brother-in-law for
commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing
revolution, Murat's course was perhaps as good as any other. He must,
however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that
responsibility would have been his even without the supposititious
letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the
boy-soldiers at whose head he had marched into Madrid, combined with
disdain for his own pompousness and with fury at his subsequent
cruelty, goes far to account for much that was disastrous to French
prestige and to France in the sequel.
[Footnote 22: For a discussion of this letter see Murat, by
Murat, Paris, 1897, p. 139. Rosebery: The Last Phase, pp. 10
and 11.]
In order to secure the Spanish crown it was now necessary that both
the quarreling factions should be removed from the scene of their
scandalous intrigues. Perhaps it would be possible, perhaps not.
Napoleon set out on April second for Bayonne, accompanied by his
Empress with a stately suite, and the adroit Savary was despatched to
Madrid. Savary's memoirs indicate that his instructions for this
memorable journey were very vague: the Emperor wished to see whether
the Bourbons merited dethronement; in other words, whether they could
be uncrowned. For himself, Savary naively declared that much of his
own participation in the subsequent events was mere accident. Murat
had obeyed both his verbal and his implied instructions. According to
the former, Charles and his consort were in the Escorial, treated with
all honor, but prisoners. Godoy, also, was aware that he must soon
appear at Bayonne. But Murat had gone further, for he had slyly
suggested to Napoleon that Ferdinand should appear at the same
rendezvous. Beauharnais told Ferdinand to his face that he ought to
meet Napoleon half-way on his journey, in order the better to make his
peace.
This hint was quietly conveyed to Savary before his departure, and he
was at the same time intrusted with a letter to Murat expressing a
desire that the Prince of Asturias should either remain at Madrid or
come out to meet the Emperor, who intended not to enter Spain for the
present, but to wait at Bayonne. The careful plan worked admirably. No
one knows on conclusive evidence what Savary said to Ferdinand, what
hopes he held out, what promises he made in his master's name; but on
April tenth the young King placed Madrid under the administration of a
junta and set out, expecting to meet Napoleon at Burgos. He had been
easily moved to this course, for Murat had so far coldly refused to
recognize him, while Savary was prodigal of obsequiousness and
addressed him as king. His ministers Escoiquiz and Cavallos declare,
in their justificatory writings, that in addition to the impression
produced by his conduct, Savary actually said, as if in a burst of
military frankness, that the Emperor was already on his way to assure
himself whether Ferdinand's dispositions toward the French system were
as sincere as his father's had been, and would of course be favorably
impressed if a personal interview should be sought by the young King
before his guest could reach Madrid.
At Burgos Ferdinand learned that Napoleon was not yet within the
Spanish borders; at Vitoria he was informed that the Emperor had not
yet even passed Bordeaux. His people had utterly disapproved of the
journey, but they acclaimed him joyously on the two days' progress to
Burgos. Thereafter he remarked a change, and the nearer he approached
the frontier the more they showed their irritation at his insensate
folly. At Vitoria, therefore, he summoned Savary, whose carriage was
"accidentally in the King's convoy," and reproached him with deceit.
It was too late; divisions of French soldiers were scattered all
about, among them the splendid cavalry of Bessieres. To wheel and
return would have been an open insult to the Emperor, which French
soldiers would not have tolerated. The uneasy young King thereupon
penned and despatched by a special courier a long letter recalling the
facts, and begging the Emperor to terminate the equivocal position in
which he found himself placed.
The reply was speedy and most insulting, for it studiously avoided the
recognition of Ferdinand's sovereignty. The Emperor had expected
before this to visit Madrid in person and institute some necessary
reforms, but affairs in the North had delayed him, and the revolution
at Aranjuez had changed the situation. He hoped Ferdinand would
quickly put an end to any attempt at a trial of Godoy, for its
revelations must necessarily dishonor the Queen. "Your Royal
Highness," he wrote, "has no other rights to the throne than those
transmitted through your mother." Had the abdication been a free act
or not? He would like to talk to Ferdinand as to whether or not it was
forced by the riots of Aranjuez. His "Royal Highness" had behaved ill
about his marriage, for he should not have acted without the King's
knowledge, and every such approach to a foreign sovereign made by an
heir apparent is a criminal act. If there had not been force at
Aranjuez, there would be no difficulty in recognizing Ferdinand;
moreover, a French marriage for him would be not merely advantageous
to the Spaniards, but to the interest of the French.
The following day, April seventeenth, orders were issued to Bessieres
that if the prince should continue his journey there should be no
interference; but if, however, he turned back toward Burgos, he was to
be arrested and brought by force to Bayonne. Ferdinand hesitated as he
read the insults, promises, and compliments which made up Napoleon's
letter. His Spanish counselors advised a return; Savary laughed at
such scruples, and was not only voluble in verbal commentaries on the
ambiguous text, but profuse in promises. On the twentieth Ferdinand
VII of Spain, as his supporters called him, was at the gates of
Bayonne. He was received, not with royal honors, but by his own
legates, the three grandees whom he had sent to Napoleon; and they
told him with mournful accents that the Emperor with his own lips had
declared that the Bourbons could no longer reign in Spain. It was with
dejected mien and shaky steps that the young monarch and his suite
followed Duroc and Berthier to the wretched quarters provided for
their residence. The Empress was, throughout the three months spent
at Bayonne, both gracious and conciliatory, playing her part as
hostess with grace, and alleviating with kindness the bitterness of
her compulsory guests. On the evening of Ferdinand's arrival a
handsome dinner was given at the chateau where the court was lodged,
and the visiting prince was most decorously treated. His train grew
more joyous and hopeful as the hours passed, although they noted that
the Emperor did not address his guest as king. Still, that was a
slight matter, and they returned in gaiety to their poor lodgings--all
but one: Canon Escoiquiz had been asked to remain for a short private
interview, while Savary escorted his master. It was an identical
communication which was then made in the same hour to both minister
and prince; short, terse, and brutal: to wit, the Bourbons had ceased
to reign in Spain, and Ferdinand would be indemnified by Etruria if he
would formally renounce a crown which was not even technically his,
since Charles declared that he had abdicated through fear. The
document in which this was announced had already been printed and
published at Madrid by Napoleon's command. He now summoned Charles,
Louisa, and Godoy to Bayonne.
Murat had found trouble in liberating the Prince of the Peace, for the
junta feared the populace if they should remember the object of their
hate and scorn. But he finally succeeded, and in the last days of
April Godoy reached Bayonne, where by the thirtieth all the puppets
were assembled. Dejected and broken-spirited, the minister agreed to
play the part assigned to him. The honors of a royal progress had been
paid to Charles, and he posed for a few days as the King. Ferdinand,
whose character and behavior awakened the contemptuous scorn even of
Talleyrand, was the culprit at the bar, charged with dishonoring his
parents. The trial scene was a shocking exhibition of human frailty.
Ferdinand was summoned before a bench composed of his parents, who
claimed to be still sovereigns, and the French emperor; Godoy, looking
like a bull, as Talleyrand thought, sat sullenly by. The old King
demanded his crown. Ferdinand persistently refused to surrender it.
Finally the trembling and invalid father rose on his shaky, rheumatic
legs and brandished his staff; the undutiful son remained unmoved. A
second demand was made by letter; it was to the same effect, but the
answer was different. Ferdinand agreed that he would renounce his
throne before the assembled Cortes at Madrid, but there only, and to
Charles IV alone. At Napoleon's command Charles refused to consider
the proposal, giving as a reason that Spain could be saved only by the
Emperor. This was Napoleon's opportunity. Two days later an imperial
decree was promulgated, which appointed Murat dictator of Spain, under
the style "lieutenant-general of the kingdom."
[Illustration: In the collection of the Countess of Sandwich.
NAPOLEON IN HIS STUDY.
From the painting by Paul Hippolyte Delaroche]
Meantime that intriguer had been making for himself a tortuous
approach to royalty. Nothing could more hasten the progress of events
than a riot in Madrid. The sensibility of the inhabitants of that city
had been rasped by the French occupation; they had seen the departure
of their idol with irritation, and had been further exasperated by
Godoy's liberation. Murat set fire to the train of their passions
first by a new disposition of his forces, which so menaced the place
as to make it clear that he was no longer an ally, but a conqueror,
and then by the announcement that the infante Don Francisco was to be
despatched to Bayonne with his uncle and all the remaining members of
the royal family, including the Queen of Etruria and her children. On
May second the entire population rose to resist this insolent tyranny.
Murat was ready for the move; the conflict was short, but it was
sharp, for he lost several hundred soldiers, perhaps half as many as
the patriots, in whose ranks some eight hundred fell. The aspirant to
royal honors yielded with ostentatious grace to the first
representations of the junta, and promised a general amnesty; but he
also thought it best to make an example before the eyes of his future
subjects, and in spite of his plighted word two hundred of the
insurgent patriots were seized and shot. This very day, however, there
was pronounced a decree of rude disenchantment for him. It was on May
second that Napoleon definitely wrote to him that the kingdom of Spain
could not be his; he might have Naples or Portugal. The Emperor was
tired of Bayonne, and longed to be back in Paris, where he could be
active about the business of perpetuating his empire and his dynasty.
The stubborn Ferdinand was therefore summoned once more, and charged
with having instigated the upheaval of Madrid. He remained mute for
some minutes, and with downcast eyes. "If before midnight," came the
cold words of the Emperor, "you have not recognized your father as
legitimate king, and notified the fact at Madrid, you will be treated
as a rebel." Some declare that there was besides a menace of death.
This ended all resistance. Ferdinand resigned his rights as king into
his father's hands, his rights as heir into those of Napoleon. Charles
had already assigned his rights as king to the same suzerain.[23] The
complacent old man was actually cheerful and joyous, as his
entertainer desired he should be; but Ferdinand, in spite of the fact
that he was to have the chateau of Navarre with an income of a million
francs, in spite of promises that all the royal family would be
liberally pensioned, remained silent and gloomy. Napoleon was not
pleased by this behavior, and in commending him to the hospitality of
Talleyrand, at the splendid castle of Valencay, declared that his
whole character could be summed up in a single word--sullen. Poor
Talleyrand! he saw himself condemned to the "honorable mission" of
turnkey to a dispossessed monarch whose guard of honor was a troop of
eighty mounted police. By the Emperor's grace the young culprit was
not to be committed to jail, for he had voluntarily surrendered
himself; but Talleyrand was to watch and amuse him, and discover, if
possible, some charming and marriageable girl to entangle his
affections, so that in her society he might forget the delights of
power, while time should weaken the promptings of ambition and
revenge. In a few days Charles, Louisa, and Godoy were comfortably
installed at Compiegne, while Ferdinand, with his brother, went
sullenly away to "visit" at Valencay. The prisoner's character was
soon displayed. The day of his arrival at his destination he wrote a
cringing letter to Napoleon, and soon after not only congratulated the
Emperor on the accession of the King of Naples to the throne he had
claimed for his own, but even felicitated Joseph himself on his
coronation as Catholic Majesty.
[Footnote 23: Originals will be found in Oman, Vol. I, pp.
616-18.]
Napoleon knew the mysterious power throughout Europe of that charmed
word "legitimacy." He despised the concept that it expressed, while he
meant to make the most of its power. Having misunderstood the strength
of Spanish patriotism, he now made the blunder of supposing that the
Spaniards would receive as a legitimate prince whomsoever he chose to
appoint as heir to the "legitimacy" which the Spanish Bourbons had
just put into his hands. Louis, moreover, had but recently illustrated
the force of a new environment under the notion of legitimacy.
Replying to Napoleon's letter of March twenty-fifth, he had flatly
refused the Spanish crown, on the ground that he had sworn a solemn
oath to the Dutch. Joseph was immediately restored to favor and
ordered to Bayonne. He came with apparent alacrity, due, as he
claimed, to his desire to free his beloved brother Napoleon from
embarrassment. Soon all was apparently ready for his inauguration.
The treaty of Fontainebleau had produced unexpected complications and
disastrous results on its political side; the apparently insignificant
military clauses had so far been successfully executed. One Spanish
army was far away on the Baltic, held under curb by Bernadotte;
another had been despatched to western Spain, and had remained there;
in the mean while the north and the center of the country were
occupied by the French. General Solano had made some movement to lead
back his troops into the occupied territory, but was checked in his
advance by instructions from the ministers of Charles IV at Madrid.
Uncertain as to their powers in a revolutionary crisis, he rendered
only a half-obedience; but it was sufficient for Napoleon's object,
and there was no body of Spanish troops within striking distance of
the capital. Accordingly, when the Spanish notables were summoned to
Bayonne, they could not well refuse, and a hundred and fifty of them
responded. On June sixth, 1808, the crown of Spain was offered to
Joseph by this strange Cortes, and he accepted it. At the same time
the new constitution, destined by Napoleon to regenerate the country,
was laid before the same body, which discussed and adopted it. In the
following month his Catholic Majesty presented himself, with this
document and a cabinet of able ministers, to the people of Madrid.
Charles IV and his followers found Compiegne too cold, and soon moved,
first to Marseilles, then to Italy. Murat became King of Naples.
Ferdinand remained contentedly in France, licking the hand which had
struck him down. Napoleon returned to Paris, uneasy at the attitude of
the Spanish nation, but hoping that local discontent could be
smothered by the strong hand, as he had seen it smothered in France,
Italy, and the Orient. In this, however, he was to find himself sadly
mistaken.
In the story of Spanish degradation at its worst two names must stand
together as partners in political crime--those of Godoy and Escoiquiz,
who sought to mask their own base ambitions behind the acts of their
feeble creatures, the King and Ferdinand respectively. Throughout the
whole vile complot moves also the figure of the Queen, whose
counterpart must be sought in the annals of witches, furies, and
hetaerae. But there were still left uncontaminated eleven millions of
the Spanish people. They were indolent by nature, had been fettered
both by tradition and by worn-out institutions, and had long groaned
in the chains of corrupt administration. With the removal of the
Bourbons all these paraphernalia were swept away. The brothers
Napoleon believed, and no doubt honestly, that pure and capable
administration under a modern system would soon produce order,
industry, prosperity, and peace, and that a grateful nation would
before long acclaim its preservers, and enroll itself as a devoted
ally against the "perfidious and tyrannical" supremacy of Great
Britain. It is useless to speculate how far this dream would have been
realized but for the utter rottenness of the instruments with which
the reformers worked. The King's senility, the Queen's lust, Godoy's
greed, Escoiquiz's self-seeking, Ferdinand's unreliability, Murat's
ambition, made a poor armory of weapons wherewith to accomplish a
beneficent revolution. But the one vital blunder was, after all, not
in the use of such tools: it was in the contempt for nationality
shown first in making the treaty of Fontainebleau, then in its
violation by the subsequent seizure of Portugal, and finally in the
occupation of Spain by French troops. Declaring that more had been
lost than gained by the events which occurred at Bayonne, Talleyrand
says that on one occasion he icily observed to Napoleon that society
would pardon much to a man of the world, but cheating at cards never.
If this be true, it was a stinging rebuke and one which touched the
heart of the whole matter.
To the bloody butchery and broken faith of May second, the day of the
Madrid riots, may be attributed the turn of Napoleon's fortunes. How
far he was responsible for each of Murat's successive acts cannot be
known. With exaggerated conceptions of the Emperor's ubiquity, some
attribute every detail in every step to the direct intervention of the
master. This is unproved and highly improbable; but the spirit was
his, and the use he made of each occasion as it arose is matter of
history. The fires of rebellion were lighted thenceforth on every
Spanish hearth. Madrid itself was dangerous enough, but Madrid was not
Spain, as Paris is France, and the fine local enthusiasm of
uncorrupted Spanish blood in every district was awakened into vigorous
activity by the news of how faithless had been the French treatment,
not only of the royal house, but of the citizens--men and women who
were themselves true Spaniards, brothers and sisters of every other
Spaniard. This possibility Napoleon had not foreseen, and he did not
grasp the fact until long afterward, when years of bitter experience
had rolled over his head. The Madrid riots, suppressed by Murat with
such terrible bloodshed, were at the time, in Napoleon's mind, only a
welcome leverage for moving Ferdinand to compliance, and that was all.
But the city had been full of provincials attracted from all parts of
the country to swell the triumph of their idol Ferdinand on his
accession to the throne. They returned to their homes inspired with
hatred for the French and with bitter scorn for the pretexts on which
Spain and Portugal had been torn from a commercial system that brought
them considerable prosperity and many comforts, in order that they
might be incorporated, under foreign princes, into another system,
which not only required serious self-denial, but brought stagnation,
disorganization, and the presence of an armed soldiery. One weakness
of the Spanish monarchy had always been the absence of centralization,
but that very fact had been the national strength in fostering local
attachments. Into every city, town, and hamlet, each nourishing its
own local pride by local patriotism, came the news from Madrid of how
the invaders were trampling not merely upon Spanish rights, but upon
every consideration of humanity and good faith. The national will was
stirred as never before or since; its expression grew louder every
day, until at last the conflagration of devotion to a national cause
was kindled far and near. Every community formed its committees, and
these organized such neighborhood resistance as was possible, while
communicating with other juntas of the same sort to unite their little
wars, or guerrillas, into a great combined and vigorous effort
wherever the opportunity offered. Under the surface throughout all
Spain the fires of resistance began to kindle; the crackling could be
heard even while the assembly at Bayonne was adopting the new
constitution.