THE SPANISH RISING
The relations of Spain to France during the twelve years that preceded
the rising of 1808 are marked by acts of folly and unmanly
complaisance that promised utterly to degrade a once proud and
sensitive people. They were the work of the senile and spiritless
King, Charles IV., of his intriguing consort, and, above all, of her
paramour, the all-powerful Minister Godoy. Of an ancient and
honourable family, endowed with a fine figure, courtly address, and
unscrupulous arts, this man had wormed himself into the royal
confidence; and after bringing about a favourable peace with France in
1795, he was styled The Prince of the Peace.
In the next year the meaning of the French alliance was revealed in
the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, which required Spain to furnish troops,
ships, and subsidies for the war against England, a state of vassalage
which was made harder by Napoleon. The results are well known. After
being forced by him to cede Trinidad to us at the Peace of Amiens, she
sacrificed her navy at Trafalgar, saw her colonies and commerce decay
and her finances shrivel for lack of the golden streams formerly
poured in by Mexico and Peru.
In the summer of 1806, while sinking into debt and disgrace, the Court
of Madrid heard with indignation of Napoleon's design to hand over the
Balearic Isles to the Spanish Bourbons whom he had driven from Naples
and proposed to drive from Sicily. At once Spanish pride caught fire
and clutched at means of revenge.[182] Godoy was further incensed by
the sudden abandonment of the plans which he had long discussed with
Napoleon for the partition of Portugal, plans which gave him the
prospect of reigning as King over the southern portion of that
realm.[183] Accordingly, when the Emperor was entering upon the Jena
campaign, he summoned the Spanish people to arms in a most threatening
manner. The news of the collapse of Prussia ended his bravado.
Complaisance again reigned at Madrid, and 15,000 Spaniards were sent,
at Napoleon's demand, to serve on the borders of Denmark, while the
autocrat of the West perfected his plans against the Iberian
Peninsula. As was noted in the previous chapter, the Emperor renewed
his offers of a partition of Portugal in the early autumn of 1807; and
in pursuance of the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, Junot's corps
marched through Spain into Portugal, where they were helped by a
Spanish corps.
It is significant that, as early as October 17th, 1807, Napoleon
ordered his general to send a detailed description of the country and
of his line of march, the engineer officers being specially charged to
send sketches, "_which it is important to have_." Other French
divisions then crossed the Pyrenees, under plea of keeping open
Junot's communications with France; and spies were sent to observe the
state of the chief Spanish strongholds. Others were charged to report
on the condition of the Spanish army and the state of public opinion;
while Junot was cautioned to keep a sharp watch on the Spanish troops
in Portugal, to allow no fortress to be in their hands, and to send
all the Portuguese troops away to France. Thus, in the early days of
1808, Napoleon had some 20,000 troops in Portugal, about 40,000 in the
north of Spain, and 12,000 in Catalonia. By various artifices they
gained admission into the strongholds of Pamplona, Monjuik, Barcelona,
St. Sebastian, and Figueras, so that by the month of March the north
and west of the peninsula had passed quietly into his hands, while the
greater part of the Spanish army was doing his work in Portugal or on
the shores of the Baltic.[184]
These proceedings began to arouse alarm and discontent among the
Spanish people; but on its Government their influence was as benumbing
as that which the boa-constrictor exerts on its prey. In vain did
Charles IV. and Godoy strive to set a limit to the numbers of the
auxiliaries that poured across the Pyrenees to help them against
fabled English expeditions. In vain did they beg that the partition of
Portugal might now proceed in accordance with the terms of the secret
Treaty of Fontainebleau. The King was curtly told that affairs were
not yet ripe for the publication of that treaty.[185] And the growing
conviction that he had been duped poured gall into the cup of family
bitterness that had long been full to overflowing.
The scandalous relations of the Queen with Godoy had deeply incensed
the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias. His attitude of
covert opposition to his parents and their minion was strengthened by
the influence of his bride, a daughter of the ex-Queen of Naples, and
their palace was the headquarters of all who hoped to end the
degradation of the kingdom. As later events were to prove, Ferdinand
had not the qualities of courage and magnanimity that command general
homage; but it was enough for his countrymen that he opposed the
Court. In 1806 his consort died; and on October 11th, 1807, without
consulting his father, he secretly wrote to Napoleon, requesting the
hand of a Bonaparte princess in marriage, and stating that such an
alliance was the ardent wish of all Spaniards, while they would abhor
his union with a sister of the Princess of the Peace. To this letter
Napoleon sent no reply. But Charles IV. had some inkling of the fact
that the prince had been treating direct with Napoleon; and this,
along with another unfilial action of the prince, furnished an excuse
for a charge of high treason. It was spitefully pressed home and was
revoked only on his humble request for the King's pardon.
Now, this "School for Scandal" was being played at Madrid at the time
when Napoleon was arranging the partition of Portugal; and the schism
in the Spanish royal House may well have strengthened his
determination to end its miserable existence and give a good
government to Spain. At the close of the so-called palace plot,
Charles IV. informed his august ally of _that frightful attempt_, and
begged him to _give the aid of his lights and his counsels_.[186] The
craven-hearted King thus himself opened the door for that intervention
which Napoleon had already meditated. His resolve now rapidly
hardened. At the close of January, 1808, he wrote to Junot asking him:
"If unexpected events occurred in Spain, what would you fear from the
Spanish troops? Could you easily rid yourself of them?"[187] On
February the 20th he appointed Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to be his
Lieutenant in Spain and commander of the French Forces. The choice of
this bluff, headstrong cavalier, who had done so much to provoke
Prussia in 1806, certainly betokened a forward policy. Yet the Emperor
continued to smile on the Spanish Court, and gave a sort of half
sanction to the union of Ferdinand with a daughter of Lucien
Bonaparte.[188] In fact, the hope of this alliance was now used to
keep quiet the numerous partisans of Ferdinand, while Murat advanced
rapidly towards Madrid. To his Lieutenant the Emperor wrote (March
16th): "Continue your kindly talk. Reassure the King, the Prince of
the Peace, the Prince of Asturias, the Queen. The chief thing is to
reach Madrid, to rest your troops and replenish your provisions. Say
that I am about to come so as to arrange matters."
As to Napoleon's real aims, Murat was in complete ignorance; and he
repeatedly complained of the lack of confidence which a brother-in-law
had a right to expect.[189] But while the Grand Duke of Berg beamed on
the Spaniards with meaningless affability, Izquierdo, Godoy's secret
agent at Paris, troubled his master with gloomy reports of the
deepening reserve and lowering threats of Ministers at Paris. There
was talk of requiring from Spain the cession of her lands between the
Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need
of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these
hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and
favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic,
a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New
World betimes, with the needful treasure.
But there, too, Napoleon forestalled them. On February 21st a secret
order was sent to a French squadron to anchor off Cadiz and stop the
King and Queen of Spain if they sought to "repeat the scene of
Lisbon."[190] Their escape to America would be even more favourable to
England than the flight of the Court of Lisbon had been; and Napoleon
took good care that the King, to whom he had awarded the title of
Emperor of the two Americas, should remain a prisoner in Europe.
Scared, however, by the approach of Murat and the news from Paris,
Charles still prepared for flight; and the Queen's anxiety to save her
favourite from the growing fury of the populace also bent her desires
seawards.
The Court was at the palace of Aranjuez, not far from Madrid, and it
seemed easy to escape into Andalusia, and to carry away, by guile or
by force, the heir to the throne. But Ferdinand, who hoped for
deliverance at the hands of the French, thwarted the scheme by a
timely hint to his faithful guards. At once his partisans gathered
round him; and the people, rushing to Godoy's residence, madly
ransacked it in the hope of tearing to pieces the author of the
nation's ruin. After thirty-six hours' concealment, Godoy ventured to
steal forth; at once he was discovered, was kicked and beaten; and
only the intervention of Ferdinand, prompted by the agonized
entreaties of his mother, availed to save the dregs of that wretched
life. The roars of the crowd around the palace, and the smashing of
the royal carriage, now decided the King to abdicate; and he declared
that his declining years and failing health now led him to yield the
crown to Ferdinand (March 19th, 1808).
Loud was the acclaim that greeted the young King when he entered
Madrid; but the rejoicings were soon damped by the ambiguous behaviour
of Murat, who, on entering Madrid at the head of his troops, skilfully
evaded any recognition of Ferdinand as King. In fact, Murat had
received (March 21st) a letter from Charles IV.'s daughter begging for
his help to her parents at Aranjuez; and it soon transpired that the
ex-King and Queen now repented of their abdication, which they
represented as brought about by force and therefore null and void. The
Grand Duke of Berg saw the advantage which this dispute might give to
Napoleon; and he begged the Emperor to come immediately to Madrid for
the settlement of matters on which he alone could decide. To this
Napoleon replied (March 30th) commending his Lieutenant's prudence,
and urging him to escort Charles IV. to the Escurial as King, while
Godoy was also to be protected and sent to Bayonne.
To this town the Emperor set out on April the 2nd, as though he would
thence proceed to Madrid. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was treated with
guarded courtesy that kept alive his hope of an alliance with a French
princess. To favour this notion, Napoleon despatched the wariest of
his agents, Savary, who artfully persuaded him to meet the Emperor at
Burgos. He succeeded, and even induced him to continue his journey to
Vittoria. At that place the citizens sought to cut the traces of the
royal carriage, so much did they fear treachery if he proceeded
further. Yet the young King, beguiled by the Emperor's letter of April
16th, which offered the hand of a French princess, prolonged his
journey, crossed the frontier, and was received by Napoleon at Bayonne
(April 20th). His arguments, proving that his father's abdication had
been voluntary, fell on deaf ears. The Emperor invited him to dinner,
and afterwards sent Savary to inform him that he must hand back the
crown to his father. To this Ferdinand returned a firm refusal; and
his advisers, Escoiquiz and Labrador, ventured to warn the Emperor
that the Spaniards would swear eternal hatred to France if he tampered
with the crown of Spain. Napoleon listened good-humouredly, pulled
Escoiquiz by the ear as a sign of his personal regard, and added: "You
are a deep fellow; but, I tell you, the Bourbons will never let me
alone." On the next day he offered Ferdinand the throne of Etruria. It
was coldly declined.[191]
Charles IV., his Queen, and Godoy, arrived at Bayonne at the close of
April. The ex-King had offered to put himself and his claim in
Napoleon's hands, which was exactly what the Emperor desired. The
feeble creature now poured forth his bile on his disobedient son, and
peevishly bade him restore the crown. Ferdinand assented, provided his
father would really reign, and would dismiss those advisers who were
hated by the nation; but the attempt to impose conditions called forth
a flash of senile wrath, along with the remark that "one ought to do
everything _for_ the people and nothing _by_ the people."
Meanwhile the men of Madrid were not acting with the passivity desired
by their philosophizing monarch. At first they had welcomed Murat as
delivering them from the detested yoke of Godoy; but the conduct of
the French in their capital, and the detention of Ferdinand at
Bayonne, aroused angry feelings, which burst forth on May the 2nd, and
long defied the grapeshot of Murat's guns and the sabres of his
troopers. The news of this so-called revolt gave Napoleon another
handle against his guests. He hurried to Charles and cowed him by
well-simulated signs of anger, which that _roi fainéant_ thereupon
vented on his son, with a passion that was outdone only by the shrill
gibes of the Queen. At the close of this strange scene, the Emperor
interposed with a few stern words, threatening to treat the prince as
a rebel if he did not that very evening restore the crown to his
father. Ferdinand braved the parental taunts in stolid silence, but
before the trenchant threats of Napoleon he quailed, and broke down.
Resistance was now at an end. On that same night (May 5th) the Emperor
concluded with Godoy a convention whereby Charles IV. agreed to hand
over to Napoleon the crowns of Spain and the Indies, on consideration
that those dominions should remain intact, should keep the Roman
Catholic faith to the exclusion of all others, and that he himself
should be pensioned off with the estates of Compiègne and Chambord,
receiving a yearly income of seven and a half million francs, payable
by the French treasury. The Spanish princes were similarly treated,
Ferdinand signing away his rights for a castle and a pension. To crown
the farce, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to receive them at his estate
of Valençay, and amuse them with actors and the charms of female
society. Thus the choicest humorist of the age was told off to
entertain three uninteresting exiles; and the ex-Minister of Foreign
Affairs, who disapproved of the treachery of Bayonne, was made to
appear the Emperor's accomplice.
Such were the means whereby Napoleon gained the crowns of Spain and
the Indies, without striking a blow.
His excuse for the treachery as expressed at the time was as follows:
"My action is not good from a certain point of view, I know. But my
policy demands that I shall not leave in my rear, so near to Paris, a
dynasty hostile to mine." From this and from other similar remarks, it
would seem that his resolve to dethrone the Bourbons was taken while
on his march to Jena, but was thrust down into the abyss of his
inscrutable will for a whole year, until Junot's march to Lisbon
furnished a safe means for effecting the subjugation of Spain. This
end he thenceforth pursued unswervingly with no sign of remorse, or
even of hesitation--unless we accept as genuine the almost certainly
spurious letter of March 29th, 1808. That letter represents him as
blaming Murat for entering Madrid, when he had repeatedly urged him to
do so; as asking his advice after he had all along kept him in
ignorance as to his aims; and as writing a philosophical homily on the
unused energies of the Spanish people, for whom in his genuine letters
he expressed a lofty contempt.[192]
The whole enterprise is, indeed, a masterpiece of skill, but a
masterpiece marred by ineffaceable stains of treachery. And at the
close of his life, he himself said: "I embarked very badly on the
Spanish affair, I confess: the immorality of it was too patent, the
injustice too cynical, and the whole thing wears an ugly look since I
have fallen; for the attempt is only seen in its hideous nakedness
deprived of all majesty and of the many benefits which completed my
intention."
That he hoped to reform Spain is certain. Political and social reforms
had hitherto consolidated the work of conquest; and those which he
soon offered to the Spaniards might possibly have renovated that
nation, had they not been handed in at the sword's point; but the
motive was too obvious, the intervention too insulting, to render
success possible with the most sensitive people in Europe. On May 2nd
he wrote to Murat that he intended King Joseph of Naples to reign at
Madrid, and offered to Murat either Portugal or Naples.[193] He chose
the latter. Joseph was allowed no choice in the matter. He was
summoned from Naples to Bayonne, and, on arriving at Pau, heard with
great surprise that he was King of Spain.
Napoleon's selection was tactful. At Naples, the eldest of the
Bonapartes had effected many reforms and was generally popular; but
the treachery of Bayonne blasted all hopes of his succeeding at
Madrid. Though the grandees of Spain welcomed the new monarch with
courtly grace, though Charles IV. gave him his blessing, though
Ferdinand demeaned himself by advising his former subjects quietly to
submit, the populace willed otherwise.
Every instinct of the Spanish nature was aflame with resentment.
Loathing for Charles IV., his Queen, and their favourite, whom
Napoleon richly dowered, love of the young King whom he falsely
filched away, detestation of the French troops who outraged the rights
of hospitality, and zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, whose chief
had just been robbed of half his States, goaded the Spaniards to
madness. Their indignation rumbled hoarsely for a time, like a volcano
in labour, and then burst forth in an explosion of fury. The
constitution which Napoleon presented to the Spanish Notables at
Bayonne was accepted by them, only to be flung back with scorn by the
people. The men of enlightenment who counselled prudence and patience
were slain by raging mobs or sought safety in flight. The rising was
at once national in its grand spontaneity and local in its intensity.
Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre,
where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of
the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the
forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the
Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient
fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war
against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors.
Swiftly Galicia and Leon in the north repeated the challenge; while in
the south, the fertile lands of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia
flashed back from their mountains the beacon lights of a national war.
The former dislike of England was forgotten. The Juntas of Asturias,
Galicia, and Andalusia sent appeals to us for help, to which Canning
generously responded; and, on July 4th, we passed at a single bound
from war with the Spanish Bourbons to an informal alliance with the
people of Spain.
Napoleon now began to see the magnitude of his error. Instead of
gaining control over Spain and the Indies, he had changed
long-suffering allies into irreconcilable foes. He prepared to conquer
Spain. While Joseph was escorted to his new capital by a small army,
Napoleon from Bayonne directed the operations of his generals. Holding
the northern road from Bayonne to Burgos and Madrid, they were to send
out cautious feelers against the bands of insurgents; for, as Napoleon
wrote to Savary (July 13th): "In civil wars it is the important posts
that must be held: one ought not to go everywhere." Weighty words,
which his lieutenants in Spain were often to disregard! Bessières in
the north gained a success at Medina de Rio Seco; but a signal
disaster in the south ruined the whole campaign. Dupont, after beating
the levies of Andalusia, penetrated into the heart of that great
province, and, when cumbered with plunder, his divided forces were
surrounded, cut off from their supplies, and forced to surrender at
Baylen--in all about 20,000 men (July 19th). The news that a French
army had laid down its arms caused an immense sensation in an age when
Napoleon's troops were held to be invincible. Baylen was hailed
everywhere by despairing patriots as the dawn of a new era. And such
it was to be. If Valmy proclaimed the advent of militant democracy,
the victory of Spaniards over one of the bravest of Napoleon's
generals was felt to be an even greater portent. It ushered in the
epoch of national resistance to the overweening claims of the Emperor
of the West.
That truth he seems dimly to have surmised. His rage on hearing of the
capitulation was at first too deep for words. Then he burst out:
"Could I have expected that from Dupont, a man whom I loved, and was
rearing up to become a Marshal? They say he had no other way to save
the lives of his soldiers. Better, far better, to have died with arms
in their hands. Their death would have been glorious: we should have
avenged them. You can always supply the place of soldiers. Honour
alone, when once lost, can never be regained."
Moreover, the material consequences were considerable. The Spaniards
speedily threatened Madrid; and, on the advice of Savary, Joseph
withdrew from his capital after a week's sojourn, and fell back
hurriedly on the line of the Upper Ebro, where the French rallied for
a second advance.
Their misfortunes did not end here. In the north-east the hardy
Catalans had risen against the invaders, and by sheer pluck and
audacity cooped them up in their ill-gotten strongholds of Barcelona
and Figueras. The men of Arragon, too, never backward in upholding
their ancient liberties, rallied to defend their capital Saragossa.
Their rage was increased by the arrival of Palafox, who had escaped in
disguise from the suite of Ferdinand at Bayonne, and brought news of
the treachery there perpetrated. Beaten outside their ancient city,
and unable to hold its crumbling walls against the French cannon and
columns of assault, the defenders yet fiercely turned to bay amidst
its narrow lanes and massive monasteries. There a novel warfare was
waged. From street to street and house to house the fight eddied for
days, the Arragonese opposing to French valour the stubborn devotion
ever shown by the peoples of the peninsula in defence of their walled
cities, and an enthusiasm kindled by the zeal of their monks and the
heroism of the Maid of Saragossa. Finally, on August 10th, the noble
city shook off the grip of the 15,000 assailants, who fell back to
join Joseph's forces higher up the Ebro.
Even now the Emperor did not fully realize the serious nature of the
war that was beginning. Despite Savary's warnings of the dangers to be
faced in Spain, he persisted in thinking of it as an ordinary war that
could be ended by good strategy and a few victories. He censured
Joseph and Savary for giving up the line of the Upper Douro: he blamed
them next for the evacuation of Tudela, and summed up the situation by
stating that "all the Spanish forces are not able to overthrow 25,000
French in a reasonable position"--adding, with stinging satire: "In
war _men_ are nothing: it is _a man_ who is everything."
When, at the close of August, Napoleon penned these memorable words in
his palace of St. Cloud, he knew not that a _man_ had arrived on the
scene of action. At the beginning of that month, Sir Arthur Wellesley
with a British force of 12,300 men landed at the mouth of the River
Mondego, and, aided by Portuguese irregulars, began his march on
Lisbon. This is not the place for a review of the character and career
of our great warrior: in truth, a volume would be too short for the
task. With fine poetic insight, Lord Tennyson has noted in his funeral
Ode the qualities that enabled him to overcome the unexampled
difficulties caused by our own incompetent Government and by jealous,
exacting, and slipshod allies:
"Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good."
Glory and vexation were soon to be his. On the 17th he drove the
French vanguard from Roliça; and when, four days later, Junot hurried
up with all his force, the British inflicted on that presumptuous
leader a signal defeat at Vimiero. So bad were Junot's tactics that
his whole force would have been cut off from Torres Vedras, had not
Wellesley's senior officer, Sir Harry Burrard, arrived just in time to
take over the command and stop the pursuit. Thereupon Wellesley
sarcastically exclaimed to his staff: "Gentlemen, nothing now remains
to us but to go and shoot red-legged partridges." The peculiarities of
our war administration were further seen in the supersession of
Burrard by Sir Hew Dalrymple, whose chief title to fame is his signing
of the Convention of Cintra.
By this strange compact the whole of Junot's force was to be conveyed
from Portugal to France on British ships, while the Russian squadron
blockaded in the Tagus was to be held by us in pledge till the peace,
the crews being sent on to Russia. The convention itself was violently
attacked by the English public; but it has found a defender in Napier,
who dwells on the advantages of getting the French at once out of
Portugal, and thus providing a sure base for the operations in Spain.
Seeing, however, that Junot's men were demoralized by defeat, and that
the nearest succouring force was in Navarre, these excuses seem
scarcely tenable, except on the ground that, with such commanders as
Burrard and Dalrymple, it was certainly desirable to get the French
speedily away.
On his side, Napoleon showed much annoyance at Junot's acceptance of
this convention, and remarked: "I was about to send Junot to a council
of war: but happily the English got the start of me by sending their
generals to one, and thus saved me from the pain of punishing an old
friend." With his customary severity to those who had failed, he
frowned on all the officers of the Army of Portugal, and, on landing
in France, they were strictly forbidden to come to Paris. The fate of
Dupont and of his chief lieutenants, who were released by the
Spaniards, was even harder: on their return they were condemned to
imprisonment. By such means did Napoleon exact the uttermost from his
troops, even in a service so detested as that in Spain ever was.[194]
Despite the blunderings of our War Office, the silly vapourings of the
Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about
precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808
saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he
lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid,
but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the
shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put
a backbone into the patriotic movements in the north of Spain. But
worst of all was the loss of that moral strength, which he himself
reckoned as three-fourths of the whole force in war. Hitherto he had
always been able to marshal the popular impulse on his side. As the
heir to the Revolution he had appealed, and not in vain, to the
democratic forces which he had hypnotized in France but sought to stir
up in his favour abroad. Despite the efforts of Czartoryski and Stein
to tear the democratic mask from his face, it imposed on mankind until
the Spanish Revolution laid bare the truth; and at St. Helena the
exile gave his own verdict on the policy of Bayonne: "It was the
Spanish ulcer which ruined me."
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--For a careful account of the
Convention of Cintra in its military and political aspects, see
Mr. Oman's recently published "History of the Peninsular War,"
vol. i., pp. 268-278, 291-300. I cannot, however, agree with the
learned author that that Convention was justifiable on military
grounds, after so decisive a victory as Vimiero.
* * * * *