[3] Such is the main thesis of chapter I of Napier’s Peninsular War.
[4] It is curious to note how often the name of Charlemagne occurs in Napoleon’s letters during the early months of 1806. It is especially common in his correspondence about the relations of the Papacy and the Empire.
[5] The negotiations for the Confederation were completed in July, and it was formally constituted on Aug. 1, 1806.
[6] See, for example, the very interesting story told by Marshal Jourdan in his Mémoires (p. 9) of the long conversation which the emperor had with him at Verona on June 16, 1805: ‘Tant pour l’affermissement de ma dynastie que pour la sûreté de France,’ concluded Napoleon, ‘un Bourbon sur le trône d’Espagne est un voisin trop dangereux.’
[7] For the full text of this bombastic appeal see [Appendix, No. I]. Godoy speaks throughout in his own name, not in that of his master.
[8] ‘Je jurai dès lors qu’ils me la paieraient, que je les mettrais hors d’état de me nuire,’ said Napoleon to De Pradt, eighteen months later (Mémoires sur la Révolution d’Espagne, p. 16). The archbishop’s story is amply borne out by the repeated allusions to this unhappy proclamation in Napoleon’s official justification of his conduct in Spain. The Spanish ambassador at Berlin, Don Benito Pardo, was told by Napoleon at the time that he had forgiven the Proclamation, but could not forget it.
[9] Correspondance de Napoléon, xxxii. 59.
[10] The demand was made in the most peremptory fashion, and in almost threatening language. Napoleon writes to Talleyrand that the Spanish division in Tuscany, which was to form part of the expeditionary corps, must march in twenty-four hours after receiving its orders. ‘If they refuse, everything is at an end,’ a most sinister phrase (Napoleon to Talleyrand, March 25, 1807).
[11] This was Article IV of the Seven ‘Secret Articles’ of the Treaty of Tilsit. See for this proposal the notes in Vandal’s Napoléon et Alexandre Ier, vol. i.
[12] The first notice of the ‘Corps of Observation of the Gironde’ is to be found in a dispatch of Masserano, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, dated July 30, which gives notice of the approaching concentration at Bayonne. But the quiet movement of troops in this direction had begun long before the Russian war was over.