[43] Letter of March 26 in Toreño, i. 439.
[44] The Protest of Charles IV will be found printed in [Appendix No. 4].
[45] Nap. Corresp., xvi. 500; see also in Documents historiques, publiés par Louis Bonaparte (Paris, 1829), ii. 290.
[46] It is scarcely necessary to say that the letter which Napoleon is said to have sent Murat on March 29, and which is printed in the Mémorial de Ste-Hélène, is (as Lanfrey and Count Murat have shown) a forgery composed by Napoleon himself long after. It is quite inconsistent with the offer to Louis Bonaparte, and with other letters to Murat of the same week.
[47] It is said that they afterwards turned out to be full of smuggled goods, a private speculation of Savary or his underlings.
[48] Savary, in his mendacious autobiography, denies that he persuaded Ferdinand to start for Bayonne. But he is refuted by two contemporary documents. The young king, in his letter of adieu to his father, states that Savary has convinced him of the necessity of going; while Murat in a dispatch to Bonaparte says that ‘Savary has in no small degree contributed to induce the new court to quit Madrid’ [April 8].
[49] For Don Antonio’s habits we have on Talleyrand’s authority some very curious stories. He spent most of his time of captivity at Valençay sitting in the library, mutilating illustrated books with his scissors, not to make a scrap-book, but to destroy any engravings that sinned against morals or religion!
[50] Cevallos, p. 36.
[51] It was the Duke of Infantado who made this exclamation. See Urquijo’s letter to Cuesta in Llorente’s collection of papers on the Bayonne business.
[52] Escoiquiz, p. 318. Every student of Napoleon should read the whole of the wonderful dialogue between the Emperor and the Canon of Toledo.