[527] For the discomforts of Chamartin see the Mémoires sur la Révolution d’Espagne of De Pradt. Though belonging to one of the richest nobles of Spain, it had not a single fireplace, and the imperial courtiers and aides-de-camp had to shiver in the ante-rooms over miserable braseros.
[528] ‘La capitulation, n’ayant pas été tenue par les habitants de Madrid, est nulle,’ Napoleon to Belliard, Dec. 5 (Nap. Corresp., 14,534). He scolds Belliard for having allowed the document to be printed and placarded on the walls. Every copy was to be torn down at once. In what respect the Spaniards had broken the treaty he does not state. He may have referred to the evasion of Castelar’s troops.
[529] Cf. Nap. Corresp., 14,708, with De Pradt (p. 205-6) and Arteche (iii. 432).
[530] For details see the decree in Nap. Corresp., 14,528. The last-named clause curiously resembles a provision of Henry VIII of England, at the Dissolution of 1536.
[531] Cf. Nap. Corresp., 14,563, and De Pradt, Mémoires, &c., p. 205.
[532] Napier (i. 273) makes a curious blunder in saying that he remained at Burgos.
[533] This odd phrase is used by Joseph himself in his letter of Dec. 8, sent from the Pardo, after he had received the decrees issued on Dec. 4 by his brother.
[534] There is a complete catena of letters and dispatches from Dec. 4 to Dec. 22, in which the retention of Joseph as king is presupposed: (1) 14,531 [Dec. 5] advises him to raise a Spanish army; (2) 14,537 [Dec. 7] advises the Spaniards to ‘make their King certain of their love and confidence’; (3) 14,543 [Dec. 9], the allocution to the Corregidor, bids the Madrileños swear fidelity on the Sacrament to their King; (4) 14,558 [Dec. 13] speaks of the knitting up again of the bonds which attach Joseph’s subjects to their sovereign; (5) 14,593 [Dec. 18] gives the King advice as to the reorganization of his finances. None of them could have been written if there had been any real intention of ousting Joseph from the throne.
[535] Nap. Corresp., 14,547, p. 108.
[536] Napier (i. 273) prints Bonaparte’s allocution in full, with the astonishing comment that it ‘was an exposition of the principles upon which Spain was to be governed, and it forces reflection upon the passionate violence with which men resist positive good, to seek danger, misery, and death rather than resign their prejudices.’ Is the desire for national independence a prejudice? And should it be easily resigned for ‘positive good,’ e.g. administrative reform?