These would be dignified and resolute words in a united nation facing a coalition but, under the circumstances, they were mere idle vaporing. The Government, in fact, was barely able to make head against the insurrection, save in Catalonia. Navarre, Biscay and Aragon were in open civil war, with forces equally balanced. In Murcia, the famous robber Jaime Alfonso was posing as the defender of the faith; in Castile, the Cura Merino and el Rojo de Valderas were levying war; in Andalusia, Zaldivar held his own in spite of repeated defeats; in Toledo and Cuenca, Joaquincillo and the Cura Atanasio were maintaining the rebellion; in Sigüenza the insurrection of Cuesta was organizing and was soon to break out. In short, the whole of Spain was in convulsion.[986]
The only explanation of the attitude of the Liberals is that they were living in a fool’s paradise, and seem to have welcomed intervention in the belief that it would kindle national feeling and restore national unity. Hallucination was carried to the point that they anticipated a popular rising like that of 1808, that the forty thousand insurgents in arms would turn against the invader, even that the French troops would abandon their standards for those of Spain, and that England, which had calmly seen the Constitution overthrown in 1814, would provoke a war with all Europe in its defence. They closed their eyes to the fact that, in 1808, the clergy aroused the masses against the French and were now their warmest allies, eager to revenge systematic persecution; that the throne was secretly undermining them, and that they were without resources, for the treasury was exhausted, the army scarce existed save on paper, the magazines were empty, and the party in power was rent into bitterly opposing factions. A kind of delirium seized the deputies when San Miguel on January 9th laid the correspondence before the Córtes, and his replies were clamorously approved without distinction of party.[987]
THE FRENCH INVASION
Yet this effervescence soon subsided. A decisive victory gained by the insurgents at Brihuega, not far from Madrid, on January 24th, threw the capital into a tremor and, on February 16th, the Córtes adopted a decree looking to the transfer of the Government in case of necessity.[988] New Córtes opened their sessions March 1st and their first thought was to place themselves in safety, carrying with them Fernando, both as a hostage and as necessary to the assumption that the government of Spain travelled with them. Resistance on his part postponed the move until March 20th, when the exodus to Seville took place. There they remained until June, when the approach of the French necessitated a further flight and, on the 9th, Cádiz was selected as the place of refuge. This time Fernando resolutely refused to fly from his liberators and, as coercion of the monarch was incompatible with the theory that he was still governing, it was assumed that he was incapacitated by reason of a temporary delirium; he was deposed and a Regency was appointed which ordered the transfer to Cádiz; on the 12th the king and royal family left Seville; the Córtes adjourned to meet in Cádiz June 18th; in four days Fernando was declared to be again in his right mind and the Regency resigned. The spectacle of a flying Government dragging with it a captive king, whom it recognized as still actively reigning, was worse than ludicrous; it gave to Fernando a claim on the sympathy which he had forfeited, and served as an incentive and an excuse for cruel reprisals.[989]
Meanwhile the army of invasion had been gathering on the border under the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of Louis XIV. From Bayonne, on April 2d, he issued a manifesto to the effect that he did not come to make war but to liberate a captive king, to restore the Altar and the Throne, to release the priesthood from exile, and the whole people from a domination that was preparing the destruction of Spain. On April 7th the army crossed the Bidassoa, consisting of 91,000 men, of whom 35,000 were Spanish royalists. Its discipline was perfect and its conduct admirable. Everywhere it was received as a liberator, with cries of “Viva el Rey absoluto, Viva la Religion y la Inquisicion.” Resistance was impossible and, although five armies had been organized, none worthy of mention was attempted, except in Catalonia, where the indomitable Mina prolonged the useless struggle until November, and at Cádiz, where the so-called Government was battling for existence. Siege was laid there on June 23d, and was prolonged until October 1st, when Fernando was ceremoniously conveyed to the camp of his French deliverers. Yet, if rhetoric could have repelled the invaders, they would have been glad to escape from the eloquence which accompanied a solemn declaration of war on April 29th, when Flórez Calderon boasted that the breasts of the deputies would make an impenetrable rampart around the constitutional King and his family.[990]
If the French came as pacifiers, they made a mistake in bringing with them a Junta Provisional of four rabid royalists, formally installed at Ozarzun, April 9th. It assumed to be the Government and issued a manifesto rescinding all the acts of the Revolution and restoring the conditions prior to March 7, 1820.[991] It used its authority in such unsparing proscriptions that even the royalists became alarmed and appealed to de Martignac, the royal commissioner accompanying Angoulême, pointing out the evils to be apprehended from such ferocity. Quarrels within the Junta afforded an excuse for superseding it, and Angoulême, on reaching Madrid, empowered the Councils of Castile and Indias to nominate a Regency, at the head of which was the Duke del Infantado. This body, on June 4th, published a manifesto promising to use its power to prevent persecutions and excesses, to maintain internal peace, execute the laws and make the royal power respected.[992]
These were fair words, belied by acts. The whole arrangement had been dictated by secret instructions from Fernando, and proscription and persecution continued as active as ever. The Regency confirmed a measure of the Junta organizing bodies of so-called Royalist Volunteers, whose duties consisted in arresting and imprisoning all whom greed or malevolence might designate as objects of suspicion, in which work they were aided by the mob, always ready for violence and rapine. In Saragossa fifteen hundred persons were dragged to prison by the populace led by priests and frailes. In Navarre, the guerrilla chief known as el Trapense committed revolting excesses. In Madrid and Córdova the gaols were crowded with prisoners. This work went on in most of the towns, as the national forces retreated, the victims being mostly citizens of wealth and position, while the pulpits resounded with exhortations to persecution and extermination and the French troops, in so far as they could, restrained the outrages.[993]
RELEASE OF FERNANDO
Despite his reluctance to interfere, Angoulême felt called upon to put an end to the cruelty and impolicy of these persecutions and, on his way to Cádiz, he issued from Andujar, August 8th, a decree forbidding arrests by the Spanish authorities without authorization from the commandants of the troops of the districts, who were instructed to liberate all political prisoners, and to arrest those who contravened these orders, while all periodicals were subjected to the inspection of the commandants. The foreign ministers, however, protested against this as an invasion of Spanish independence, which emboldened the Regency to remonstrate in a haughty and insolent manner. The Royalist Volunteers of Navarre, in a manifesto of August 20th, were prodigal of insults and menaces to the duke; a memorial addressed to him, August 23d, signed by Eguia and a large number of military chiefs and priests, stigmatized his effort at pacification as an attempt to perpetuate an impious faction, and demanded the restoration of the Inquisition. Wherever there were no French troops the decree was ignored and finally Angoulême, whether instructed by his court or afraid openly to oppose the Regency, issued an explanatory order, which virtually annulled the decree. Evidently there was to be no peace for the distracted land.[994] Even the Regency felt it necessary to disclaim responsibility for the horrors enacting on every hand. August 10th, it ordered the prosecution of the rioters who, at Alcalá, Guadalajara and Torrejon had committed terrible excesses under pretext of avenging the transfer of the king to Cádiz and, on August 13th, it commanded the people to restrain their zeal in making arrests but, while it was powerful to excite passion it was powerless to enforce order.[995]
When, in view of the hopelessness of further resistance at Cádiz, Fernando was informed, September 28th, that he was at liberty to seek the French camp, a tumult arose and a demand for guarantees. He summoned the ministers, telling them that he desired to give assurances and ordering José María Calatrava to draw up a decree declaring of his own free will and, on the faith of his royal word, that he would adopt a form of government assuring the happiness of the nation, the personal security, the property and the civil liberty of Spaniards, with complete oblivion of the past. The amnesty was rendered complete with elaborate details and, when it was presented to him for signature on the 30th, he said that, to remove all doubts, he would make some changes with his own hand, which he accordingly did, rendering some of the clauses clearer and more emphatic.[996] When, on the next day, he was received by Angoulême, he shut himself up with the Duke del Infantado and Victor Damien Saez, his former confessor, whom he appointed universal minister and, before the colloquy was over, there was drawn up and signed a decree of two articles; the first declared null and void all acts since March 7, 1820; the second confirmed the proscriptions of the Junta of Ozarzun and the Regency. Printed copies of this, together with that of the day before, were circulated to the no small perplexity of all concerned. Then General Bourmont, the French commander, learned that Ferdinand had passed secret sentence of death on some prominent liberals there present, whereupon they were conveyed on naval vessels to Gibraltar and saved from his sanguinary vengeance. This was but a foretaste of the wrath to come.[997] Prescriptive and oppressive measures followed each other and the persecution inaugurated by the Regency was sharpened and systematized.