“I confess I embarked badly in the affair [he told Las Cases at St. Helena]. The immorality of it was too patent, the injustice far too cynical, and the whole thing too villainous; hence I failed. The attempt is seen now only in its hideous nudity, stripped of all that is grand, of all the numerous benefits which I intended. Posterity would have extolled it, however, if I had succeeded, and rightly, perhaps, because of its great and happy results.”

It was the Spanish people themselves, not the ruling house, who resented the transfer from Bourbon to Bonaparte.

No sooner was it noised through Spain that the Bourbons had really abdicated, and Joseph Bonaparte had been named king, than an insurrection was organized simultaneously all over the country. Some eighty-four thousand French troops were scattered through the Peninsula, but they were powerless before the kind of warfare which now began. Every defile became a battle-ground, every rock hid a peasant, armed and waiting for French stragglers, messengers, supply parties. The remnant of the French fleets escaped from Trafalgar, and now at Cadiz, was forced to surrender. Twenty-five thousand French soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, but the Spaniards refused to keep their capitulation treaties. The prisoners were tortured by the peasants in the most barbarous fashion, crucified, burned, sawed asunder. Those who escaped the popular vengeance were sent to the Island of Cabrera, where they lived in the most abject fashion. It was only in 1814 that the remnant of this army was released. King Joseph was obliged to flee to Vittoria a week after he reached his capital.

The misfortunes of Spain were followed by greater ones in Portugal. Junot was defeated by an English army at Vimeiro in August, 1808, and capitulated on condition that his army be taken back to France without being disarmed.

CHAPTER XV
DISASTER IN SPAIN—ALEXANDER AND NAPOLEON IN COUNCIL—NAPOLEON AT MADRID

Napoleon amazed at this unexpected popular uprising in Spain, and angry that the spell of invincibility under which his armies had fought, was broken, resolved to undertake the Peninsular war himself. But before a campaign in Spain could be entered upon, it was necessary to know that all the inner and outer wheels of the great machine he had devised for dividing the world and crushing England were revolving perfectly.

Since the treaty of Tilsit he had done much at home for this machine. The finances were in splendid condition. Public works of great importance were going on all over the kingdom; the court was luxurious and brilliant, and the money it scattered, encouraged the commercial and manufacturing classes. Never had fêtes been more brilliant than those which welcomed Napoleon back to Paris in 1807; never had the season at Fontainebleau been gayer or more magnificent than it was that year.

All of those who had been instrumental in bringing prosperity and order to France were rewarded in 1807 with splendid gifts from the indemnities levied on the enemies. The marshals of the Grand Army received from eighty thousand to two hundred thousand dollars apiece; twenty-five generals were given forty thousand dollars each; the civil functionaries were not forgotten; thus Monsieur de Ségur received forty thousand dollars as a sign of the emperor’s gratification at the way he had administered etiquette in the young court.

It was at this period that Napoleon founded a new nobility as a further means of rewarding those who had rendered brilliant services to France. This institution was designed, too, as a means of reconciling old and new France. It created the title of prince, duke, count, baron, and knight; and those receiving these titles were at the same time given domains in the conquered provinces, sufficient to permit them to establish themselves in good style.

The drawing up of the rules which were to govern this new order occupied the gravest men of the country, Cambacérès, Saint-Martin, Hauterive, Portalis, Pasquier. Among other duties they had to prepare the armorial bearings. Napoleon refused to allow the crown to go on the new escutcheons. He wished no one but himself to have a right to use that symbol. A substitute was found in the panache, the number of plumes showing the rank.