[IX]
WAR WITH SPAIN
At the signing of the treaty of Tilsit Napoleon had attained an eminence which, had his career ended at that time, would have left him a name revered by all the world—except, perhaps, it be by those enemies whom he had defeated on the field of battle. His star of destiny, however, was soon to be dimmed by acts which he ever afterwards regretted, and which, as he himself more than once declared, were the means to the end which finally caused his decline and fall.
Napoleon now turned his attention to Spain, where scenes shocking to morality were being enacted under the protection of Charles IV., the old and imbecile Bourbon king, in order, as he then believed, to insure the success of his "continental system." Ferdinand, the crown prince, had formed a party against his father and was attempting to dethrone him, while murderous courtiers filled the halls of the royal palace of Madrid, and dictated laws to the crumbling monarchy.
The vast extent to which the prohibited articles and colonial manufactures of England found their way into the Spanish peninsula, and especially into Portugal, and thence through the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers into France itself, had fixed the attention of Napoleon, who was exasperated at the violation of his "Berlin decrees" against the continental traffic with England. In truth, a proclamation issued at Madrid shortly before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the Spanish court, and to trace every violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance. Napoleon knew that the Spanish cabinet, like that of Austria, was ready to declare itself the ally of Russia, Prussia and England, when the battle of Jena came to deceive the hopes of the coalition. The last hour of the ancient regime was at hand beyond the Pyrenees; Napoleon felt himself called upon to give the signal to sound the fearful knell of its interment.
A treaty was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th of October 1807 between France and Spain, providing for the immediate invasion of Portugal by a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of 27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be assembled at Bayonne ready to take the field by the end of November, in case England should lend an army for the defense of Portugal, or the people of that country meet Junot by a national insurrection. Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were everywhere received with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He arrived in Portugal, on a peremptory order from Napoleon, late in November. The contingent of Spaniards arrived there also, and placed themselves under Junot's command.
On November 29th, and but a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon, the prince-regent fled precipitately and sailed for the Brazils. The disgust of the Portugese at this cowardly act was eminently useful to the invaders, and with the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the conqueror took down the Portugese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquility. "The House of the Braganza (Bourbon's), had ceased to reign," as announced in the "Moniteur" at Paris.
Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp; but he had all along considered it as a place of minor importance, and availing himself of the treaty of Fontainebleau,—although there had been no insurrection of the Portugese, he ordered his army of 40,000 men, named in the treaty, to proceed slowly but steadily into the heart of Spain and, without opposition. The royal family quietly acquiesced in this movement for some months, being apparently much more interested in its own petty conspiracies and domestic broils. A sudden panic at length seized the king and his minister, who prepared for flight. On the 18th of March, 1808, the house of Godoy, the court favorite, was sacked by the populace, Godoy himself assaulted, and his life saved with extreme difficulty by the royal guards, who placed him under arrest. At this Charles IV. abdicated his throne in terror, and on the 20th of March Ferdinand his son was proclaimed king at Madrid amid a tumult of popular applause.
Murat had, ere this, assumed command of all the French troops in Spain, and hearing of the extremities to which the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded the capital with 30,000 troops and on the 23rd of March took possession of it in person at the head of 10,000 more. Charles IV., meanwhile, dispatched messengers both to Napoleon and to Murat asserting that his abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their assistance against his son.