“I am very sorry for the grave offence I have committed against my parents and my King and Queen; and it is with the deepest humility that I beg Your Majesty to intercede with papa for permission to kiss his royal feet.
“Ferdinand.”
The Prince’s plea was granted, and the King pardoned his son, whilst ordering the inquiry to be completed against those who had instigated the plot.
Ferdinand sought to prove his horror of the counsels of his late tutor by showing his parents the books he had sent him, with the passages marked which the tutor had considered most appropriate to his situation. The works were “The Life of St. Hermenegildo,” the poem by Morales in honour of the same saint, that of Alfonso the Wise and those of the Prince of Viana, Louis XIII., King of France, and his mother, Marie de Medicis.
Maria Luisa’s maternal affection, and Napoleon’s refusal to allow the publication of any information bearing upon himself or his Ambassador Beauharnais, took all the significance from the inquiry, and, as the matter was thus gradually dropped, the country exonerated the Prince of Asturias from all blame.
Ferdinand’s opposition to Godoy and his mother certainly seemed to have been founded more upon personal aversion than political policy, for when the favourite cooled towards the French on finding that his designs on Portugal were not to be realized, Ferdinand himself began to show favour to the foreigners, and this is proved by his correspondence with Napoleon, which was published in Le Moniteur in 1808.
CHAPTER II
THE OVERTHROW OF GODOY
1804–1808
As Napoleon considered that Ferdinand was only fit to be a tool and reign as a vassal of France, he suggested that the Prince should marry the daughter of his brother Lucien, and this proposal was made quite regardless of the aversion with which his niece regarded the proposed bridegroom.