Murat, with his misleading pictures of a country which he did not know, tickled the conqueror’s ambition, and this resulted in Napoleon writing to his brother Louis, who was then in Holland:
“Being concerned that I shall have no solid peace with England without giving a great impulsion to the Continent, I have decided to put a French Prince on the throne of Spain.”[5]
[5] “Des Documents Historiques publiés par Louis Bonaparte,” Paris, 1820.
Murat’s power was mainly due to the reports which had reached Spain of his great feats of arms, and the priests had admired Napoleon as the restorer of the churches in France; but Murat had not counted on the revulsion of feeling which ensued when the Spaniards found that the soldiers of their ally were impregnated with the doctrines of Voltaire and Rousseau, and as the imprudence of the French fanned the flame of suspicion it gradually worked up to a fire of fanaticism.
But the Emperor was quite firm in the idea of his imperial hand wielding the Spanish sceptre, so he sent for Izquierdo, and asked him if the Spaniards would not be glad to have him as their Sovereign.
“Very,” returned Izquierdo, “if Your Majesty will first renounce the diadem of France.”
Bonaparte did not feel flattered at the Spaniard’s reply, but, anxious to set the affairs straight in the Peninsula, he left Paris for Bordeaux on April 2.
In the meanwhile Maria Luisa and her husband had been highly pleased at the arrival of Murat at the Court. The unhappy Sovereigns had been treated with the greatest disrespect by their son since his accession to the throne. They were told to go to Badajoz, in spite of their protestations of the unsuitability of the climate to their ailments. They were full of fears that the people’s rage would lead any moment to the death of their idolized Godoy. Misfortune seemed imminent at any moment, and poor Charles, with his rheumatic pains, and unable even to count upon his royal income, was in a sad state of depression when the news of Murat’s installation in the palatial abode of the fallen favourite inspired them with hope.
Neither the Grand Duke of Berg nor the Ambassador Beauharnais had recognized the son as King, although all the rest of the diplomatic corps had done so; so, encouraged by this fact, they wrote to Murat through the medium of their daughter, the Queen of Etruria. The perusal of this correspondence gives an idea of the humiliation of Charles IV. and his Queen, for, as the Duke of Rovigo says:
“The letters of the royal parents show their consternation and depression, and the violence must have been very great for them to be in fear of their lives, and to implore a retreat which would suit their health, and where they could spend the rest of their days in safety.”[6]