So Napoleon, anxious to please his ally, sent for the Prince of the Peace, and the party was complete.
At the meeting at which it was hoped Napoleon would bring the Royal Family to a satisfactory understanding there were very violent scenes. It was natural that the sight of their renegade son should revive all the bitterness of the King and Queen’s recent trials, but it was a pity that they did not restrain the passions which made them lose their royal dignity.
The Emperor announced that Ferdinand would restore on the morrow to His Majesty the crown he had snatched from his father’s brow. This Ferdinand stoutly declared he would not do, and Maria Luisa, who had destroyed the proofs of her son’s guilt in the conspiracy of the Escorial, was now so mad with rage that, according to the report of Caballero, she cried to the Emperor to punish the crimes of her son by committing him to prison.
Ferdinand was silent during the interview, but a few hours later he wrote to his father, maintaining that the abdication had been a fait accompli and declaring that he would only give up the crown at the request of the Cortes and all the tribunals.
To this letter the King replied:
“My Son,
“The perfidious counsels of the people about you have brought Spain into a very critical condition, and only the Emperor can save it.... You have been too easily led away by the hatred which your late wife had for France, and you have thoughtlessly shared her unjust feelings against my Ministers, your mother, and myself.
“I was obliged, in support of my rights as a King and a father, to have you arrested, for your papers contained proof of your crime. But as I am approaching the end of my life, and I was miserable at the idea of my son dying in a dungeon, I let myself be softened by your mother’s tears. And yet my subjects have been upset by the deceitful courses of the faction you formed, and from that time I have had no peace in my life....
“You introduced disorder into my palace, you summoned the Royal Guard against my own person. Your father has been your prisoner; my Prime Minister, whom I created and received into my family, was covered with blood, and taken from one prison to another.... I am King by the right of my fathers. My abdication was due to force and violence. I have nothing to accept from you, nor can I consent to any meeting or to any new and base suggestion on the part of the people about you.”
However, Ferdinand was obstinate, and there seemed no chance of a peaceful settlement of the disgraceful family feud.