After the Painting by Goya in the Museo del Prado
And then the Queen once more poured into her friend’s ears her doubts and fears as to her future and that of Charles IV.
From the time Maria Antonia of Naples married the eighteen-year-old Prince of Asturias in 1802, she proved herself an active partisan of her husband and his tutor Escoiquiz, and if she had lived longer her clear-sightedness might have prevented the surrender of Spain to Bonaparte.
In obedience to her mother, Queen Caroline of Naples, the Princess of Asturias was unremitting in her efforts to contravert the plans of her irreconcilable enemy Napoleon, which were subsequently furthered by the short-sighted policy of Godoy and Maria Luisa. Secret and almost daily were the letters which passed between Princess Maria Antonia and Queen Caroline, and, as the correspondence was conducted in cipher, it entered the Court of Naples without attracting any attention, and thus many diplomatic secrets from Madrid travelled thence to England. In the bitter warfare of personal hatred and political intrigue no accusations were too bad to be levelled by one part of the Spanish Royal Family against the other.
The partisans of the Prince and Princess of Asturias declared that Godoy and Maria Luisa filled the King’s mind with suspicions against Ferdinand, even to the point of attributing parricidal thoughts to him, so that the King might disinherit him and put Godoy in his place. And the followers of Godoy declared that the Princess of Asturias not only had designs against the Prince of the Peace, but against the Sovereigns themselves.
The secret correspondence between Queen Caroline and her daughter was found years afterwards in the house of the Duke of Infantado, and it showed the hatred of the Prince and his wife towards the Queen’s favourite, whilst speaking of the King as if he already had one foot in the grave. One of these letters to Naples was intercepted by Napoleon, and it fully convinced him of the part played by Prince Ferdinand and his wife with regard to France.
The people’s discontent with Godoy was fostered by Ferdinand’s followers, and, indeed, the government of the turbulent country required a more expert hand than that of the favourite.
The clergy were also enraged when they heard that the Minister had received a Bull from Rome for the reform of the monastic institutions, and they exalted Ferdinand to the sky as a patron and protector of the altars, whilst they circulated exaggerated stories with regard to those in power, and his mother was the chief object of these attacks.
When Queen Maria Luisa found the love which the people had formerly professed for her and her husband was now turned into hatred, she said that “Madrid was a place for good Princes and bad Kings.”
Napoleon soon intercepted another letter from Ferdinand’s wife, Maria Antonia, to the Queen of Naples, and he sent it to Carlos IV. to show what dreadful reports she gave of her father and mother-in-law, and how she not only spoke against France with the bitterness of hatred, but she offered to work with all her might to break the alliance of the Spanish Cabinet with the Emperor of the French.