CHAPTER II.
SECRET TREATY OF FONTAINEBLEAU. INVASION OF PORTUGAL. REMOVAL OF THE ROYAL FAMILY TO BRAZIL. STATE OF PORTUGAL UNDER THE FRENCH USURPATION.
♦1807.
All opposition to Napoleon Buonaparte being at an end upon the continent of Europe, men began to inquire what would be the next object of his restless ambition. Would he execute his long meditated designs against the Turkish empire, parcel out Greece in tributary dukedoms, principalities and kingdoms, and make his way again to Egypt, not risking himself and his army a second time upon the seas, but by a safer land journey, conquering as he went? The imbecile policy of the English in Egypt, the state of that country, and the importance of which it might become in the hand of an efficient government, seemed to invite the French emperor to direct his views thitherward, if he understood his real interests as a conqueror. The scene also which had recently been enacted at Paris by the Jews in Sanhedrim assembled, under his command, appeared to have more meaning than was avowed. It was little likely that he should have convened them to answer questions which there was no reason why he should ask; or to lend their sanction to the conscription, which requiring no other sanction than that of his inexorable tyranny, set all laws, principles, and feelings, at defiance. And though doubtless the deputies indulged gratuitously in impious adulation, yet it was apparent that in some of their blasphemies they echoed the pretensions of the adventurer whom they addressed. When in their hall of meeting they placed the Imperial Eagle over the Ark of the Covenant, and blended the cyphers of Napoleon and Josephine with the unutterable name of God; impious as this was, it was only French flattery in Jewish costume. But when they applied to him the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel, when they called him “the Lord’s anointed Cyrus,” ... “the living Image of the Divinity,” ... “the only mortal according to God’s own heart, to whom He had entrusted the fate of nations, because he alone could govern them with wisdom;” ... these things resembled the abominable language of his Bishops and of his own proclamations, too much to escape notice. And when they reminded him that he had subdued the ancient land of the eternal pyramids, the land wherein their ancestors had been held in bondage, that he had appeared on the banks of the once-sacred Jordan, and fought in the valley of Sichem in the plains of[12] Palestine, such language seemed to indicate a project for resettling them in the Holy Land, as connected with his views concerning Egypt. Nay, as he had successively imitated Hannibal, and Alexander, and Charlemagne, just as the chance of circumstances reminded him of each, was it improbable that Mahommed might be the next object of his imitation? that he might breathe in incense till he fancied himself divine; that adulation, and success, and vanity, utterly unchecked as they were, having destroyed all moral feeling and all conscience, should affect his intellect next; and that, from being the Cyrus of the Lord, he would take the hint which his own clergy had given him, and proclaim himself the temporal Messiah? Nothing was too impious for this man, nothing too frantic; ... and, alas! such was the degradation of Europe and of the world, England alone excepted, that scarcely any thing seemed to be impracticable for him.
Another speculation was, that, in co-operation with the Russians, he would march an army through Persia to the Indies, and give a mortal blow, in Hindostan, to the prosperity and strength of England; for it was one of the preposterous notions of our times, that the power of England depended upon these foreign possessions, ... the acquirements, as it were, of yesterday! An ominous present was said, by the French journalists, to have been sent him by the Persian sovereign, ... two scimitars, one of which had belonged to Timur, the other to Nadir Shah. The intrigues of his emissaries at the Persian court, and with the Mahrattas and Mahommedan powers in Hindostan, were supposed to render this project probable; and the various routes which his army might take were anxiously traced upon the map, by those whose forethought had more of fear in it than of wisdom and of hope. But Buonaparte was now enacting the part of Charlemagne, and had not leisure, as yet, to resume that of Alexander. He had determined upon occupying the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, believing that because of the helplessness of one country, and the state of the court in the other, he might obtain possession of both without resistance, and become master of Brazil and of the Spanish Indies.
♦Rise of D. Manuel de Godoy.♦
Don Manuel de Godoy, Duke of Alcudia and Prince of the[13] Peace, was at this time minister in Spain. He was an upstart, who, because he had been the Queen’s paramour, had attained the highest power in the state, and by whatever qualities he ingratiated himself with the King, possessed his confidence and even his friendship. There was no jealousy in the Queen’s attachment to this minion; she gave him one of the royal family in marriage, but the private life of the favourite continued to be as infamous as the means whereby he had risen. It is said that there was no way so certain to obtain promotion, as by pandering to his vices; and that wives, sisters, and daughters, were offered him as the price of preferment in a manner more shameless than had ever before been witnessed in a Christian country. Certain it is, that the morals of the Spanish court were to the last degree depraved, and that this depravity affected all within its sphere like a contagion. He was rapacious as well as sensual; but as his sensuality was amply fed by the creatures who surrounded him, so was his avarice gratified by the prodigal favour of the crown, and Godoy had nothing to desire beyond the continuance of the authority which he enjoyed. The cruel part of his conduct must be ascribed to that instinctive dread of wisdom and hatred of virtue which such men necessarily feel in their unnatural elevation.
♦Godoy created a prince for making peace with France.♦
Other ministers may have been as vicious; many have been more vindictive; and in ordinary times Godoy might have filled his station without more disgrace than certain of his predecessors, and even with some credit, for vanity led him to patronize arts and science in conformity with the fashion of the age. Pestalozzi’s scheme of education was introduced under his favour into Spain; and vaccination was communicated to the Spanish dominions in America, and to the Philippines by an expedition sent for that sole purpose. But his lot had fallen in times which might have perplexed the ablest statesman; and in proportion as he was tried his incapacity became notorious to all men. The measures for which he was rewarded with a princedom evinced his ignorance of the interests, and his insensibility to the honour of the country. ♦Disgraceful terms of that peace.♦ By the peace of Basle he ceded to the French republic the Spanish part of Hispaniola, which was the oldest possession of the Spaniards in the New World, and therefore, neglected and unproductive as it was, the pride and the character of the nation were wounded by the cession, a cession[14] in direct contravention to the treaty of Utrecht. By the subsequent treaty of St. Ildefonso he contracted an alliance with France offensive and defensive against any power on the continent; now France was the only continental power with whom there was any probability that Spain could be involved in war; the advantage therefore was exclusively on the side of France: and at the time these terms were made, the French republic, notwithstanding its successes in the peninsula, would have been well contented with securing the neutrality of the Spaniards.