♦Regency appointed by the Prince.♦
The Prince had appointed a regency the day before his embarkation, and the edict was made public on the next morning. Having endeavoured, he said, by all possible means to preserve the neutrality which his subjects had hitherto enjoyed, having exhausted his treasury, and after all other sacrifices, gone the length of shutting his ports against his old and faithful ally, the King of Great Britain, exposing thus the commerce of the country to total ruin, ... he saw that the troops of the Emperor of the French, to whom he had united himself on the continent in the persuasion that he should be no farther disquieted, were marching towards his capital. To avoid, therefore, the effusion of blood, for these troops came with professions of not committing the slightest hostility, ... knowing also that his royal person was their particular object, and that if he himself were absent, his subjects would be less disturbed, he had resolved for their sakes to remove, with the whole royal family, to his city of Rio de Janeiro, and there establish himself till a general peace. The persons whom he appointed to govern during his absence, were the Marquez de Abrantes, Francisco da Cunha de Menezes, lieutenant-general, the Principal Castro of the royal council, and Regidor das Justiças, Pedro de Mello Breyner, also of the council, and President of the treasury during the illness of Luiz de Vasconcellos e Souza, and Don Francisco de Noronha, Lieutenant-general, and President of the Board of Conscience. In failure of any of these, the Conde Monteiro Mor was appointed, who was also named for president of the Senado da Camara, with the Conde de Sampaio, or in his place Dom Miguel Pereira Forjaz, and the Dezembargador do Paço and Procurador da Coroa, Joam Antonio Salter de Mendonça, for the two secretaries. These governors were instructed to preserve, as far as possible, the kingdom in peace; to see that the French troops were well quartered and provided with every thing needful during their stay, to take care that no offence was offered them, or if offered, to punish it severely, and to preserve that harmony which ought to be kept with the armies of two powers to which Portugal was united on the continent.
♦Junot advances rapidly.♦
Junot meantime had re-established the bridge over the Zezere, but not without difficulty. The river, at all times a strong and rapid stream, was swoln with rains; the work was more than once frustrated, and some of the workmen drowned. So impatient was he to proceed, that he had begun to pass over his men in boats. Hastening on with his usual rapidity over the marshes of Gollegam, he reached Santarem to dinner on the 28th. Here he met the messenger on his return whom he had dispatched from Abrantes, and the report of this person increased his anxiety. He ordered the Capitam Mor de Aviz, at whose house he was entertained, to provide him a horse: this gentleman happened to possess a very beautiful one, and Junot discovering that he had attempted to conceal the animal, was only dissuaded from putting him to death by the supplications of his wife; but he made him walk beside him, bare-headed, to the jail, and then dismissed him with every mark of ignominy. Time was when a Portugueze officer would have wiped out such an injury in the blood of him who inflicted it; it is fortunate that in this instance a forbearance suited to the times was shown. The French general reached Cartaxo that night; about an hour after midnight he was awakened with intelligence that the royal family had actually embarked, and it produced a fit of rage like madness.
♦The French enter Lisbon.♦
The next day he was met by a deputation whom the governors sent to compliment him on his approach, a measure upon which the people commented with just severity. ♦Neves, i. 134.♦ A few persons volunteered on the same obsequious service; men, probably, who having adopted the principles of the revolution in its better days, adhered to the French party under all its changes. In the course of the day the advanced guard arrived in the immediate vicinity of the city, and Junot himself saw the ships with that prey on board in the hope of which he had advanced with such rapidity, conveying the family of Braganza beyond his power, and beyond that of his mighty master. ♦Obs. Port. p. 19.♦ The troops arrived without baggage, having only their knapsacks, and a half gourd slung from the girdle as a drinking cup; their muskets were rusty, and many of them out of repair; the soldiers themselves mostly barefoot, foundered with their march, and almost fainting with fatigue and hunger. The very women of Lisbon might have knocked them on the head. Junot reached Sacavem between nine and ten at night. The next morning the royal guard of police went on to meet him at an early hour. Without halting in Lisbon, he hurried on to Belem, and entering the battery of Bom-successo, satisfied himself by ocular demonstration that the Portugueze squadron was beyond his reach; ♦Neves, i. 215.♦ he fired, however, upon those merchant-ships, which not having been ready in time, were now endeavouring to escape. Very many were thus detained, for the Prince’s orders to spike the guns had only been partially obeyed, having been countermanded by the governors; ♦Neves, i. 184.♦ and this was another of their acts for which the people could assign no adequate or excusable cause. Junot immediately sent a battalion to garrison Fort St. Juliens, and then returned to Lisbon, with hardly any other guard than some Portugueze troops whom he had met on the way and ordered to follow him; thus accompanied, he paraded as in triumph through the principal streets. It was raining heavily, yet the streets were filled with a melancholy and wondering crowd. The shops were shut, the windows and varandas full of anxious spectators. The gestures of all those who saluted him as he passed, either for former acquaintance, or flattery, or fear, he returned with studied courtesy and stateliness. In this manner he proceeded to the house of Baraō de Quintella, in the Rua d’Alegria, one of the most opulent of the Portugueze merchants. The palace of Bemposta had been prepared for him, and the Senado da Camara assigned for his household expenses a monthly contribution of 12,000 cruzados. ♦Neves, i. 216–7.♦ He received the money, and compelled Quintella to be at the whole charge of his establishment.
During the night before his entrance the streets had been placarded with a proclamation in French and Portugueze, saying, “Inhabitants of Lisbon, my army is about to enter your city. I come to save your port and your Prince from the malignant influence of England. But that Prince, otherwise respectable for his virtues, has let himself be dragged away by the perfidious counsellors who surrounded him, to be by them delivered to his enemies: his subjects were regarded as nothing, and your interests were sacrificed to the cowardice of a few courtiers. People of Lisbon, remain quiet in your houses; fear nothing from my army, nor from me: it is only our enemies and the wicked who ought to fear us. The great Napoleon, my master, sends me for your protection; I will protect you.” This proclamation was not without effect upon that numerous class of the community who think little and know nothing. Only those persons, indeed, who were in the confidence of government, knew what was the real state of things; and many persuaded themselves the sole object of the French was to occupy the ports, that British commerce might be effectually excluded. ♦Miserable plight of the French who first entered.♦ The state in which the French entered, very much contributed to this short delusion; for they came in not like an army in collected force, with artillery and stores, ready for attack or defence, but like stragglers seeking a place of security after some total rout. Not a regiment, not a battalion, not even a company arrived entire: many of them were beardless boys, and they came in so pitiable a condition, as literally to excite compassion and charity[18]; foot-sore, bemired and wet, ragged and hungered and diseased. ♦Neves, i. 213.♦ Some dropped in the streets, others leant against the walls, or lay down in the porches, till the Portugueze, with ill-requited humanity, gave them food, and conveyed them to those quarters, which they had not strength to find out for themselves. Junot, however, well knew that he risked nothing by this disorder; his first object was speed, his next security; and while he was pushing on with the van of his army, Laborde, who had accompanied him as far as Santarem, ♦Neves, i. 213.♦ remained in that city to collect the following troops and provide the means of transport.
♦1807.
December.
The next day, December 1, was the anniversary of the Acclamation, ... of that revolution which in 1640 had restored Portugal to the rank of an independent kingdom, and given its crown to the rightful heir. What a day for those inhabitants of Lisbon who loved their country, and were familiar with the history of its better ages! The second division was now come up, with the artillery and baggage; ... powder waggons creaked along the streets; thousands, and tens of thousands, whom the destruction of trade and the dissolution of government had thrown out of employ, were wandering about the city, and the patroles and the whole force of the police was employed in calming and controlling the agitated multitude. The parish ministers went from house to house, informing the inhabitants that they must prepare to quarter the French officers, and collecting mattresses and blankets for the men. In the midst of all this so violent a storm of wind arose[19], that it shook the houses like an earthquake, and in the terror which it occasioned many families fled into the open country: windows were blown in, and houses unroofed; the treasury and arsenal were damaged, and the tide suddenly rose twelve feet. ♦Obs. Port. 22.♦ The troops entered Lisbon mostly by night, and without beat of drum. On the 3rd, 11,000 men were posted in the city, from Belem to the Grilo, and from the castle to Arroios; and as the first fruits of that protection which the religion of the country was to experience, all persons in the great convents of Jesus, the Paulistas, and St. Francisco da Cidade, who had any relations by whom they could be housed, were ordered to turn out, that the French soldiers might be accommodated in their apartments. This measure produced a great effect upon those who had for a moment been deluded by the professions of the enemy. The generals of division and brigade took possession of the houses of the principal merchants, and of those fidalgos who accompanied the Prince.