When Labrador presented his powers, and required the usual return, M. Champagny replied, these things were mere matters of form, and wholly unconnected with the essential object of which they were to treat. Buonaparte, indeed, had determined to force from Ferdinand the form of a voluntary renunciation, but he and his ministers considered all other forms as useless. The Frenchman proceeded to talk of the propositions: Labrador declared he could discuss no subject till the previous formalities had been observed; and asked if the King were at liberty? M. Champagny made answer, undoubtedly he was. Then, said the Spaniard, he ought to be restored to his kingdom. But M. Champagny replied, that, with respect to his return, it was necessary he should come to a right understanding with the Emperor, either personally or by letter. Already, Ferdinand had had sufficient reason to feel himself a prisoner; this language was such as could leave no doubt. But that the violence might be apparent and notorious, Cevallos ♦April 28.♦ addressed a note to the French minister of state, saying, that the King had left Madrid with the intention of meeting the Emperor at Burgos, on the assurances which the Grand Duke of Berg, the ambassador Beauharnois, and General Savary, had given of his approach; and that, in consequence of the agitation of the public mind in Spain, it was impossible to answer longer for the tranquillity of the people, especially as they were apprized that their King had now been six days at Bayonne. He had, in the most solemn manner, promised them on his departure that he would speedily return. This, therefore, he was about to do; he now made known his intentions, that they might be communicated to the Emperor, whose approbation they would doubtless meet; and he should be ready to treat, in his dominions, on all convenient subjects, with any person whom it might please his Imperial Majesty to authorize. No answer was returned to this dispatch; but the spies within the palace and the guards without were doubled. A guard at the door even ordered the King and his brother one night to retire to their apartments. Ferdinand’s mind was not yet so subdued to his fortunes as to brook this insult. He complained bitterly of it; and the Governor in consequence soothed him with courteous language, and expressed his disapprobation of such conduct. The act, however, was repeated; and, not choosing to expose himself a third time to insults, which he had no means of resenting, he abstained from going out.
♦Buonaparte sends for Charles and the Queen to Bayonne.♦
Buonaparte had expected that Ferdinand would more easily be intimidated into compliance; in that case he would have recognized the validity of the father’s abdication; which, in fact, he did virtually acknowledge, while treating with the son for his renunciation. He now found it necessary to alter his plan of proceedings, and ordered Murat to send off Charles and the Queen as expeditiously as possible to Bayonne. There was no danger of exciting any popular commotion by removing them; but the deliverance of Godoy was also to be effected; and artifice must be employed for this, unless he resorted immediately to force, which it was his purpose to avoid till the whole of the royal family were in his hands. The release of the fallen favourite had been requested of Ferdinand during his stay at Vittoria. He replied, that he had promised his people to publish the result of a process, on which the honour of many of his subjects, and the preservation of the rights of the crown, depended. Throughout the whole extent of Spain, he said, there was not a single district, however small, which had not addressed complaints to the throne against that prisoner: the joy at his arrest had been general, and all eyes were fixed upon the proceedings. Nevertheless, he gave his royal word, that, if, after a full examination of the case, Godoy should be condemned to death, he would remit that punishment in consequence of the Emperor’s interposition. At the time when Ferdinand returned this answer to Buonaparte, he received advices from the Junta of government that Murat had required them to release Godoy; threatening, if they refused, to deliver him by force, and put his guards to the sword if they offered the slightest resistance. They were informed, in reply, of the answer which had been sent to Bayonne, and were instructed to tell the Grand Duke, if he renewed his applications, that the business was in treaty between the two sovereigns, and that the result depended exclusively on the decision of the King.
♦Godoy released by Murat, and sent to Bayonne.♦
The French have at all times had less public faith than any other nation in Europe; but whether under their old monarchy, their democracy, or the absolute tyranny in which that democracy had its natural end, they have effectually protected their agents and partizans in other countries. Godoy had been the creature of France, and Buonaparte was resolved to save him: he treated, therefore, the letter of Ferdinand with contempt; and, having recourse to direct falsehood, sent information to Murat, that the Prince of Asturias had put the prisoner entirely at his disposal, and ordered him to demand and obtain the surrender of his person. ♦Apr. 20.♦ A note was accordingly delivered to the Junta, in Murat’s name, by General Belliard, demanding the prisoner. This, he said, was only a new proof of the interest which the Emperor took in the welfare of Spain; for his Imperial Majesty could not recognize as King any other than Charles IV.; and, by removing the Prince of the Peace, he wished to deprive malevolence itself of the possible belief, that that monarch would ever restore him to confidence and power. One member of the government, Don Francisco Gil, protested against yielding to the demand, because it was not authorized by Ferdinand their King: the others deemed it wiser to submit, and the Infante D. Antonio declared, that it depended upon their compliance in this point whether his nephew should be King of Spain. ♦Memoria de Azanza y O’Farrel, p. 25.♦ The Marquis de Castellar, therefore, to whose custody Godoy had been committed, was instructed to deliver him up, and he was removed by night. Had the people been aware that this minister was thus to be conveyed away from their vengeance, that indignation which soon afterwards burst out would probably have manifested itself now, and Godoy would have perished by their hands. He was immediately sent under a strong escort to Bayonne.
♦He is reinstated as Charles’s minister.♦
In obtaining the release of this wretch, Buonaparte had probably no other view at the time, than of preserving that uniform system of protection towards his agents, which pride as well as policy dictated. But when he found his designs unexpectedly impeded by the firmness which Ferdinand and his counsellors then displayed, he perceived that Godoy might yet be useful; and when Charles arrived at Bayonne, the favourite was restored to him, and reinstated as minister, that he might, by a last act of office, consummate his own infamy, and complete the destruction of the dynasty which had raised him, and the country which had given him birth. Willing to be revenged on Ferdinand, and now also hating Spain, Godoy, who had hitherto seconded the projects of Buonaparte, because he was duped by the hopes of aggrandizement, now forwarded them with equal eagerness for the sake of vengeance. It was necessary that Charles should be induced to treat his son as an enemy, a rebel, and a traitor; and that, while he punished him as such for having accepted his abdication, he should be made to resume the crown, solely for the purpose of transferring it to a stranger; and that stranger one from whose treacherous and unprovoked aggressions he himself but a few weeks before had attempted to fly to America, abandoning his kingdom. To this resolution, monstrous as it was, the unhappy King was brought; nor was compulsion needful; the ascendancy of the favourite was sufficient to make him fancy it his own act and deed. Fear might have extorted the renunciation; but the manner in which he personally treated his son sprung evidently from his own feelings, thus exasperated.
♦Ferdinand’s proposals to his father.♦
Ferdinand had now only to choose between degradation and destruction. He made, however, one effort in behalf of himself and of Spain, and addressed his father in a letter not less dignified than respectful, in which he at the same time asserted his right to the crown, and his readiness to restore it. ♦May 1.♦ The King, he said, had admitted that the proceedings at Aranjuez were in no degree occasioned or influenced by him; and had told him, that the abdication had been voluntary, and that it was the happiest act of his life. He still declared, that it was an act of his own free-will; but professed that it had been made with the mental reservation of a right to resume the crown whenever he thought proper; and now he reclaimed it, avowing at the same time, that he would neither return to the throne nor to Spain. The fundamental laws of the kingdom conferred the crown upon himself, he said, upon his father’s free resignation of it. His father had freely resigned; and yet now reclaimed his power, without any intention of retaining it. Here, then, he required an act of duty which the son could not perform, without violating the duty which he owed to his subjects. But both might be reconciled; and Ferdinand would willingly restore the crown to his father, on condition, 1. That they both returned to Madrid; 2. That a Cortes should be assembled there; or, if Charles objected to so numerous a body, that all the tribunals and deputies of the kingdom should be convoked; 3. That the renunciation should be executed in due form, in the presence of the council, and the motives stated which induced him to make it: these, Ferdinand said, were the love which he bore to his subjects, and his anxiety to secure their tranquillity, and save them from the horrors of a civil war; 4. That the King should not be accompanied by individuals who had justly excited the hatred of the whole nation; and, 5. That, if the King persisted in his present intention, neither to reign in person nor to return to Spain, Ferdinand should govern in his name: “there is no one,” said he, “who can have a claim to be preferred before me. I am summoned thereto by the laws, the wishes, and the love of my people, and no one can take more zealous and bounden interest in their welfare.”
♦Letter from Charles to his son.