♦Alliance with France.♦
A perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive, by land and by sea, between France and Spain, was declared by this constitution; the contingent which each power was to furnish being to be determined by a particular treaty. Foreigners who had rendered important service to the state; or who might be useful to it by their talents, their invention, or their industry; and those who formed large establishments, or acquired lands for which they paid yearly taxes to the amount of fifty pesos fuertes, might be admitted to the rights of naturalization. ♦Security of persons.♦ Every man’s house was an asylum, not to be entered except by day, and for a specific object, determined by the law, or by an order proceeding from the public authority. No person residing in the Spanish dominions should be arrested, except in flagrante delictu, without a legal and written order, issued by a competent authority, notified to the party, and explaining the grounds of the arrest, and the law in virtue of which it was granted. No Alcayde or jailer should receive or detain a prisoner, till he had entered in his register the warrant of committal: nor might the relations and friends of a prisoner be prevented from seeing him, if they came with an order from the magistrate, unless the judge should have given directions that the prisoner should have no communication with any person. The use of the torture was abolished, and any rigour beyond what the law enjoined was pronounced a crime.
♦Limitation of entails.♦
All existing feoffments, entails, and substitutions, if the property did not amount by itself, or with other possessions held by the same owner, to the annual rent of 5000 pesos fuertes, were abolished, and the owners were to hold it as free property. If it exceeded that value, the owner, at his choice, might ask the King’s permission to make it free. If it exceeded the yearly value of 20,000 pesos fuertes, all above that sum should be free. In the course of one year the King would establish regulations upon this subject; and for the future no property might thus be tied up, except by virtue of the King’s permission, granted in consideration of services rendered to the state, and for the purpose of perpetuating in their rank the families who should thus have deserved; but the property thus to be bound should in no case exceed the annual value of 20,000 pesos fuertes, nor fall short of 5000. ♦Abolition of privileges.♦ The different degrees and classes of nobility were to be preserved with their respective distinctions; but all exemptions hitherto attached to it, from public burthens and duties, were abolished, and nobility was not to be required as a qualification for civil or ecclesiastical employment, nor for military rank either by sea or land. Services and talents were to be the only means of promotion. But no person might obtain public employment in the state or church, unless he had been born in Spain, or naturalized there. The endowments belonging to the different orders of knighthood were only to be bestowed according to their original destination, in recompense of public services; and no individual should hold more than one commandery.
♦Time for introducing the constitution, and for amending it.♦
The constitution was successively and gradually to be brought into use by decrees or edicts of the King, so that the whole should be in execution before the first of January, 1813. The particular charters of the provinces of Navarre, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, were to be examined in the first Cortes, that what should be deemed most convenient to the interest of those provinces and of the nation might be determined upon. Two years after the constitution should have been entirely carried into effect, the liberty of the press was to be established, and organized by a law made in the Cortes. All additions, modifications, and improvements, which it might be deemed expedient to make in this constitution, were to be presented by order of the King, for examination and discussion, to the first Cortes which should be held after the year 1820. And a copy of the constitution, signed by the Secretary of State, was forthwith to be communicated to the Royal Council and to the other councils and tribunals, in order that it might be published and circulated according to accustomed form.
♦The Nobles and Regulars contend for their respective orders.♦
The Notables were not allowed much time for deliberating upon the various provisions of this constitution, which they had been convoked to sanction and not to form. The only two points which called forth any discussion were the limitation of entails, and the declaration of intolerance: the nobles who, by a wise reform of government, when their injurious privileges were taken away, ♦De Pradt, p. 152.♦ would have recovered their just and legitimate influence in the state, contended in vain against the first, which was designed to cut the root of their strength; the latter was unwillingly conceded to the inveterate prejudices of the nation by men whom the enormous falsehoods, the preposterous usages, and the execrable cruelty of their own church had driven into a state of unbelief, less impious than such a superstition. The Vicar-general of the Franciscans presented a memorial signed by the Prelates of the Religious Orders in behalf of those institutions, to show that it was not expedient to abolish them, but that some suppressions, and a limitation of their numbers, would produce all the good that was desired. ♦Nellerto, i. 103.♦ A memoir was also presented in behalf of the Inquisition, by one of its officers, and signed by the Council of Castille, arguing against an apprehended intention of abolishing that tribunal, and advising that it should be enjoined to follow in its proceedings the forms of the episcopal ecclesiastical courts. Both memorials were referred to the legislature, as not being within the scope of the constitution.
♦Joseph appoints his ministers.♦
The members of the Junta, ninety-one in number, subscribed this constitution, and bound themselves to observe it, and as far as in them lay to provide for its observation, believing, they said, that under a government thus defined, and so just a Prince as the one who for their good fortune had fallen to their lot, Spain would be as happy as they desired. The ministry was now completed: Urquijo was appointed Secretary of State, Cevallos Minister for Foreign Affairs, Azanza for the Indies, Mazarredo for the Marine, O’Farrill for the War Department; Jovellanos for the Interior, in his absence and against his consent, repeatedly and firmly refused. The Conde de Cabarrus was appointed Minister of Finance; the news reached him at Burgos, where he was in the midst of the French armies: Cabarrus acted always from impulse rather than principle, and fear and ambition operating upon a vain, rash, unstable temper, he yielded in an unhappy hour, and, contrary to his better mind, accepted the appointment. Pinuela was made Minister of Justice; the Duque del Parque Captain of the Body Guard, the Duque del Infantado Colonel of the Spanish, and the Prince de Castelfranco of the Walloon Guards; the Marquis of Ariza Grand Chamberlain, the Duque de Hijar Grand Master of the Ceremonies, the Conde de Fernan Nuñez Grand Huntsman, the Conde de Santa Colonna Chamberlain.