The Deputies stood in a circle round Napoleon while their President delivered this base address. For the first, and perhaps the only time in his public life, Buonaparte was at a loss for a reply. He spake indeed more than three-quarters of an hour, but it was vaguely and hesitatingly, in confused and broken sentences, his head bending down, and when he raised it at times, it was only again to let it fall. None of those memorable expressions came from him which the hearers bear away, none of those sparkling sentiments and pointed sentences, ... those coruscations which at other times characterized his discourse. It seemed as if the powers both of thought and of language had forsaken him. From one subject he passed to another unconnectedly, resuming them with as little reason as he had broken them off, and frequently repeating the same flat meaning in the same cold and vapid words. His manifest embarrassment would have been ludicrous to all persons present, if the necessity of restraining themselves had not rendered it as painful to them as it was to himself. So strange and utter a destitution of his wonted talents astonished those who witnessed it. Perhaps Buonaparte was sickened with excess of adulation, and contemplating mournfully the condition to which men, once of proud intellect, patriotic hopes, and generous desires, had debased themselves in subservience to his purposes, regarded them with compassion rather than contempt. Perhaps he compared in sure anticipation the opinion which posterity would pronounce upon these transactions with the language which was now addressed to him. The cloud was not of the understanding alone, but of the heart. The work, he then believed, was done; this was the concluding scene of the drama, the plot had been fully developed, and the intended catastrophe was brought about; but in the hour of success it is scarcely possible that he should not have contrasted the reflections which then came upon him, with those emotions of proud and honourable triumph which he had felt at Lodi, at ♦De Pradt, 153.♦ Marengo, and at Austerlitz, and that comparison may have made him stand amid the circle of his servile instruments humiliated and self-condemned.
♦Joseph enters Spain.♦
On the second morning after this memorable scene the intrusive King entered Spain, as if to take quiet possession of a throne to which he had regularly and lawfully succeeded. ♦July 10.♦ Two decrees were issued from Tolosa, one enjoining that his accession should be proclaimed on the 25th, being Santiago’s day, and that flags should every where be hoisted, and the other customary ceremonies observed; the other required prayers to be made in all churches and convents for a blessing upon his government. ♦July 12.♦ At Vitoria he altered the arms of Spain, directing that the shield should be divided into the six quarterings for Castille, Leon, Aragon, Navarre, Granada, and the Indies, and that in the centre of the shield the eagle which distinguished his Imperial and Royal Family should be borne. From Vitoria also he sent abroad a proclamation, in which, according to the superscription, he manifested to the Spanish nation his generous sentiments, and his desire that the kingdom should recover its pristine splendour. It spake of the security which the new constitution afforded to religion, and to liberty both civil and political; of the revival and improvement of their Cortes; of the institution of a Senate to be at once the protection of individual liberty and the support of the throne, and in which they who should have rendered distinguished services to the state would find an honourable asylum, and an appropriate reward. It promised integrity and independence for the courts of justice; and that merit and virtue should be the only titles to public employment. “If his desires did not deceive him,” he said, “their agriculture and commerce would quickly flourish, being set free for ever from the fiscal trammels which had destroyed them. I come among you,” he said, “with the utmost confidence, surrounded by estimable men, who have not concealed from you any thing which they believed to be useful for your interests. Blind passions, deceitful voices, and the intrigues of the common enemy of the Continent, whose only view is to separate the Indies from Spain, have precipitated some among you into the most dreadful anarchy. My heart is rent at the thought. Yet this great evil may in a moment cease. Spaniards, unite yourselves! come around my throne! and do not suffer intestine divisions to rob me of the time and consume the means which I would fain employ solely for your happiness.”
♦Buonaparte returns to Paris.♦
The Intruder and his ministers halted at Vitoria till the French, of whose speedy and complete success no doubt was entertained, should have chastised the insurgents, and opened for them the way to Madrid. Buonaparte meantime returned to Paris. In every place through which he passed he was received with more than usual demonstrations of triumphant joy. The population of town and country gathered together to behold and to applaud him. Houses were hung with garlands, and the streets through which he rode were formed into parterres of flowers, and overbowered with shrubs. From Bayonne to Toulouse and Bordeaux, and from thence to Nantes and Tours and to the capital, it was one continued festival. It gratified the ambition of the French to know that their great Emperor had placed his brother upon the throne of Spain; this was another step toward that universal empire which they believed to be within their reach. They had been kept in ignorance of the nefarious artifices by which the usurpation had been brought about, and little did they apprehend that the consequences of this usurpation would carry tears and mourning into almost every family in France, and bring upon it the full and overflowing measure of retribution.
CHAPTER VIII.
PROCEEDINGS IN ENGLAND. SUCCESSES OF THE FRENCH IN THE NORTH OF SPAIN: THEIR FAILURE IN CATALONIA. MONCEY REPULSED FROM VALENCIA. DUPONT ENTERS CORDOBA. BATTLE OF RIO SECO. THE INTRUDER ENTERS MADRID. SURRENDER OF DUPONT’S ARMY. THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MADRID.
♦1808.