[26] No se pudo evitar que le dieran algunas bofetadas y algunos palos, que algo le desfiguraron aquel rostro bello con que hizo su fortuna y la ruina de la nacion. This is the sort of feeling with which the Spaniards relate the manner of Godoy’s fall. In the same tract, “Manifiesto Imparcial y Exacto,” it is said, that when he secreted himself he took with him some jewels, de que su alma codiciosa pudo ocuparse en momento tan critico; and that he was discovered at last, because he could no longer endure hunger and thirst.
[27] The authors of the official history, published at Madrid, insist that the abdication was a pure voluntary act; that Charles, who was altogether incapable of deceit, displayed the greatest affection towards his son after that event; and that none of the innumerable Spaniards, who with the heroism of martyrs performed their duty through all the horrors of the subsequent struggle, ever entertained the slightest scruple upon that point. They maintain that the letters of the royal parents, which Buonaparte published, are so interpolated by him that they cannot be trusted; and they endeavour to show, that even in those letters proofs may be discovered that no violence was complained of by the writers. Perhaps this is the only point upon which these Spanish authors are not entitled to full and entire credit, ... for they wrote under the sanction and by the appointment of Ferdinand. In every other part, their history, as far as it has reached me, is written with sound judgement and admirable impartiality.
[28] These bitter expressions of the father have never transpired, and this very concealment seems to confirm what all other circumstances render probable, that his abdication at Aranjuez was produced by fear and compulsion. The Queen is said (with an effrontery scarcely credible even when the greatest criminality derives boldness from the highest rank) to have told her son in the presence of the King her husband that he had no right to the crown, for that Charles was not his father. Buonaparte, in his letter to Ferdinand, had indirectly told him he was the child of an adulterous intercourse: and it is more probable that this story of the Queen’s avowal should have been invented and promulgated by him or his agents, for the sake of blackening the royal family, and weakening the popularity of Ferdinand, by destroying his hereditary right, than that so flagitious a declaration should really have been made. I know not whether there be likeness enough of family features to disprove the aspersion of his spurious birth, but I am sure, that in conduct and temper Ferdinand has sufficiently proved himself a Spanish Bourbon.
[29] “Les observateurs de sangfroid, Français et Espagnols, voyaient une crise s’approcher, et la voyaient avec plaisir. Sans une leçon sévère il étoit impossible de ramener à des idées de raison cette multitude égarée.”—Moniteur.
[30] It was reported that a decree was passed for seizing the church plate, and raising a heavy contribution, as had been done in Portugal. A poor ignorant Spaniard, believing this, bought a razor, and sallying out with it, attacked every Frenchman he met. The man was soon secured. Upon his examination he was asked if the razor was his; yes, he replied, by this token, that he had bought it at such a place for five and thirty quartos. Had the French whom he had assaulted and cut, offered him any injury?... No.... For what reason then had he attacked them?... That he might kill them, and as many more Frenchmen as he could; these villains were come to plunder the temples of the living God, and to rob the people of the fruit of their labours, and he had supposed that every honest man would do the same as himself, but he found himself alone when he began. The author of the “Manifiesto Imparcial y Exacto” relates this anecdote, and adds, En Roma y en Grecia este hombre hubiera parecido bien en la lista de los Horacios y de los trescientios. ¡En Madrid estaba destinado a un suplicio! In any country such a man would either have been put to death like a wild beast, or confined as a madman: but the fact, and still more the manner in which it is related, shows the feeling of the Spaniards towards their treacherous invaders.
[31] One of the falsehoods published officially in the Moniteur concerning these transactions was that the Queen of Etruria and the Infante Don Francisco solicited and obtained permission to go to Bayonne, because of the insults to which they were every day exposed, ... and this is so worded as to make it appear that it was the people who insulted them.
[32] This building had been the residence of the British ambassador, Sir Benjamin Keene, in the middle of the last century; there he died, and there he was interred; for there is no burial-place for protestants at Madrid, and the body of a heretic could not be suffered to pollute a Catholic church!
[33] The Moniteur stated the French loss at twenty-five killed, and from forty-five to fifty wounded, that of the Spaniards at “plusieurs milliers des plus mauvais sujets du pays.” On the other hand, D. Alvaro Florez Estrada, on the alleged authority of a return sent by Murat to Berthier, states the loss of the French at 7100, and that of his own countrymen, according, he says, to an account afterwards taken by the government, as not exceeding 200. Both statements are palpably false: in Estrada’s there may probably have been a mistake, (not of the printer, for the numbers are written in words), copied from some misprinted document; because there are accounts which reckon the French loss at 1700. Azanza and O’Farrill quote the Council of Castille as authority for affirming, that of the people 104 were killed, 54 wounded, and 35 missing. This is probably much below the truth: the Council at that time was acting under the fear of Murat, and Azanza and O’Farrill endeavour to pass as lightly as they can over the atrocities committed by that party which they afterwards served to the utmost of their power. Baron Larrey, in his Memoires de Chirurgie Militaire, (t.iii. 139) says, that the wounded of both nations were carried to the French military hospital, and that before night they had received there about 300 patients, 70 of whom belonged to the Imperial Guards. It may be suspected that there were very few Spaniards in this number, ... some of the wounded, we know, having been sent to the military tribunal, and delivered over not to the surgeons, but to the executioners: and it is certain, that in a contest of this kind, where, on the one part, stabbing instruments were almost the only weapons used, there would, on the other, be more persons killed than wounded. Wherever the French were found in small parties, they were massacred. An Englishman who was in the midst of this dreadful scene, told me the carnage was very great, and that he believed the French lost more than the Spaniards. This gentleman happened to be lodging with the same persons with whom I had lodged in the year 1796. Two women were killed in the house. The mistress (an Irish Catholic) dressed up a stool as an altar, with a crucifix in the middle, St. Antonio on one side, and St. I know not who on the other, and before these idols she and her husband and the whole family were kneeling and praying while the firing continued. This poor woman actually died of fear.—In the Memoires d’un Soldat the Mamalukes are said to have made a great slaughter that day. One of them breaking into a house from which a musket had been fired, was run through with a sword by a very beautiful girl, who was immediately cut down by his companions. A man who got his livelihood by the chase, and was an unerring shot, expended eight and twenty cartridges upon the French, bringing down a man with each; when his ammunition was spent, he armed himself with a dagger, and rushing against a body of the enemy, fought till the last gasp.
[34] A party of poor Catalan traders (who are privileged to carry arms) were seized and led to execution. They were met in time by O’Farrill, who, with the French general Harispe, was endeavouring to quiet the city, and Harispe being made by his companion to understand the circumstances of the case, obtained their release. This general distinguished himself greatly during the war by his military talents, and it is an act of justice to relate in what manner he was employed during the dreadful scenes of the 2d of May.
[35] D. Alvaro Florez Estrada says, that care was not taken to dispatch these victims of an atrocious system, ... that their groans were heard through the night, and that to strike the more terror, permission was not given to remove the bodies for interment till after they had lain there two days.