A Spanish army entered Portugal under Junot in 1807, with absurd and astounding ignorance mistaking the English for enemies, and the French for friends, to both Peninsular countries. The Marquis del Socorro, who commanded this army, was the tool of the infamous Godoy and the French, and it is thus he spoke of us in the proclamation which he issued at Oporto. He declared his object to be “de vous délivrer de la perfide domination et de la politique ambitieuse des Anglais. * * Tous ensemble, nous vengerons les outrages que la férocité traîtresse des Anglais a faits à toutes les nations de l’Europe!”—Foy, Histoire Guerre. Pénins. liv. ii. pièces justificatives.
The unsuspected testimony of Foy leaves the fearful iniquity of Napoléon’s seizure of the principal fortresses of Spain beyond dispute. “Il y eut,” says he, “dans les moyens par lesquels on s’en rendit maître, un mélange de l’astuce des faibles et de l’arrogance des forts. On n’employa que la ruse pour Pampelune et Saint-Sébastien.” (liv. iii.) The following is his detailed account of the seizure of these several fortresses:—The castle of Montjuic at Barcelona was too difficult of approach for the troops to reach it without being perceived. Duhesme went to the Count d’Ezpeleta, Captain-General of the province: “My soldiers occupy your citadel,” said he. “Open to me this instant the gates of Montjuic; for the Emperor Napoléon has ordered me to place a garrison in your fortresses. If you hesitate, I declare war against Spain, and you will be responsible for the torrents of blood which your resistance will have caused to flow.” The name of Napoléon produced its accustomed effect. The Spanish General was aged and timid, and the only instruction which his government had given him was to avoid taking any step which might embroil them with France. He resigned the keys of Montjuic, and General Duhesme became master of Catalonia. Thus fell without striking a blow, into the power of France, the largest city of the Spanish monarchy—a city which a century before had struggled single-handed, after all Spain had submitted, against the power of Louis XIV.
The gates of the fortress of Pamplona had been opened to the French general Darmagnac as to a friend. But the military authority remained in the hands of the Viceroy, Marquis de Valle-Santoro, and the volunteer battalion of Tarragona, 700 men strong, was lying in the citadel, and performed the military service of the place. Since Cardinal Cisneros, regent of Castile, dismantled all the strong places of Navarre, with the exception of its capital, the received opinion has been that he who commands in Pamplona is master of the province. To command in Pamplona, it is requisite to obtain possession of the citadel. This fortress, built by Philip II., contains within it extensive magazines for munitions of war and mouth, and might hold out for an indefinite period. The French soldiers came on fixed days, in undress and unarmed, to receive their provisions in the interior of the citadel. The Spanish troops maintained a strict guard upon these occasions, and never failed to have the drawbridge raised during the entire time that the distribution lasted. During the night of the 15th February, 1808, Darmagnac collected 100 grenadiers at his lodgings, which he had taken “non sans dessein,” says Foy, on the esplanade which separates the town from the citadel. They entered their general’s residence with their firelocks and cartouches, one after the other, in profound silence. At seven o’clock on the morning of the 16th, sixty men went to receive their provisions as usual, but were commanded by an officer of intelligence and daring named Robert. Under pretext of waiting for the quarter-master, the men stopt, some of them on the drawbridge and some beyond it. The drawbridge was thus prevented from being raised. It rained; and some of them entered the guard-house, as it were to escape from the shower. “A un signal donné,” (says Foy) they leapt upon the arms of the guard, where they lay ranged at one side; and the two sentinels were immediately disarmed. The Spaniards could not extricate themselves from the hands of the French, who filled the guard-house. Those who made any resistance were beat with the butt-ends of muskets. By this time arrived the grenadiers who had been lying in ambuscade at the general’s house. They proceeded straight to a bastion of 15 guns, directed on the entrance to the ditch. The forty-seventh French battalion, quartered not far distant, followed close on the grenadiers. The rampart was covered with Frenchmen, before the Spanish garrison, shut up in their casernes, had even thought of putting themselves on their defence. Darmagnac announced to the Viceroy and the Council of Navarre that, as he would probably have some stay to make in Pamplona, he had been obliged for the security of his troops to introduce into the citadel a battalion which would do duty there in concert with the national garrison—“a slight change, he added, which, instead of altering the good understanding between, them, should only be regarded as a tie the more between two reciprocally faithful allies!”
Ties of a similar character became established daily. Thouvenot, General of Brigade, had been sent to San Sebastian, with a commission to assemble in one dépôt the soldiers who arrived from France on their way to join their respective corps in Spain. “This dépôt (concludes Foy) becoming presently very numerous found itself in possession of the place, without the detachments of the Spanish regiments of the King and of Africa, who formed the garrison, perceiving it. It is thus that the French became masters of Figuera, Barcelona, Pamplona, and San Sebastian; and then their military operations in the Peninsula became placed on a reasonable basis! The mask was thrown off, the interested observers whom Spain had received as allies, for a time dissembled their projects, but they no longer sought to conceal the means which they adopted for their accomplishment.”—Hist. Guerre. Pénins. liv. iii.
Yet these are the events which Thiers, in his Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, has the coolness to describe, without one word of reprobation, censure, or comment, in the following words:
“As soon as the French troops crossed the frontiers they were quartered at Saint Sebastian, Pampeluna, Rosas, Figueras, and Barcelona.”
Of the character and deeds of Godoy, the chief actor in these transactions, the following brief but on the whole satisfactory sketch is given by Thiers:—
“This man, whom an extraordinary degree of favour had raised up to the supreme power in Spain, governed the state as an absolute master for more than ten years; he had confirmed his power by filling the government offices with his creatures. He had become the dispenser of every favour and every boon, and was so completely the medium of the king’s decisions, that the monarch answered to every applicant: ‘Call upon Emanuel,’—the prince being named Emanuel Godoy. This supreme authority had stirred up against him a general detestation, which had counterbalanced the favour he enjoyed, because he had of course committed many acts of injustice in building up his power. The Prince of Asturias was in the cabinet; he likewise had to complain of the favourite’s haughtiness, the Prince of Peace not fearing to irritate him by exhibiting the source of a despotic sway which laid its burden even on the successor to the crown. The Prince of Asturias became his enemy, and lost no opportunity of contriving his destruction, in which object he was encouraged by the opinion of the people.
“On every side murmurs rose against the Prince of Peace; his influence began to decline; and he was soon driven to his last and lowest shifts to prop it up. He had long since felt the necessity of consolidating his power, and had striven by every art to acquire the friendship of France. His enemies availed themselves of this circumstance to injure him, and charged him with treachery; asserted that he wanted to sell Spain to France, and had reduced her already to one of those vice-royalties obedient to the Emperor.
“On the other hand (so mutable and various is the public mind) they attributed to France whatever evil afflicted Spain, and accused her of supporting the Prince of Peace. This state of things every day produced fresh bickerings between the partisans of the rival princes; the counsels of the Prince Royal were not always prudent, and he was induced by the aversion of the people towards his powerful opponent to endeavour to quell the ambition of the Prince of Peace by making him the victim of his immoderate thirst for power. The favourite, foreseeing the coming catastrophe, and all Spain in arms to crush and overthrow him, gave himself up for lost, when the French troops advanced into the Spanish territory, to execute the treaty of Fontainebleau, of which he alone possessed the secret, and which was not even signed.”