The fall of Florida-Blanca did not at once make way for Godoy’s exaltation to his post. The count De Aranda, in his seventy-fourth year, succeeded to the vacant premiership, May, 1792, and as a disciple, or at least an admirer of French philosophy, urged his royal master to pursue a more liberal course, to cultivate more zealously than heretofore the friendship of then constitutional France. De Aranda repaid the queen’s patronage by his concurrence in that showering of court favours upon Godoy,[106] which his predecessor had offended her by opposing.[b]
But in the meantime events were developing so rapidly that diplomacy followed them with difficulty. The two fatal days of June 20th and August 10th caused that phantom of royal will still present in France to disappear. Prussia and Austria, which had no interests to guard, declared war on France immediately. The latter replied by doing away with royalty, by beginning the trial of the king, a prisoner in the temple, and thus broke, in the face of the whole world, with all the monarchies in declaring herself their mortal enemy.
Charles IV, devoted like his father to the French royal family, was broken-hearted over the insults and disgrace heaped upon the unfortunate Louis XVI. De Aranda, whose connection with the French encyclopædists wounded the double cult of the Spanish people for religion and monarchy, found himself daily more estranged from his former friends. The French ambassador, who had ceased all relations with the Madrid cabinet, summoned Spain to choose between war and peace, and to make her choice known.
The state council took up the questions and was not long in deciding in favour of war. But France was acting while Spain was preparing to act, and the blood-stained pages of this terrible history were unfolding one after another. The massacre of prisoners in September was the Jacobins’ reply to the attacks of the allied monarchs, as well as the high-handed challenge thrown to whosoever dared try to stop the progress of the revolution. While waiting to be attacked from the south its arms were triumphing in the north; the duke of Brunswick, in spite of his warnings and proclamations, had been driven to shameful flight. In the face of such a situation De Aranda drew back. Certainly it was neither courage nor determination which failed him, but for him there was one matter which overruled everything else, and that was the danger threatening the life of the unhappy monarch. The minister of foreign affairs, Le Brun, showed himself disposed to treat with Spain, but the convention exacted before anything else that the Madrid cabinet should recognise the republic.
For Charles IV to acknowledge the republic was to sanction the fall of the Bourbons and the ruin of one of the princes of that family; it would betray his affections and his dearest interests. Hard pressed by disguised threats, the Spanish minister, in spite of his white hairs, went so far as to declare that, if the sacred soil of his country was invaded, he, the oldest officer in the army, would ask of his king a drum and go from town to town sounding the call to arms. In the meantime Charles IV had thought the matter over, and the desire to save Louis XVI’s life overruled every other consideration. He decided to keep a strict neutrality towards France. Moreover he was not ready for war, and an army is not created in an instant, especially in Spain where everything is done slowly and at great cost.[c] But at any rate the time now seemed ripe to dismiss De Aranda from his post and call Godoy to his place, De Aranda being permitted to keep the presidency of the council. It was late in 1792 that the queen’s favourite became the king’s chief agent.[a]
GODOY AS MINISTER, AND THE WAR WITH FRANCE
[1792-1793 A.D.]
The new minister’s task was far from easy. The ability of the most experienced statesman would scarcely have been able to cope with the events taking place in France with too rapid strides. The trial of the unfortunate Louis XVI had begun and his life hung by a thread. The great, the sole question for Charles IV was to save him. Godoy proposed to offer France the mediation of the Madrid cabinet between herself and the northern powers in place of De Aranda’s neutral policy; the basis of negotiations to be the abdication of Louis XVI and the delivering of hostages as a sign of good faith. An unlimited credit was opened for Spain’s representative at Paris in order to buy up judges. But all was useless. A letter from the Spanish minister to the convention was returned by order of the day.
“France,” said a member, “can only treat with powers that have recognised the republic.” Danton thundered against the audacity of the Spanish government, and not even the reading of the letter was allowed. The members who had held out their hands for Spanish gold were the first to vote the death of the king. Finally, at the last moment, the Castilian chargé d’affaires having again tried to intercede in favour of the royal victim, Danton in anger proposed for this alone to declare war on Spain, to punish her for daring to interfere in the affairs of the republic.
The king’s death on January 21st, 1793, of course cut short all negotiations. The whole of Spain rose in horror and indignation at the news. Godoy, not very scrupulous himself in matters of national honour, exclaimed on learning the fatal news, “To-day a treaty of peace with France would be an infamy; it would make us accomplices of a crime that thrills Spain as it does the whole world.” De Aranda alone remained faithful to his system of neutrality and to that utilitarian morale of which England presents the most finished type. He addressed the king a long memoir on the danger of a war for which Spain was not prepared. But neutrality was but a dream in the present condition of minds and things in Spain as well as in France.