NAPOLEON SCHEMES FOR SPAIN
Napoleon was tempted to take Spain, and yet knew not how to seize such a rich prey. In the meantime one of those scandals broke out at the Escorial which showed up in full light the miseries of dynasties, which must suffer, in common with the poorest, ills common to mankind yet cannot like them hide their woes from the world. Charles IV, given up to pleasure, passed from the hunt to the studio, from the studio to the stable. The queen, occupied only in preserving what beauty time had left her, sacrificed her duties as a wife and a sovereign to the sole desire of keeping the love of Godoy. The Prince of the Peace, without being quite indifferent to the country’s interests, put his own fortune first. Master of the queen, to whom, moreover, he allowed unworthy rivals, he flattered Napoleon, from whom he hoped a crown. In the same palace lived Ferdinand, prince of Asturias, heir to the throne, a man who was grossly artificial and wicked, yet one whom Spain was disposed to obey if only to show hatred to the Prince of the Peace. Ferdinand’s chief counsellors were the duke de Infantado, strongly attached to all the prejudices of an ancient régime, ambitious, but with all the inflexibility of an honest man, and his tutor Escoiquiz, of a supple and dreamy disposition, ambitious to play the rôle of Ximenes or at least of Cardinal Fleury. It was with such personages that Napoleon was to dispute the possession of Spain.
[1807-1808 A.D.]
Napoleon had known for a long time of the quarrels which divided the court of Madrid, for Ferdinand also had asked his help; and, to replace the princess of Asturias, who had just died, had asked through the intervention of M. de Beauharnais the hand of a princess of the Bonaparte family. Napoleon had received these overtures with a certain surprise, neither absolutely accepting nor rejecting. Ferdinand, as he wrote to M. de Beauharnais, was “surrounded even in his private rooms by observant spies.” His writing for some time past had given these spies cause for anxiety, and on the 27th of October the queen persuaded her weak-minded husband to order the prince’s apartments to be ransacked for papers. It was a terrible blow. In Ferdinand’s rooms was discovered a secret alphabet destined for a mysterious correspondence, an order, with the date left blank, which named the duke de Infantado governor of New Castile, and a memorial destined by Ferdinand for his father, in which he denounced the crimes of the Prince of the Peace and the complicity of his mother. The queen was furious; she saw in these papers the proof of a conspiracy, and demanded the immediate arrest of the prince and his accomplices. Ferdinand was confined to his own rooms, and Charles IV addressed a proclamation to the Spanish people in which he accused his son of trying to assassinate him. At the same time this unhappy king wrote to Napoleon to denounce the crime, expressing a readiness to alter the succession to the throne.
The chance, so long expected, had at length arrived. Napoleon, who had as yet taken no definite steps, wrote to Beauharnais to be very observant but to do nothing, and hastened the march of his troops towards the Pyrenees. To the army commanded by General Dupont he joined another which he called “the observation corps for the coast line,” and gave the command to Marshal Moncey, who had already fought in Spain. Hardly was Ferdinand arrested, when he gave signs of contemptible weakness. He denounced his confidants, humiliated himself before the Prince of the Peace, implored pardon of his father and mother in dishonourable letters, and left his friends to appear before the judges—judges who, fortunately, had the courage to acquit them. The Prince of the Peace was not without anxiety. His hopes were ruined if Ferdinand married a princess of the imperial family. On the other hand, his principality in Portugal now seemed a little risky since Junot governed as master, and ceded no place to Spaniards. At the same time he also saw Charles IV much flattered by an alliance with the imperial family and resolved to solicit it.
It was only in the month of January, 1808, that the emperor thought of taking definite action. Three projects suggested themselves: to marry Ferdinand to a French princess and so make him a vassal of the empire; to cede Spain a portion of Portugal and take all the provinces beyond the Ebro; or else dethrone the Bourbons and replace them by a Bonaparte. He stopped at this last resolution, and prepared his designs with a rare duplicity. On the 20th of February he sent Murat into Spain with orders to occupy Pamplona, Barcelona, and San Sebastian, and to get on as far as Madrid.
Napoleon really hoped so to reduce the Spanish sovereign by terror that he, imitating the house of Braganza in Portugal, would flee, or attempt to flee, into America. Then he would take possession of the vacant throne. This plan should have succeeded. The queen and the Prince of the Peace were terrified and thought seriously of setting out, and brought the old king to their way of thinking. Everything failed owing to the resistance of the prince of Asturias. Ferdinand reckoned on the friendship of Napoleon. A part of the nation had the same illusion about the French, regarding them as rescuers come to free them and drive away the Prince of the Peace. So preparations for the king’s flight met with lively opposition. The king was obliged to address a proclamation to the people saying he would not go, and to show himself at the palace windows to receive the evidence of an affection mingled with suspicion and threats. On the 17th of March, troops arriving to escort the king only served to augment the agitation. That very evening there was a rising. The crowd ran to the palace, obliged the king to show himself, then went to the house of the Prince of the Peace. Furious at not finding him, they revenged themselves by pillaging the house. These disorders troubled the king and queen for two reasons: they were anxious for their favourite, for whose safety they were most concerned, and they saw in these scenes the image of the French Revolution; and so feared for themselves the fate of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Joseph Bonaparte