[106] [“The rapidity with which she loaded Don Manuel Godoy with advancement, favours, lands, and distinctions for which he had no particular merit, gave ground for evil reports. In a few years he was made successively knight commander of the order of Santiago, captain of his company, officer of the Spanish lifeguards, captain-general of the corps, brigadier of the royal forces, field-marshal, gentleman of his majesty’s chamber with office, sergeant-major of the royal bodyguard, knight of the Grand Cross of the royal and distinguished order of Charles III, grandee of Spain with the title of duke of Alcudia, councillor of state (from 1784-1791), and superintendent-general of posts and roads, etc.”—Lafuente.[d]]
[107] [An earlier exception to the rule is to be found in the case of Luis de Haro, who received the same title of Prince of the Peace after the conclusion of the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659.]
[108] [Godoy[e] in his memoirs uses the fact of the king’s unchanging devotion as a proof that his relations with the queen were honest and that he held his post purely by his devoted fidelity to both king and queen.]
[109] [The count de Toreño[h] says of him: “No sooner did he hold out protection to wise and esteemed men than he humbled them. At the same time that he was encouraging a special science, establishing a new professorship, or supporting some measure of improvement, he allowed the marquis Caballero, a declared enemy to advancement and learning, to trace out a scheme of general public instruction to be adopted in all the universities, which was incoherent and unworthy of the century, permitting him also to make serious omissions and alterations in the codes of law. Although he banished from the court and exiled all those whom he believed to be opposed to him, or who displeased him, as a general rule he did not carry his persecutions any farther, nor was he by nature cruel; he showed himself cruel and hard only with respect to the illustrious Jovellanos; sordid in his avarice, he sold, as if in public auction, offices, magistratures, dignities, sees, sometimes for himself, sometimes for his mistresses, sometimes to satisfy the caprices of the queen.”]
[110] [Napier[i] says these officers were “in a state of great excitement from drink.”]
[111] [The feeling the Spaniards cherish for this futile riot may be compared to the American regard for the similar occasion known as the Boston “Massacre” of 1770.]
[112] [Of the Dos de Mayo Napier[i] says: “This celebrated tumult, in which the wild cry of Spanish warfare was first heard, has been represented by authors who adopt all the reports of the day, sometimes as a wanton massacre, sometimes as a barbarous political stroke to impress a dread of French power. It was neither. The fiery temper of the Spaniards, excited by strange events and the recent tumults against Godoy, rendered an explosion inevitable, and so it happened. If the French had stimulated this disposition to violence, with a view to an example, they would have prepared some check on the Spanish garrison; they would not have left their hospital unguarded, or have so arranged that their own loss should surpass that of the Spaniards; finally, they would have profited from their policy after having suffered the injury. Moncey and Harispe were, however, most active in restoring order, and, including the peasants killed outside the gates and the executions afterwards, the whole number of the Spanish slain did not exceed one hundred and twenty, while more than five hundred French were killed. Amongst the wounded were seventy of the imperial guards, which would alone disprove any premeditation: for if Murat were base enough to sacrifice his men with such a detestable policy, he would have given the conscripts to slaughter rather than the select soldiers of the emperor.”]
