On the 7th of March, 1814, Ferdinand VII definitely received his passports from the French. Master of himself once more, he began to think of means of returning to the capital and recovering his former power. But, at the same time, he resolved to avoid doing anything that would seem to sanction modifications accomplished by the cortes, regarding such as an attack on his sovereign power. To enter Spain without making any promise at all was the essential point. The king’s counsellors proposed he should send a king’s messenger to Madrid bearing a letter carefully flattering the hopes of the Liberal party without undertaking to fulfil the slightest engagement with regard to it. Ferdinand acted on this advice, and charged General Zayas to bear to Madrid the news of his immediate return, and to give the regency a letter wherein were these ambiguous words:
“As to the re-establishment of the cortes and all they have been able to do of use for the kingdom during my absence, my approbation will be given in so far as it all conforms to my royal intentions.”
The general set out for Madrid with this letter and hastened to arrive thither, where his coming produced the liveliest enthusiasm. The cortes affected to see in the message a pledge for the political future of their sovereign, and abstained thenceforth from those energetic measures alone able to save them. While they thus lulled themselves in fancied security, Ferdinand had hastened to gain the Spanish frontier by Toulouse and Perpignan. On the 24th of March he crossed the Fluvia, limit chosen by Marshal Suchet as the theatre which was to see the solemn restoration of the royal captive to the Spanish troops. The ceremony was carried out amid general enthusiasm, and all the people eagerly ran to assist at such a novel spectacle.
From this moment, Ferdinand, reinstated in his kingly prerogatives, found himself under a double influence, one drawing him to the representative system, the other towards that absolute monarchy which best suited his desires and tastes. In all the towns he went through, and particularly in Gerona where he had stayed some days, a people mad with joy, drunk with enthusiasm, had cast themselves at his feet, had dragged his carriage, and given most striking testimony of obedience and submission.[124]
Sure now of the destiny awaiting him, he decided to abandon the route fixed by the decree of the 2nd of February.
During this triumphal journey (24th of March to the 6th of April), the gravest events had taken place in France, and one may conceive that Ferdinand, before attempting his coup d’état, did not want to get too far away from the frontier, at any rate while the issues were doubtful. Certain events were very favourable: the entry of the allies into Paris; the creation of a provisionary government; Napoleon’s abdication, and departure for Elba; and lastly the proclamation of Louis XVIII, which should lead to the suppression of hostilities and the end of the war.
The Aragonese were just as unbridled as the Catalans in expressing monarchial fanaticism. So while the authorities remained faithful to the regency, the people showed such enthusiasm for the king that he could no longer doubt for an instant that he could now venture all. Old courtiers, interested in seeing the ancient court restored, constantly urged him to retake absolute authority.
Yet, while the storm was slowly gathering that would sweep them away, the cortes, always dominated by a perfectly unjustified feeling of confidence, never ceased publishing decrees which served to feed the general enthusiasm in the king’s favour. The weak royalist minority which still existed in their midst had ceased to make common cause with them. Its leader, Mozo de Rosales, had gone to Valencia carrying a representation in which the events of the past six years were considered as a passing saturnalia, similar to those which the Persians used to celebrate during an interregnum, and which put forth that order would only reign in Spain from that day when kingly authority should be reinstated in its integrity. Whilst the cortes waited with lively impatience to know their fate, they celebrated the fête of the 2nd of May with great pomp; ascribed several civic rewards to soldiers who had bravely fought in the war of Independence; transferred the seat of their meetings from the theatre of Los Canos del Peral to the convent of Doña Maria of Aragon; and decreed a death sentence against anyone demanding constitutional reform before eight years. Such were the acts of the cortes. The cardinal De Bourbon, president of the regency council, accompanied by the minister of state, Don José Luyando, was to present himself before the monarch, and a commission, presided over by the Bishop of Urgel, was to go on in front of him as far as La Mancha plains.
Ferdinand arrived the 16th of April on the borders of Turia. There he found everything had been prepared by the care of his uncle Don Antonio, De Macanaz, and Escoiquiz, to whom were united Villamil and Lardizabal, whose reverses at Cadiz had filled them with bitterness and spite against the representative system. The highest aristocrats came to Ferdinand offering him riches enough to enable him to act without the concourse of the cortes. General Elio, betraying his first duty and oblivious of obedience owing to the regency, promised the strongest assistance from all his army corps. A special paper, entitled Lucindo, boldly advocated a return to the old régime. The time had come to act in a decisive manner. Ferdinand applied himself to the work. In receiving the cardinal De Bourbon he affected to give him his hand to make him kiss it in sign of homage, as if to show that the regency was nothing but an emanation from his own authority. In the same fashion he received the commander’s bâton which the latter presented before the troops, as if by this to teach the soldiers that obedience was due to himself alone. He received representatives from the Persians with cordiality.[125] He made a cavalry corps precede him commanded by Don Santiago Wittingham, to Madrid, and then received a solemn oath from all the officers to “support him in all his rights.”
