CHARLES IV AND BONAPARTE. When, at the age of forty, in 1789, Charles IV ascended the throne of Spain, he for a while retained in power his father’s great prime minister, Floridablanca; but soon, it seems, his wisdom failed him. After dallying awhile with this faithful servant, who was succeeded by Count Cabarrus, then by the patriot Jovellanos, Charles gave up all attempts to rule wisely, and abandoned himself utterly to the guidance of his wife, who was as capricious and depraved as any of her sex who had ever before ruled over a Spanish king. In 1792 the queen managed to install her own favourite, Manuel Godoy, a young man of low birth, in the seat of the statesman Aranda, and had him raised to the rank of a Spanish grandee, as Duke of Alcudia. Henceforth, for many years, poor Spain was to witness the Perhaps Charles would have made mistakes enough if he had been left to himself, for early in his reign the world was amazed at the horrible cruelties of the French Revolution, and he, as a Bourbon allied to the family of Louis XVI, was placed in a most embarrassing position when the excesses of the revolutionists culminated in the execution of the king. All Spain rose in protest against this barbarous act, and urged King Charles to declare for vengeance; but he sat supinely in his palace, and did nothing more than to send a feeble protest and a feebler army against the regicides. The new-born republic did not wait, however, for him to declare war, but sent a force into Spain, which quickly invaded the frontier and soon defeated the allied Spanish and Portuguese in several battles. The triumphant republicans were only checked when they held the peninsula at their mercy, for, as history has told us, they were at the outset invincible. They snatched victories from defeats, turned defeats into victories: these desperate outlaws, battling against the rights of kings and the oppressions At the instigation of Napoleon, who was now foremost in the affairs of France, Spain declared war against her sister kingdom, Portugal, though sorely against her will, as—if for no other reason—the queen’s favourite daughter, Carlota, was the wife of the Prince Regent of Portugal. But in 1801 that kingdom was overrun by an army composed of seventy-five thousand men, fifteen thousand of which were French and sixty thousand Napoleon’s act in disposing of Louisiana to the United States for the paltry sum of fifteen million dollars, was a vast benefit to America, but a violation of good faith, inasmuch as Spain had ceded that territory to France, only three years before, with the expressed condition that no other country should ever obtain it. Still, she meekly bore this bitter humiliation, for she was under the domination of the conqueror of Europe, who soon imposed yet heavier conditions upon her. He found a pretext for violating the peace with England, and Spain also, who had purchased her neutrality by a monthly payment, in 1804 declared war against the Britons for seizing her homeward-sailing galleons with their wealth of treasure from the American colonies. England had done this as a measure of self-defence, foreseeing that, with the sinews of war which this colonial treasure would purchase, Spain would not hesitate to cast her lot with Napoleon and France. The conflict that ensued put an end forever (so far as human ken can forecast) to Spain’s ascendancy at sea. Her supremacy, indeed, had long since departed; not since the times of the “invincible armada” had she been a powerful factor to reckon with upon the ocean. But it was during the war that followed that the combined French and Spanish fleets, under Villeneuve and Gravina, were sought out and attacked by Lord Nelson. Off Trafalgar, October 25, 1805, occurred that memorable naval battle by which the fleets were shattered, and England obtained, coincidently with the death of Nelson, the title which she has since so proudly borne, of “mistress of the seas.” She was thenceforth supreme upon the ocean, and the colonies of France and Spain were at her mercy. The Spanish-French alliance had changed since the time of the “family compact,” for what then was a natural union between sovereigns allied by blood and interests, was now a most unnatural connection between two totally dissimilar organizations. Especially since Napoleon had so cruelly put to death the young Duke d’Enghien, a scion of the Bourbon house in 1804, Spain regarded France with averted eyes. The repugnance of the king could not be overcome, and even the skill at dissimulation possessed by the artful France had experienced her Reign of Terror; she now had her master, Napoleon, who looked upon his small empire as too restricted for his towering ambitions, and cast around for some other thrones to occupy. He saw, with that clearness of perception for which he was noted, that the throne of Spain was divided against itself: the king against the queen, Godoy the Prince of Peace against them both, and the son of the king at enmity with the other three. In truth, it was charged by Godoy that he had conspired to kill, or at least to dethrone, his father, and he was thrown into prison until he pretended to relent and ask forgiveness. Ferdinand, hated by his mother, despised by the prime minister, and accustomed to regard his father as an obstacle in the path of his ambition, It was not long that he was permitted to enjoy the royal prerogatives, nor the malicious satisfaction of retaliating upon his enemies. Confiding in the supposed friendship of Napoleon, he sent back to Portugal the Spanish troops which his father had recalled in anticipation of a French invasion, and unsuspiciously placed himself in the emperor’s hands. With consummate duplicity, Bonaparte allured first Ferdinand, then his father, the queen mother and Godoy, over the frontier to Bayonne, where he indeed had them at his mercy, and then revealed his true intentions. In a word, he frightened Ferdinand into an abdication, his father into renouncing forever his claim to the throne, in return for a pension and paltry honours, and Godoy he dropped as unworthy of attention. Ferdinand was promised an income of one million francs, a palace, and—captivity. Meanwhile, Napoleon called an assembly of the notables—such as would come at his call—forced upon them a new Constitution, and These, in brief, were the beginnings of the famed Peninsular War, which lasted from 1807 to 1814, and inflicted incalculable misery upon the Spanish and Portuguese people. |