1A few years after the peace of Utrecht, the AbbÉ de Vayrac published a work in three volumes, entitled Etat Present de L’Espagne, oÙ l’on voit une Geographie Historique du Pays, l’Etablissement de la Monarchie, ses Revolutions, sa Decadence, son RÉtablissement, et ses Accroissemens: les Prerogatives de la Couronne; le Rang des Princes et des Grands: l’Institution et les Fonctions des Officiers de la Maison du Roy, avec un Ceremonial du Palais: le Forme du Gouvernement Ecclesiastique, Militaire, Civil et Politique; les Moeurs, les CoÛtumes, et les Usages des Espagnols: le tout extrait des Loix Fundamentales du Royaume, des Reglemens, des Pragmatiques les plus authentiques, et des meilleurs Auteurs. There is no mention whatever of the Cortes in this work.

2The Beatas of Cuenca, Madrid, and Evora, may be cited as examples. Notices of the two former impostors may be seen in Llorente’s Histoire Critique de l’Inquisition: a manuscript account of the latter is in my possession.

3What is most extraordinary is, that some German critics have discovered sublimity in these monstrous exhibitions, which are as offensive to common sense as they are to the moral feeling.

4The Vermin and Four-in-hand clubs are sufficiently analogous to this Spanish fashion of the majos, to render this at once intelligible and credible to the English reader.

5In this respect, more had been done in France nearly a century ago than has yet been attempted in England. It was not the fault of the government if any one of its subjects was ignorant of what it most concerns all men to know. The declaration of the king, of May 14, 1724, contains the following article: “Voulons qu’il soit etabli, autant qu’il sera possible, des maÎtres et maÎtresses d’École dans toutes les paroisses ou il n’y en a point, pour instruire tous les enfans de l’un et de l’autre sexe, des principaux mysteres et devoirs de la religion catholique, apostolique et Romaine; les conduire À la messe tous les jours ouvriers, autant qu’il sera possible; leur donner les instructions dont ils out besoin sur ce sujet, et avoir soin qu’ils assistent au service divin les dimanches et fÊtes; comme aussi pour y apprendre À lire, et mÊme Écrire À ceux qui pourront en avoir besoin, le tout ainsi qu’il sera ordonnÉ par les archevÊques et evÊques en conformitÉ de l’art. 25 de l’edit de 1695, concernant la jurisdiction ecclesiastique. Voulons a cet effet que, dans les lieux ou il ny aura pas d’autres fonds, il puisse Être imposÉ sur tous les habitans la somme qui manquera pour l’etablissement des dits maÎtres et maÎtresses, jusqu’À celle de 150 fr. par an. pour les maÎtresses.”

6Except, indeed, that there were to be seminaries for the new national clergy, where they were to be taught ... surveying, mensuration, the knowlege of simples, a little medicine, and a little law!

7“L’ouvrage que l’on demande,” said Gregoire, speaking in the name of the Committee of Public Instruction, “doit donc tracer des regles de conduite pour le temps de la grossesse, des couches, de l’allaitement,” &c. Petit went farther back: according to him, “l’education en general doit aller chercher l’homme dans l’embryon de l’espece; les peres, les meres surtout, doivent d’abord fixer son attention.”—

An able writer has performed the useful task of bringing together in one work the various schemes of education which were attempted in France during the democratic tyranny, and the military tyranny which succeeded it. The title of his book is, Le Genie de la Revolution considerÉ dans l’Education; ou Memoires pour servir a l’Histoire de l’Instruction Publique, depuis 1789 jusqu’ À nos Jours; ou l’on voit les Efforts reunis de la Legislation et de la Philosophie du Dix-huitieme Siecle pour aneantir le Christianisme. Paris, 3 T. 1817–1818. One legislator maintained that a nation which had recovered its freedom wanted none but stirring, vigorous, and robust men; it was such men that they should endeavour to form: and the revolution had already provided inexhaustible sources of instruction for them; for the best schools in which youth could receive a republican education were the public assemblies of the departments, districts, and municipalities, the tribunals, and, above all, the popular societies, ... meaning the jacobine clubs! Lequinio would have had a daily journal edited by a committee of philosophers, for the purpose of enlightening the simple country people, ... the people of Paris and the large towns being sufficiently enlightened. Lakanal required that there should be at least one theatre in every canton, where the women were to learn dancing, and the men to practise it. And Rabaut de St. Etienne, who had been a Protestant minister, proposed that the mayors of every canton should deliver moral lectures on Sundays in the national temple. These legislators confined their views to France: but Dupont, the atheist, hoped to see a school established at Paris for propagating atheism and anarchy throughout Europe. These are his words: “Avec quel plaisir je me represente nos philosophes dont les noms sont connus dans toute l’Europe Petion, Sieyes, Condorcet, et autres, entourÉs dans le Pantheon, comme les philosophes Grecs À AthÈnes, d’une foule de disciples venus des differentes parties de l’Europe, se promenant À la mode des Peripateticiens, et enseignant, celui-la le systeme du monde, celui-ci perfectionnant le systÈme social, montrant dans l’arrÊtÉ du 17 Juin le germe de l’insurrection du 14 Juillet, du 10 AoÛt, et de toutes les insurrections qui vont se faire avec rapiditÉ dans toute l’Europe, de telle maniÈre que ces jeunes etrangers de retour dans leur pay s puissent y repandre les mÊmes lumiÈres, et opÉrer, pour le bonheur de l’humanitÉ, les mÊmes revolutions.”

8Every thing was to be done by ... analysis:—“Cette analyse, qui compte tous les pas qu’elle fait, mais qui n’en fait jamais un ni en arriÈre, ni À cÔtÉ, ... elle peut porter la mÊme simplicitÉ de langage, la mÊme clartÉ dans tous les genres d’idÉes.... Les sciences morales, si necessaires aux peuples qui se gouvernent par leurs propres vertus, vont Être soumises À des demonstrations aussi rigoureuses que les sciences exactes et physiques.... Tandis que la libertÉ politique, et la libertÉ illimitÉe de l’industrie et du commerce dÉtruiront les inegalitÉs monstreuses des richesses, l’analyse, appliquÉe À tous les genres d’idÉes dans toutes les Écoles, detruira l’inÉgalitÉ des lumieres, plus fatale encore et plus humiliante.... L’analyse est donc essentiellement un instrument indispensable dans une grande dÉmocratie; la lumiere qu’elle repandra a tant de facilitÉ À pÉnÉtrer partout, que comme tous les fluides, elle tend sans cesse À se mettre au niveau.”—Rapport de Lakanal sur les Ecoles Normales, du 3 Brumaire, an. III. (24 Oct. 1794).

9He is reported to have said, Les prÊtres ne considÈrent ce monde que comme une diligence pour conduire À l’autre. Je veux qu’on remplisse la diligence de bons soldats pour mes armÉes. The speech seems to authenticate itself; but whether it be authentic or not, this was the spirit and the declared object of his institutions.

10Of the persons who died in Paris in the year 1800, more than two-fifths expired in the hospitals: ... from this single fact some estimate may be formed of the numbers who were ruined by the revolution.

11“The most serious and thinking people among all denominations begin to see something more than ordinary providence in the recent overthrow of state after state, and kingdom after kingdom, upon the continent of Europe. People without any pretensions to religion see a fatality attending almost every state that has hitherto exerted itself against the French empire.” The Gospel Magazine then compares Buonaparte to Cyrus, because having destroyed the persecuting spirit of Romish Babylon, and restored the liberty of religious worship, he had so far laid the foundations of the New Jerusalem. “It is of no avail,” says the writer, “to object to any such character that he is a man of blood, for such was David; and yet as his wars were necessary to bring in the peaceable reign of Solomon, so the present wars, and the manifest destruction of the enemies of truth, may introduce the reign of a greater than Solomon, who shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” This sample may suffice, one of many which might be adduced in proof of the text.

12Transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrim, p. xiv. 11, 104, 168, 226. There are two Hebrew Odes upon the birth-day of Buonaparte in this volume. Macpherson imitated the Scripture-poetry when he manufactured Ossian; and it is curious to observe, how much more these French Hebrew Odes resemble Macpherson, than either he or they resemble the Biblical poets.

13Principe del Paz, not Prince of Peace, as usually translated. The title of Prince of Peace used formerly to be given by the Emperors to the Abbots of Mount Cassino, or assumed by them.—Helyot, 5, 53.

14See Burke’s remarks upon this cession in his Letters on a Regicide Peace.—Vol. 8. 281, 8vo. edition.

15In the year 1796 Godoy was denounced to the Inquisition by three friars, as being suspected of atheism, he not having confessed or communicated in his proper church for eight years, as having two wives living, and leading a scandalous life with many other women. This was a court intrigue, planned by D. Antonio Despuig, Archbishop of Seville, and afterwards cardinal, and by D. Rafael de Murquez, queen’s confessor, and titular archbishop of Seleucia. The inquisitor-general, Lorenzana (archbishop of Toledo), was afraid to interfere; they assured him that the king would consent to the proceedings when it was shown him that Godoy was an atheist; and Despuig applied to the pope through the nuncio, that Lorenzana might be reproved for his timidity, and enjoined to act. The pope accordingly wrote to the inquisitor-general; his courier was intercepted at Genoa by the French, and Buonaparte sent the letters to Godoy, as a means of consolidating the recent friendship between the Directory and the court of Spain. The two archbishops in consequence were sent out of the kingdom under a pretext of paying a visit of condolence to the pope. These facts are stated by Llorente in his History of the Inquisition (chap. 39.) Llorente had been secretary to that abominable tribunal, and in writing its history, had none of those motives for perverting the truth which influenced him when writing under the name of M. Nellerto.

16No additional infamy can possibly be heaped upon Don Manuel Godoy; it ought, however, to be mentioned, that the minion who thus planned the destruction of the kingdom of Portugal, in order to obtain a new principality for himself, was, at this very time, a noble of that kingdom, by the title of Conde de Evora-Monte, and enjoyed a pension from the crown. This was conferred upon him by an Alvara of Feb. 5th, 1797, in which the Queen calls him “My Cousin.”

17Azanza and O’Farrill declare that when they came into office as Ferdinand’s ministers, they found no papers concerning it in their office. Cevallos says, that he was entirely ignorant of the transaction: Izquierdo indeed charges him with having approved the treaty in conversation with him, as the most advantageous which had ever been made by Spain; and with having complimented him for obtaining what France had constantly refused, while the Bourbons occupied both thrones. (Nellerto (Llorente), T. iii. p. 80.) But this does not necessarily imply that Cevallos was acquainted with the business while it was in progress. M. de Pradt affirms that Talleyrand only learnt it from Marshal Bessieres, of whom he inquired why the guards were marching towards Spain, and that Bessieres had been informed by one of the persons who signed the treaty. But M. de Pradt adds that Talleyrand immediately apprized the Conde de Lima, then charge d’affaires for Portugal, and that the Count set off instantly to give his government the alarm; this is wholly incredible. M. de Pradt is always a lively, and often a sagacious writer, but not always correct in his assertions. He makes the unaccountable mistake of supposing that the French had already occupied the North of Portugal two years before the treaty was made! (p. 26, 33.)

18A Portugueze, who saw their entrance, compares them to the hospital patients between Caldas and Lisbon in a wet day, and in the worst part of the road;—huma enfiada de semimortos pobretoens, verdadeira imagem da conducta das Caldas em hum dia de chuva pelo enfadonho caminho de EspinhaÇo de Cao. He himself picked up one who, fainting with exhaustion, had fallen upon one of the street-dunghills,—an act of compassion which he afterwards repented of as a crime.—Os Sebastianistas, P.I. p. 1, 2.

19The circumstance was noted in the Paris papers, and it was added, that no sooner had the French flag been hoisted, than the elements were calm, and the sun broke forth in all its splendour. This augury could not be current at Lisbon, because the French flag was not hoisted there till ten days after the storm.

20The letter which the Nuncio left for the French General may be seen in Neves, t. ii. c. 40. “Who would have thought,” says the historian, “that England was to give an asylum to the delegate of the Holy Father? But this ought not to be wondered at, when we know that the successor of Henry VIII. has offered one to the Pope himself against the persecution of him who occupies the throne of St. Louis.”—P. 223.

21One of their officers, a man of the old school, who had not forgotten the manners and the feelings of better days, did not scruple to declare in the house where he was quartered that the army was ruined. He had seen robbery enough in his time, he said, but never to an excess like the present; and, where this was suffered, an army must inevitably be destroyed: and he ran through the names of the generals, calling each a robber as he named him, and venting the bitterness of his heart in thus giving each the appellation which was so richly merited by all.

22

A Sebastianist was explaining this to P. Jose Agostinho de Macedo, who asked him, now he had made out the 808, where the thousand was? The believer pointed to the flag-staff from which the Portugueze colours were flying on the Mint.... There it is, straight and upright, behind the five wounds, which the voice of the Prophet has converted into ciphers.... Oh loucos e duros de coraÇam em vos render a evidencia! Abri os olhos, miseraveis, que eu vos desengano, quereis esse sinal numerico, esse hum, que designe os mil? Nam vedes alli o pÁo da bandeira, tam direito, tam posto a pino, tam empertigado por detras das cinco chagas convertidas em cifras pela voz dos profetas; ahi estam, incredulos, ahi estam 1808.—Os Sebastianistas, p. 1, 98.

Another prophecy gave the date by thirty pair of scissars, the bows standing for ciphers; and the scissars, when opened, each represented a Roman X. I am not sufficiently versed in the arithmetic of the prophets to discover how this is summed up into 1808.

23O mez de Maio foi sempre de muito respeito em toda a peninsula. He o mez da fome, e basta esta circumstancia para se lhe abaixar a cabeÇa.—Neves, ii. 231.

24The authors of the official Spanish history excuse the King from the charge of putting forth a false declaration, upon the plea that no promise of remaining was expressed in it. But certainly this was implied, and it is less discreditable to Charles, and more consistent with his character, to suppose that he was sincere when he issued it, and changed his mind when the next tidings brought on a fresh access of fear.

25The Marquis de Caballero says, there was no intention of removal that night; that the Prince of the Peace was amusing himself, according to his custom, tÊte-À-tÊte with one of his numerous mistresses; that the lady left his apartment under an escort of his guards of honour; that the patrole chose to see who she was, she resisted, her escort fired in the air, the trumpet on guard took this for the signal of departure, he put his troop in motion, and then the populace assembled. Godoy must have possessed much more courage in critical circumstances than he has obtained credit for, if he could amuse himself with a mistress at such a moment as this!

Caballero says, that he proposed to the commanders of the body guards to disperse the rabble with twenty horsemen, if they could answer for their fidelity; and if they could not, that they should recall six hundred men from OcaÑa, who certainly had not been corrupted, with whom and with the artillery he would undertake for the safety of the royal family, but he was told that no person except the Prince could appease the agitation. He affirms that the people would have suffered the King and Queen to depart, and even Godoy also, but that they would have stopped the Prince. The Conde de Montijo claims the merit of having directed the popular feeling on the occasion. Except a generous feeling on the part of the people, who knew not what they were doing, there is nothing in these whole transactions creditable to any of the parties concerned.

26No se pudo evitar que le dieran algunas bofetadas y algunos palos, que algo le desfiguraron aquel rostro bello con que hizo su fortuna y la ruina de la nacion. This is the sort of feeling with which the Spaniards relate the manner of Godoy’s fall. In the same tract, “Manifiesto Imparcial y Exacto,” it is said, that when he secreted himself he took with him some jewels, de que su alma codiciosa pudo ocuparse en momento tan critico; and that he was discovered at last, because he could no longer endure hunger and thirst.

27The authors of the official history, published at Madrid, insist that the abdication was a pure voluntary act; that Charles, who was altogether incapable of deceit, displayed the greatest affection towards his son after that event; and that none of the innumerable Spaniards, who with the heroism of martyrs performed their duty through all the horrors of the subsequent struggle, ever entertained the slightest scruple upon that point. They maintain that the letters of the royal parents, which Buonaparte published, are so interpolated by him that they cannot be trusted; and they endeavour to show, that even in those letters proofs may be discovered that no violence was complained of by the writers. Perhaps this is the only point upon which these Spanish authors are not entitled to full and entire credit, ... for they wrote under the sanction and by the appointment of Ferdinand. In every other part, their history, as far as it has reached me, is written with sound judgement and admirable impartiality.

28These bitter expressions of the father have never transpired, and this very concealment seems to confirm what all other circumstances render probable, that his abdication at Aranjuez was produced by fear and compulsion. The Queen is said (with an effrontery scarcely credible even when the greatest criminality derives boldness from the highest rank) to have told her son in the presence of the King her husband that he had no right to the crown, for that Charles was not his father. Buonaparte, in his letter to Ferdinand, had indirectly told him he was the child of an adulterous intercourse: and it is more probable that this story of the Queen’s avowal should have been invented and promulgated by him or his agents, for the sake of blackening the royal family, and weakening the popularity of Ferdinand, by destroying his hereditary right, than that so flagitious a declaration should really have been made. I know not whether there be likeness enough of family features to disprove the aspersion of his spurious birth, but I am sure, that in conduct and temper Ferdinand has sufficiently proved himself a Spanish Bourbon.

29“Les observateurs de sangfroid, FranÇais et Espagnols, voyaient une crise s’approcher, et la voyaient avec plaisir. Sans une leÇon sÉvÈre il Étoit impossible de ramener À des idÉes de raison cette multitude ÉgarÉe.”—Moniteur.

30It was reported that a decree was passed for seizing the church plate, and raising a heavy contribution, as had been done in Portugal. A poor ignorant Spaniard, believing this, bought a razor, and sallying out with it, attacked every Frenchman he met. The man was soon secured. Upon his examination he was asked if the razor was his; yes, he replied, by this token, that he had bought it at such a place for five and thirty quartos. Had the French whom he had assaulted and cut, offered him any injury?... No.... For what reason then had he attacked them?... That he might kill them, and as many more Frenchmen as he could; these villains were come to plunder the temples of the living God, and to rob the people of the fruit of their labours, and he had supposed that every honest man would do the same as himself, but he found himself alone when he began. The author of the “Manifiesto Imparcial y Exacto” relates this anecdote, and adds, En Roma y en Grecia este hombre hubiera parecido bien en la lista de los Horacios y de los trescientios. En Madrid estaba destinado a un suplicio! In any country such a man would either have been put to death like a wild beast, or confined as a madman: but the fact, and still more the manner in which it is related, shows the feeling of the Spaniards towards their treacherous invaders.

31One of the falsehoods published officially in the Moniteur concerning these transactions was that the Queen of Etruria and the Infante Don Francisco solicited and obtained permission to go to Bayonne, because of the insults to which they were every day exposed, ... and this is so worded as to make it appear that it was the people who insulted them.

32This building had been the residence of the British ambassador, Sir Benjamin Keene, in the middle of the last century; there he died, and there he was interred; for there is no burial-place for protestants at Madrid, and the body of a heretic could not be suffered to pollute a Catholic church!

33The Moniteur stated the French loss at twenty-five killed, and from forty-five to fifty wounded, that of the Spaniards at “plusieurs milliers des plus mauvais sujets du pays.” On the other hand, D. Alvaro Florez Estrada, on the alleged authority of a return sent by Murat to Berthier, states the loss of the French at 7100, and that of his own countrymen, according, he says, to an account afterwards taken by the government, as not exceeding 200. Both statements are palpably false: in Estrada’s there may probably have been a mistake, (not of the printer, for the numbers are written in words), copied from some misprinted document; because there are accounts which reckon the French loss at 1700. Azanza and O’Farrill quote the Council of Castille as authority for affirming, that of the people 104 were killed, 54 wounded, and 35 missing. This is probably much below the truth: the Council at that time was acting under the fear of Murat, and Azanza and O’Farrill endeavour to pass as lightly as they can over the atrocities committed by that party which they afterwards served to the utmost of their power. Baron Larrey, in his Memoires de Chirurgie Militaire, (t.iii. 139) says, that the wounded of both nations were carried to the French military hospital, and that before night they had received there about 300 patients, 70 of whom belonged to the Imperial Guards. It may be suspected that there were very few Spaniards in this number, ... some of the wounded, we know, having been sent to the military tribunal, and delivered over not to the surgeons, but to the executioners: and it is certain, that in a contest of this kind, where, on the one part, stabbing instruments were almost the only weapons used, there would, on the other, be more persons killed than wounded. Wherever the French were found in small parties, they were massacred. An Englishman who was in the midst of this dreadful scene, told me the carnage was very great, and that he believed the French lost more than the Spaniards. This gentleman happened to be lodging with the same persons with whom I had lodged in the year 1796. Two women were killed in the house. The mistress (an Irish Catholic) dressed up a stool as an altar, with a crucifix in the middle, St. Antonio on one side, and St. I know not who on the other, and before these idols she and her husband and the whole family were kneeling and praying while the firing continued. This poor woman actually died of fear.—In the Memoires d’un Soldat the Mamalukes are said to have made a great slaughter that day. One of them breaking into a house from which a musket had been fired, was run through with a sword by a very beautiful girl, who was immediately cut down by his companions. A man who got his livelihood by the chase, and was an unerring shot, expended eight and twenty cartridges upon the French, bringing down a man with each; when his ammunition was spent, he armed himself with a dagger, and rushing against a body of the enemy, fought till the last gasp.

34A party of poor Catalan traders (who are privileged to carry arms) were seized and led to execution. They were met in time by O’Farrill, who, with the French general Harispe, was endeavouring to quiet the city, and Harispe being made by his companion to understand the circumstances of the case, obtained their release. This general distinguished himself greatly during the war by his military talents, and it is an act of justice to relate in what manner he was employed during the dreadful scenes of the 2d of May.

35D. Alvaro Florez Estrada says, that care was not taken to dispatch these victims of an atrocious system, ... that their groans were heard through the night, and that to strike the more terror, permission was not given to remove the bodies for interment till after they had lain there two days.

36It appears therefore that men who had not borne arms had been delivered over to Grouchy’s bloody tribunal; and that though the commission was suppressed, the French reserved to themselves the power of trying and punishing the Spaniards who had taken part in the insurrection.

37Azanza and O’Farrill say that they were confirmed in this opinion by the arrival of Perez de Castro, a day or two afterwards, from Bayonne, who assured them that Ferdinand and his friends had been in the greatest alarm lest the Junta should have begun to act upon these instructions, or lest they should by any means have fallen into the Emperor’s hands. (Memoria, sec. 85.) This is very possible, after the renunciation had been made, and they had submitted to their fate. But when the apology proceeds to say how well and bravely the instructions would have been acted upon had they arrived in time, the writers give themselves credit for a higher degree of virtue than was evinced either by their conduct then or afterwards. (Id. sec. 90, 91.) Among the inconveniences of resisting the French, they represent the necessity of putting the English in possession of certain maritime posts, and the probability that England would have retained those posts for herself, to be another reproach to the Spaniards like Gibraltar! (Id. sec. 89.)

38Sir John Carr adds, that immediately afterwards this man was seized with frenzy, threw himself from a window, and was killed on the spot. In an account of these transactions, given in a letter from Cadiz, and published by Llorente (under his anagram of Nellerto), in the third volume of his Memoirs for the History of the Revolution of Spain, Solano is said to have taken the Carthusian by the leg and thrown him out of the window, ... as if he had waited till the mob were actually in his apartment before he attempted to escape! The general accuracy of that letter is confirmed by another (in the same collection) by the Count de Teba, in explanation of his own conduct. Llorente (the ex-secretary of the Inquisition) has a notable note upon the subject: he says, the insurrection in Andalusia was brought about by the intrigues of the cabinet of London, carried on by the commander of the blockading squadron, and the governor at Gibraltar; that had it not been for these machinations the province would have been tranquil, there would have been no battle of Baylen, King Joseph would have remained at Madrid, Solano and the Count del Aguila would not have been murdered ... the Spanish colonies would not have been lost ... and at the fall of Napoleon, Joseph would have ceased to be King of Spain, as Jerome ceased to be King of Westphalia. Did Llorente himself believe, or could he think to make others believe, that Napoleon would have been overthrown, if he had made himself master of Spain without opposition? And was it in the expectation and hope that his fall would be brought about without human means, that he swore allegiance to King Joseph?

39This opinion of M. Larrey is confirmed by some cases of death produced by cordial waters which occurred, I think, at Dublin, a few years ago. An account was published in some journal, but I cannot refer to it, having met with it in the course of chance-reading, and not thinking at the time that I should ever have occasion to notice it. Except that the dose was stronger, the cases are precisely in point: and they show also, which is equally in point, that poisons of this kind which prove fatal in some instances, are taken with perfect impunity in many others.

40M. De Pradt says these addresses were previously submitted to Buonaparte, and he was not satisfied with that of the Grandees, which expressed wishes for the happiness of Joseph and Spain, but contained no direct acknowledgement of him. Une bonne reconnaissance, bien formelle, bien prononcÉe, Était ce qu’il fallait a Napoleon. He lost his temper, and was heard to say to Infantado, No tergiversation, Sir! acknowledge him plainly, or plainly refuse to do it. Il faut Être grand dans le crime comme dans la vertu. Do you choose to return to Spain and place yourself at the head of the insurgents? I give you my word to send you there in safety; but I will tell you, that in eight days, ... no, ... in four and twenty hours, you shall be shot. The Duke excused himself upon the plea of composing in a language of which he was not master, and amended the address.

I have not such implicit reliance upon the authority of M. De Pradt as to insert this in the text. The Duque del Infantado and the other persons who had been trepanned with Ferdinand, were compelled to commit themselves in so many ways, that it would have been very useless to have equivocated in a single instance. No men were ever more justified in disclaiming as their own acts what had been done under manifest compulsion.

41Vedel had surrounded and made prisoners one battalion of Reding’s corps before he knew of Dupont’s surrender. He was in full retreat, two or three leagues on his way; and, had it not been for the capitulation, might probably have recrossed the Sierra Morena with as little opposition as he had passed it. CastaÑos had with him only 10,000 regular troops, and 15,000 peasants, who were incorporated at Utrera. This was the whole Spanish force. The French lost 4000 in killed and wounded, and 17,000 laid down their arms. The success at Baylen, therefore, was as extraordinary as any of those victories for which Santiago obtained credit in the heroic age of Spain.