could reduce her, but still unabashed in spirit, and supported by the inveteracy of an administration, whose courage we must admire, and at whose policy, finally crowned with success, it is idle and anti-national to cavil. In 1807, however, the continent did not set the value of a rush on the armies of England; and the public opinion of Europe was completely turned even against her probity, by the affair of Copenhagen. It cast a dark shade over the justice of her cause; and Napo leon had the advantage in fair character, until he meddled with the Peninsula, and showed himself equally rapacious to the Spanish as individually selfish to the French, sacrificing the resources of his country to the elevation of his own family.

Hence his decline may be dated. The hour of his highest triumph was signalized by a final blow given to the principles of the revolution. A shadow of liberty still existed in the tribunate: Napoleon now suppressed it. A vestige of equality still remained; his dukes and princes forming an aristocracy, indeed, but not an hereditary one. The descent of titles and honors was now established by decree; and, as usual, the last measure excited most reprobation. He reimbursed the country not only with glory, but by salutary institutions. It is remarkable, that as far back as his public introduction to the directory, on returning from Egypt, he stated the greatest want of France to be what he called “organic laws." Even then he looked to the civil organization of society as more important than the political. He saw the utility of a code, the futility of a constitution. The former became his chosen task, and it was now promulgated. The code completed the revolution in one of its most important aims, that of simplifying law, and not only freeing the people from its old intricacy and cost, but setting free that enlightened class of men, who follow law as a profession, from a course of brutifying study which rendered them incapable of applying their talents and experience to public advantage.

Of the organic laws of Napoleon, the most useful to him was the conscription. This true source of his despotism he derived from the republic. It placed the whole youth of the country at his disposal. They were raised without cost, and supported by the contributions of the conquered countries. Up to 1805, no very immediate use was made of this power. According to Foy, but seven in the hundred of the population were called each year to arms. But from that epoch the conscription knew no limits. Under one pretext or another, the entire generation, not only of youth, but of manhood, were transported to the armies. There was no longer a fixed term of service. "Natural death to a Frenchman became that found on the field of battl› Napoleon went so far, at

1807,

FRENCH INVADE PORTUGAL.

221

last, as to demand 1,100,000 soldiers in one year, from a popu lation exhausted by 3000 combats." According to general Foy, the emperor supported, towards the end of the year 1807, upwards of 600,000 soldiers, besides the military forces of his allies.

The sovereign of this tremendous force, master of one half of Europe, and aided by the rest, now turned his attention the apparently diminutive object of excluding English cotton from the Tagus. An army of nearly 30,000 men marched under Junot, to Lisbon to effect this. It was necessary to pass through Spain. The interests of the two kingdoms of the Peninsula were indeed so interlaced, that any negotiation or hostility with the one must necessarily implicate the other. The royal races of both Spain and Portugal had, to use a gardener's expression, ran to seed. They had living representatives, monarchs, heirs; but mind, or worth, or vigor, existed not. Charles IV., now the reigning king of Spain, was governed by his queen, who was governed in turn by her favorite, Emmanuel Godoy. This man had been a soldier of the body guard, and was now prime minister, and surnamed, from a pusillanimous treaty, Prince of the Peace. He wielded, however, but the sceptre of the court: the scanty resources of the nation, especially the navy, had been in the power of Napoleon; had been staked and lost by him. The Spanish colonies were, from the same alliance, lost or useless to the mother-country. Even Godoy could not but repine at so wide and unrecompensed a sacrifice. In a fit of courage, whilst Napoleon was engaged against the Prussians, he published a warlike proclamation, which he straight withdrew on learning the victory of Jena; and despairing to act in opposition to France, he sought to ingratiate himself and to ally with her. A secret treaty was accordingly concluded at Fontainbleau between the emperor and the Spanish minister, by which Portugal was to be conquered, its northern provinces given to the king of Etruria, lately expelled from Tuscany by the French; its southern provinces bestowed in sovereignty on the Prince of the Peace; and the rest, including Lisbon, was to be reserved for the house of Braganza in name, -in fact, to be occupied by the French. Such was the scheme, professed, in its origin, to be directed merely against English

commerce.

But even this scheme, rapacious as it was, formed but a very small portion of Napoleon's design, which was to seize the entire Peninsula. In order to execute this, a second army was formed at Bayonne, under the pretence of following and reinforcing Junot. That general continued his march towards

Lisbon, where the court were thrown into all the agonies of terror and irresolution. In October it at length determined to shut its ports against the English; a resolution which the envoy of the latter country could not dissuade. The conces sion was idle. Junot advanced, entering the Portuguese territory on the 19th of November, by a difficult road, and with such harassed troops, that a thousand resolute men would hav defeated him. The Moniteur, however, announced, that th house of Braganza had ceased to reign; and the royal family hastened to fulfil it by embarking on board their own and the British fleet, which sailed to the Brazils. On the 30th Junot entered Lisbon with his advanced guard, just in time to fire a few cannon-shots at the last ships of the fleet.

Napoleon had now realized half his views on the Peninsula. In order to perfect the rest, a second army, under Dupont, crossed the Pyrenees about the same time that Junot entered Portugal, and established itself on the Douro. A third followed it on the first day of 1808. All the unoccupied forces of France were, secretly, pouring upon Spain. The imbecility of its rulers was certainly a strong temptation, if not an excuse to dispossess them. Ferdinand prince of Asturias, heir to the monarchy, indignant at the predominance of Godoy, rather than at his selfish betrayal of the country, wrote underhand to Napoleon, craving his friendship, and, as a pledge of his own sincerity, a wife of the Bonaparte family. Charles IV., on his side, discovering these machinations on the part of his son, wrote to the French court to complain of him. Thus did these princes, unworthy of their royal station, invoke a master. Napoleon gave promises of protection to both parties, and dispatched a splendid present to the king, with orders at the same time to his own generals to seize the principal fortresses of North Spain. In a short time, Pampeluna, St. Sebastian, and even the forts of Barcelona, completely out of the route to Portugal, were in the hands of the French, who easily tricked the Spanish invalids to whom they had been intrusted. This opened the eyes of Charles, and even of Godoy. But a few months back they had plotted with Napoleon for dethroning the house of Braganza. That family had been obliged to fly to the Indies. The same resource seemed the only one now left to Charles himself. Preparations were made for retiring to Cadiz, where shipping might be taken; but the population of Aranjuez, raised by the partisans of prince Ferdinand, stopped the royal carriages, and prevented the flight.

A nation is always prone to hope for retrieval from the imbecility of an aged or a weak monarch, in the presumed vigor of his heir. Ferdinand was known to hate Godoy, on whom

1808.

FRENCH ENTER MADRID.

223 the faults of the Spanish monarch were thrown. This was sufficient to attract towards Ferdinand the favor of the patriot Sp nish. They followed up the tumult, which merely originated in the wish to stop the king's flight, swelled it into an insurrection, attacked Godoy's house, and sought to sacrifice him as a victim to popular vengeance. The favorite escaped heir search. But the insurgents made use of this advantage, by proclaiming Ferdinand king, and compelling Charles to sign his abdication. No sooner, however, had the monarch signed the act, than he protested against it as forced, and sent his protest in a letter to Napoleon. This letter, or rather one accompanying it from the queen, passed through the hands of Murat, then commander of the French forces at Burgos; and he without delay marched upon Madrid.

The affair was complicated. Ferdinand reckoned upon the support of the French; so did the abdicated monarch; and Murat, ignorant of the emperor's intention, knew not which side to favor, though previously inspired from old connexion with friendship towards Godoy. The Spanish nation was in the mean time seized with exultation on learning the fall of Godoy. Ferdinand was hailed as the future savior of the country, the reviver of its glory. Raised to the throne by the insurrection and acclamations of the people, nothing could exceed his popularity. His public entry into Madrid excited a frenzy of loyalty, by which Murat might have profited in giving his master counsel.

One of the enigmas, yet unriddled, of Bonaparte's policy, is his early intention with respect to Spain. Foy pretends that his purpose was to place his brother Lucien on the throne of Portugal, and to give Lucien's daughter in marriage tc Ferdinand, who was to become king of Spain. This princess certainly was commanded to leave Italy for France. But how are these intentions to be reconciled with the treaty of Fontainbleau, or with the order for surprising the Spanish fortresses? The fact is, Napoleon determined to get Spain into his power, and knew not how to set about the work of occupation. "You will not let it be known," wrote the emperor to Murat, "what my intentions are,-an easy task, since 1 really do not know them myself." The plan of allowing Ferdinand to remain king of Spain, with a queen of Bonaparte's family, was most probably Talleyrand's. But that statesman had been of late disgraced, no uninfluential cause of the lack of wisdom that became manifest in the policy of France; and Napoleon leaned to more violent means.

The quarrel of sire and son, the abdication, the insurrection, the march of Murat on Madrid, precipitated and necessitated a resolution. One thing alone became fixed

and evident: this was, that Ferdinand, raised to the throne by the popular voice, and that voice declared against Godoy chiefly for his subservience to France, was not the monarch that suited Napoleon to have as tributary. But the emperor thought best to see and judge with his own eyes. It became requisite that Ferdinand should be removed from amidst the population of Madrid, whose loyal frenzy gave him force. Savary was sent to entice him to Bayonne: and the prince, who was more willing to rely on the favor of Napoleon than on his countrymen for his power, resolved to propitiate the French emperor by going to meet him. In vain did the Spanish pride and Spanish loyalty of some of his followers endeavor to dissuade him. Ferdinand was enticed from time to time with hopes of meeting Napoleon at each post, until he crossed the Bidassoa and reached Bayonne. There his eyes at last were opened. Napoleon did not receive him as king. Charles and the queen soon afterwards arrived at the high court, which the emperor held at Bayonne for judging between the Spanish princes. Their imbecility and mutual recrimination disgusted Napoleon; and, making a mistake but too natural to a despot, viz. identifying a nation with its rulers, he resolved to set aside altogether the reigning house, and substitute a new one of his own.

The Spaniards did not wait in quietude until the emperor had perfected his usurpation. The liberation of Godoy,the spiriting away prince Ferdinand,-the occupation of their towns, had exasperated the population against the French. On the 2d of May the last of the princes were to set out for Bayonne. The sight of the carriages and preparations exasperated the people of Madrid. They retained their fury until the departure took place, and then it burst out in despair. An aide-de-camp of Murat was first assailed: soldiers rescued him. The first sign of a tumult was a shock that set on fire the inflammable mind of the Spanish capital. The French were universally assailed: their stragglers and solitary soldiers wounded; and even their hospitals attacked. The French, on their side, were soon under arms; their cannon wept the streets; their cavalry dispersed the multitude; whilst the small band of Spanish soldiers, who made common cause with the people, were beaten in and perished on their guns. A great number of the French had fallen. Of the Spaniards there were more prisoners than slain. Murat, exasperated, caused them to be tried by court-martial and shot; and when he wished to put a stop to the slaughter, Grouchy refused to obey the merciful counter order. An ecclesiastic had not been even allowed to the victims; a circumstance