Spain in the nineteenth century

Front matter

HISPIRIA

LI

MARIA CHRISTINA, QUEEN REGENT.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Prince of the Peace 9

II. The Lion in the Skin of a Fox .... 37

Chapter I. The Prince Of The Peace

Before taking up the history of this unworthy favorite we will say a few words that may throw light on the character of the Spanish people.

It is with no wish to join a popular cry that I charge the Inquisition with the deterioration that has taken place in the Spanish character since the days of their great national heroes Gonsalvo de Cordova, and Don John of Austria. Popular opinion dwells only on the horrors of the Inquisition ; we hear little of its effects on the moral and intellectual character of Spaniards, or of the fatal division of classes which it produced, the result of which in modern times has been to induce the greater part of a brave but unfortunate people to rush recklessly from anarchical "liberty" into absolute despotism, and vice versa.

For seven centuries Spain had carried on a fierce war of religion, a contest which connected honor with orthodoxy in the minds of Spaniards, and associated all that is disgraceful and odious with dissent from the established creed. " When Moorish wars ended, orthodoxy became the principle of that pretended superiority of nature which distinguishes the nobler from the inferior or degenerate castes." All Spaniards with purity of descent were entitled to bear the epithet " Honorable." The poorest peasant was prouder of his genuine and unpolluted Christian blood than the grandees of their proudest titles. Indeed, the highest nobles and even the sovereigns had occasionally sullied their line by misalliances with misbelievers, and so entailed on their posterity the reproach of having some among their ancestors who, as the Spanish saying expressed it, " had stood upon their legs for baptism."

When, in the present century, revolutionists were trying to cast reproach on the nobility of Spain, a pamphlet was printed to show that many of the grandees had had one or more infidel ancestors, and these disclosures were so damaging to hereditary adherents of royalty that all the power of the government and the Inquisition was put forth for the suppression of the pamphlet, of which copies were secretly circulated from hand to hand.

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

Honor and disgrace are matters of opinion. No Spaniard, however liberal his political opinions might be, could bear the discovery of mixed blood in his veins. The Cortes in Cadiz refused citizenship to any man in Spain or in its colonies whose descent was tainted by any drop of African or Indian blood. We shall see the effect of this when we come to consider the history of the Spanish colonies in America.

The distinction between a heretic and a Mohammedan is, almost to this day, too nice for the peasant class in Spain. The Church condemned both alike ; they belonged to the same category, and it was the part of a faithful Christian to hold both in abhorrence.

Disgrace entailed on his posterity from generation to generation was often felt to be the worst part of the punishment of a heretic at an auto da fe. The "decree of infamy " was harder to bear than the stake. Men who had suffered everything else with composure have been known to burst into tears when that part of their sentence was read. In other martyrdoms the sufferer had support and consolation in his sense of dying with honor, but where was the bold spirit of inquiry or love of truth which could induce a Castilian possessor of a bright inheritance of honor, purchased by the blood of his ancestors in wars with misbelievers, to swerve from the religion for which those ancestors had bled, and thereby sink, with his posterity, to the social status which classed him among the remnant of execrated misbelievers ?

At the close of the sixteenth century a strong spirit of religious inquiry began to display itself among the learned, who were chiefly of the priestly class in Spain ; and churches identical in creed with those in Protestant Germany — though they took no distinctive name — sprang up at Valladolid and Seville. Soon all learning was discouraged by the Inquisition, and viewed with suspicion, both by the ignorant and in social circles. Whole libraries of valuable books and manuscripts were committed to the flames ; so also were all Hebrew and Arabic writings. This policy was carried out in Mexico by the monks who accompanied Cortez and his followers, and we have thus lost valuable records of Aztec civilization. Yet Cardinal Ximenes, who is accused of having instigated this destruction of libraries and manuscripts, promoted the publication of the first Polyglot Bible, before fanatical fury had borne him away in its stream.

The Inquisition, first established in France to root out the heresy of the Albigenses, was in 1477 introduced into Spain by the pious Isabella, and its powers were enlarged under Charles V., her grandson. Many historians think that his unhappy mother, Joanna the Mad, was considered insane only because she had imbibed the new views of religion. She was imprisoned, and even tortured, by order of her son, with a view, it is believed, to make her renounce her heresy.

The wars waged by the Spaniards against Protestants in the Low Countries and in Germany intensified their hatred against those who might, by writing or by speech, spread heresy in their own most orthodox land.

On the accession of Philip II. a fierce persecution began in Old Castile and Andalusia against all those suspected of opinions not in conformity with the doctrines of the Church of Rome. The Protestants of Valladolid and Seville were rooted out, their churches were broken up, and on Trinity Sunday, 1559, an auto da fe was held at Valladolid with great pomp in honor of the presence of Don Carlos, Prince of the Asturias, who, with his aunt (the king's own sister), the grandees and ladies of their suites, together with the nobility and gentry in and around the city, occupied the great Square, which was fitted up as an amphitheatre.

Fourteen persons, men and women, were there condemned to die by fire ; and sixteen others, condemned only to infamy and perpetual imprisonment, received their sentences. After a sermon had been preached to them, and their doom had been read, those condemned to the stake were handed over to the civil authority, and burned without the city.

The last of these executions by fire for heresy took place at Seville in 1783. In one of the earlier autos da fe 'in the same city two Englishmen were among the victims. From

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

the records of these atrocities Charles Kingsley drew his pictures in " Westward Ho ! "

The great peril of knowledge — the danger that learning might lead to suspicions of unorthodoxy — crushed the spirit of mental independence among the leisure classes in Spain. Religious dissent, as we have seen, entailed not only death but degradation. Every advance in knowledge seemed to imperil the honor of the nation. The study of the ancient languages was discouraged, travel in foreign lands was condemned. Spanish books were under such strict censorship that they were almost prohibited. Saint Theresa has recorded her feelings of despair when a sweeping decree of the Holy Office snatched from her hands the books that were her friends. " My grief," she says, " was exceedingly great, for many amongst them were to me a constant source of consolation. What could I do for reading, all Spanish books being taken away, being ignorant of Latin? In this distress the Lord said to me : ' Theresa, be of good cheer ; I will give thee The Book of Life.' "

Studies that tended to promote investigation were discontinued in the universities, and science was pursued only so far as it might serve to make a living. Students indeed increased; "but at the same time," says Jovellanos, "also increased the decay of every kind of knowledge."

All this had its effect upon the national character. The Spanish hidalgos, sons of the men who in the sixteenth century had been led by circumstances into fields of glory, sank into sloth, sensuality, and ignorance.

Whilst in other countries the intellectual faculties of men were expanding and brightening, in Spain all activity of mind was thwarted ; and the country, degraded and exhausted, reached its lowest point during the reign of Charles II., the last of the Austrian line.

Then came the War of Succession under Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV. ; and with the accession of these Bourbon princes something was done to dispel the thick mist that had settled on the minds of the Spanish people. The Inquisition was astonished when the new sovereign declined to be present at an auto da fe that the Holy Office was planning in his honor. It did not indeed discontinue such exhibitions, but it felt that the court discouraged them. Indeed Ferdinand VI. and his brother Charles III. (sons of Philip V.) were free-thinkers of the philosophic school, and were inclined to limit the temporal powers of the Church as much as possible.

The philosophers of the new French school sorely baffled and perplexed the Inquisition. As they believed in nothing, they were always ready to give in their adhesion to any creed. As soon as their Catholicism was questioned they made profession of the most orthodox beliefs. Having no convictions, it cost them nothing to conform.

Meantime, through French channels, a great deal of modern revolutionary thought was finding its way into Spain. As in France the first " liberals " were found in the ranks of the aristocracy, so it was in Spain. The peasantry were the stanch adherents of their church and king, but after the French Revolution broke out, its political catechisms made their way into the maritime cities, and the middle and commercial classes caught the infection. In vain the doctrines of the Constituent Assembly were officially branded as heretical. That word had ceased to be a spell to conjure with. Yet the people were the same Spaniards who had howled " Long live the faith ! " round the flaming scaffolds of Philip II. It needed but a summons to defend the faith to rouse the Spanish peasantry ; to maintain their national religion was a point of national honor. " Long live the King ! Long live the Inquisition ! " was a rallying cry even in the first quarter of the present century. A brave, independent, faithful people, — fanatical, bloodthirsty, easily misled.

Don Manuel Godoy was born at Badajos May 12, 1767, two years before Napoleon, Wellington, and other leading men whose birth made illustrious the year 1 769. His family was noble, but none of its members had ever distinguished themselves, and at the time of Don Manuel's birth his parents were very poor. They gave him no advantages of education ; probably their circumstances were such that they could not

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

afford to do so ; but they got him admitted at the age of seventeen as a private into the body-guard of Charles III., a corps in which all privates, like the mousquetaires of France, had been born gentlemen. In this he served until the death of the old king, Charles III. His ignorance, frivolity, and loose morals seemed likely to mar his chances of promotion, but withal he was a handsome lad, and knew how to make the most of his advantages. Maria Louisa, Princess of Naples, wife of Charles IV., then Prince of the Asturias, had shown a disposition to favor his elder brother, Don Luis Godoy, who was in consequence sent on distant service by the old King, her father-in-law, who in the last years of his life became alarmed by her irregularities. Don Manuel became the channel of communication between the Princess and her lover, and the charming songs he sang to his guitar soon raised him at a bound to her favor and to fortune. No sooner had the Princess become the Queen than her favorite adorned his handsome person with the finest clothes, and purchased the most beautiful Andalusian horses. Then he asked for promotion, next for honors, and before long for a title. He could ask and obtain anything from the fond Queen, and anything she wished for was at once granted by her infatuated husband. Charles cared for nothing but the chase. All his affairs, regal and domestic, were in his wife's hands.

Maria Louisa was a Bourbon of Naples. She was thirty-four when, in 1788, she bestowed her favors on Godoy, who was barely twenty-two. She had had several children : a daughter who had married the Prince of Parma and is known as the Queen of Etruria ; Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, and Don Carlos, subsequently leader of the Carlist party, who saw in him the legitimate successor to the Spanish throne. The Queen had one other son, Don Francisco de Paula j but as he was born after her connection with Godoy, as in a moment of great excitement she acknowledged Godoy to be his father, and as she intrigued to have his elder brothers set aside, and to secure him the succession, doubts may be considered to exist concerning his legitimacy

Maria Louisa undertook the education of her handsome favorite. She persuaded him to acquire some instruction in the primary branches of knowledge, she initiated him into national affairs, and above all she instructed him in the skilful management of court intrigues. In two years she had seated him in the Council of Castile, and made him Colonel of the Guards. He was vain, indolent, self-seeking, and dissipated, but it is so easy to rule a nation accustomed to subservience that he managed the affairs intrusted to him better than could have been expected. To be sure, in all things he was directed by the superior tact and experience of the Queen. A good many useful works were, however, begun in Spain under his administration, some of which survive to the present day.

The French Revolution broke into a flame, and at once created two parties in the Peninsula. The court at Madrid did not know which party to join. The sympathies of the King and Queen were naturally with Louis XVI., as a sovereign and as a Bourbon, but if Spain too openly espoused his cause, revolutionary France might pour troops over her Pyrenean frontier. Godoy hated war, chiefly because he disliked the trouble it entailed. To form an alliance with France would have been to encourage Spanish revolutionists ; besides, England would at once have cut off communication between Spanish ports and the Spanish American provinces ; but the policy that adopted the cause of royalty in France commended itself to the Queen, and consequently to her favorite. It was abandoned, however, in 1792, when Count Aranda, head of the French party in Spain, contrived to bring about a treaty of alliance with France, which secured for the revolutionary government, in its contest with the royalties of Europe, the neutrality of Spain.

This policy lasted only for eight months. Then Count Aranda was dismissed, and the favorite was made prime minister. King Charles had grown very fond of Godoy, who, instructed by the Queen, knew how to obtain great influence over him.

Godoy, on his elevation to power, was made Count of

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

Evora Monte and Duke of Alcudia, but he found it hard to choose which party to adhere to, and in his perplexity took a middle course, which was to his country the beginning of troubles. Both France and England were hated by the Spanish nation ; both countries were eager to secure the alliance of Spain. Austria and Prussia were marching armies into France. Godoy would not join them, but offered his services as a peacemaker. These services were rejected by the National Convention. Then Godoy, willing to spend large sums of money to avert war and to save the life of the French king, offered bribes to members of the Convention, to induce them not to vote at the trial of Louis XVI. for the death penalty. But revolutionary fervor was stronger than avarice in the breasts of the " patriots " in the Assembly. Besides, if such a transaction had been discovered, or even suspected, it would have been death to all concerned.

When Louis had been executed, the Spanish court went into mourning, and several regiments were moved northward to the frontier. These things offended France, which declared war against Spain in March, 1 793. Then Spain allied herself with England, and at first her armies in the northern provinces met with some success. Godoy was much elated when he heard of this, but the campaign of 1794 dispelled his transient dreams, and disappointed his expectations. French arms had the advantage, and Godoy was ready to accept peace. The only stipulation he endeavored to make was that the rulers of France should show kindness to the orphans in the Temple ; and he was ready to cede to the French the Spanish half of Saint Domingo.

This treaty was signed at Basle, July 22, 1795, in spite of the refusal of the Convention to accede to the sole stipulation made on Godoy's part concerning the royal children.

In acknowledgment of Godoy's services on this occasion, he was made Knight of the Golden Fleece, Grandee of Spain of the First Class, and Prince of the Peace, receiving at the same time a large sum of money.

A treaty of alliance made by Spain with the Dutch in 1 796 gave umbrage to England, and led to a war, which was aggressive on the part of Great Britain, defensive on that of Spain. Spain did not, however, take any steps to defend her American possessions ; that duty she left to France, her ally. England took the Island of Trinidad, and annihilated the commerce carried on from Spanish ports with the West Indies.

Instead of making vigorous preparations for the conduct of this war, Spain suffered her arsenals to remain despoiled and empty. The Spanish army was not paid, and the troops deserted. But the prime minister looked on all disasters with indifference.1 He enjoyed the king's favor, he lulled him by false reports, and took care that no one should approach his person who would tell him the truth. The queen grew more infatuated than ever. Godoy had many mistresses ; the one in chief, or we may say " in permanent possession," was Dona Josefa Tudo. Godoy's relations with this lady were perfectly open. They were known and acknowledged even by the Queen. The minister held official interviews at Dona Tudo's house, where offices were bought and sold, and the pair had several children.

The second daughter of Don Luis, uncle to the King, who had displeased his father by refusing to become a priest, and marrying a lady not of royal birth, was a lovely, pure young girl, whose beauty caught the fancy of the Prince of the Peace. He dared to ask the Queen to solicit for him the Infanta's hand in marriage. This alliance would make him cousin to the King, and brother-in-law to the highest dignitary in the Spanish church, the Bishop of Toledo. The Queen seconded the ambition of her favorite. The marriage took place in the Royal Chapel, but few persons were present at the nuptials. The grandees of Spain who had been summoned refused to come, and the Archbishop of Toledo

1 Godoy in 1836 published his Memoirs, which the " Biographie Universelle " describes as a tissue of lies. This judgment seems justified by a passage in the opening of his defence, in which he claims credit for great purity of morals. He says he won the favor of the Spanish people, spent immense sums in charity, and set on foot (which is true) many useful public works.

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

declined to perform the ceremony. Dona Tudo was made a countess in her own right, and was appointed one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. She did not, however, long lose her lover ; Godoy returned to her a few months after his marriage.

In vain during the war of 1796 France tried to rouse her ally to action. She endeavored to induce Spain to invade Portugal, and then finding that Godoy would not fall into her views, the French Ambassador, Admiral Truguet, resolved to accomplish his ruin. All Spain was in sympathy with the French minister. The favorite, who had been created a Serene Highness on his marriage with the Infanta, was everywhere despised. The cabal at court against him was so strong that the Queen had to give way, and in 1798 Godoy retired, giving up his office of prime minister, and resigning his post as Colonel of the Guard. He soon, however, came back to the Council Board, and even in his absence carried on an active correspondence with the King and Queen.

By this time Bonaparte was First Consul of France, and his imperious will reached even to Madrid. The expedition to Portugal was undertaken, and Godoy was made generalissimo; but his troops never encountered an enemy, and made a speedy retreat.

Bonaparte was furious, but Portugal, being greatly obliged to Godoy for his forbearance, rewarded him liberally with sums of money.

By the treaty of LuneVille between the German Empire and the French Republic, signed in February, 1801, the kingdom of Etruria, which consisted of Tuscany and some smaller duchies, was given to the Duke of Parma, a Spanish Bourbon, who had married the eldest daughter of King Charles IV.

In 1799 the United States made preparations to attack New Orleans, being outraged by repeated violations of a treaty made the previous year, which secured to American citizens the free navigation of the Mississippi. This war was averted by a declaration from Spain that by a secret agreement she had ceded Louisiana to France. France failed, however, to secure possession of the province, the forces destined to occupy it being blockaded in Dutch ports by the English, and on April 13, 1803, Louisiana was made over to the United States, which, having paid fifteen million dollars as purchase money to the French government, entered into peaceable possession of it. The Spaniards considered themselves ill-used by this cession of a province contiguous to the possessions of a growing power in the West ; and the transaction increased the unpopularity of Godoy, who now again was virtually restored to power. Millions of reals came from Mexico, but nothing was done, while war was raging around Spain, to put the country in a state of defence ; the army, the navy, and the roads received none of the treasure, while Madrid and the court were engaged in celebrating two royal marriages, — that of Ferdinand, the Prince of the Asturias, with Maria Isabel, Princess of Naples, and that of the heir apparent of the kingdom of Naples with an infanta.

At last, when the brief Peace of Amiens was broken (1803), Spain became alarmed for her own safety. If she favored the interests of France, England might cut off her supplies from Mexico and her colonies in South America ; if she refused to favor France, that power might again attack her on her northern frontier.

By endeavoring to propitiate England, Godoy exasperated Napoleon, who hastened to force a new treaty of alliance on Spain, by which a subsidy of seventy-two million francs was exacted to assist the Emperor in his proposed invasion of England. France might have demanded aid in men and ships from her ally, but the fighting qualities of the Spaniards Napoleon appears always to have despised.

Godoy at first endeavored to diminish the amount of the subsidy demanded from his country. Then Napoleon wrote a letter to King Charles, which he desired his ambassador to deliver with his own hand into those of the King. This letter contained disclosures very damaging to the Prince of the Peace, which the Emperor hoped would be his ruin. But Godoy was equal to the emergency. He had received information of the plot. He knew the contents of the letter, and the purpose for which it was intended. He consulted with the Queen, who understood how to deal with her husband, and when the letter was delivered to King Charles as he stood surrounded by his courtiers, he quietly returned it to the ambassador, saying : " Our affair has been arranged by a treaty, signed this very day at San Ildefonso, in such a manner as to suit the views of your Emperor. It is therefore unnecessary that I should read his letter. I even believe that he would prefer it should remain unread."

Napoleon's terms were all accepted. It was, however, agreed that should Spain declare war against England, payment of the subsidy should cease, and that, when peace was made with England, France should require her to give back Gibraltar to Spain, and to receive in exchange the island of Trinidad.

This danger having been escaped, Godoy set himself in all things to flatter and propitiate Napoleon. But a few months later the English, resenting the purchased neutrality of Spain, (more injurious to her interests than open hostility), seized four Spanish frigates laden with gold from Mexico, without a declaration of war. This forced Spain, greatly against her will, to commence hostilities against Great Britain.

On October 19, 1805, the allied squadrons, French and Spanish, put to sea, and two days later the naval power of Spain was destroyed in the battle of Trafalgar. Such French and Spanish ships as escaped destruction in that engagement ran into harbor at Cadiz, where they were closely blockaded by an English squadron.1

Spain, dreading that the loss of her fleet might entail that of her South American colonies, felt the disaster keenly.

1 My father served in this fleet as flag-lieutenant to Admiral Purvis, who was in command. I am afraid to say how long the " Atlas " cruised before Cadiz without dropping an anchor. The result was much sickness on board. My father was invalided for six months and sent to England, Admiral Purvis promising to keep his place as flag-lieutenant vacant for him till his return.

Godoy appeared indifferent to it. He had never approved of despatching Spanish ships in company with the French to fight a great battle, and he felt that by the event his own opinion had been confirmed.

Napoleon was furious. The defeat of Villeneuve by an English fleet under Sir Robert Calder had already broken up his plans for the invasion of England, and he was more and more resolved to ruin Great Britain by what was called the Continental Blockade.

An. alliance was signed in 1806 between England, Russia, Prussia, and Saxony against France. By secret treaties Spain and Portugal were to be compelled, when the time should serve, to join this alliance. Emboldened by a knowledge of this treaty, Godoy put forth a proclamation to the Spanish people, warning them that their country would soon be at war (he did not say with what power), and calling on them to make every exertion to raise men and supplies. Napoleon received news of this proclamation at Berlin in a moment of triumph, immediately after the battle of Jena, when all parties to the alliance seemed to him to be at his feet. He resolved to be revenged upon Godoy, and when the Corsican Emperor was bent upon revenge there was small hope for the offending party. In vain Godoy sent explanations of his conduct, and congratulations to the Emperor on the success of his arms. All idea that Spain might join the coalition was at once at an end, and Napoleon (already meditating the annexation of Spain to France, either as a province or a subject kingdom) exacted as reparation for Godoy's proclamation a contingent force from Spain of fourteen thousand men, whom he sent into Germany, and the co-operation of what remained of the Spanish fleet, which he despatched to Toulon. Portugal, which had failed to comply with his policy of a continental blockade, was to be punished by an invasion of French and Spanish troops, — the latter to be commanded by French generals, and treated, not as allies, but as auxiliaries.

Meantime Ferdinand, the Prince of the Asturias, who was hated by his mother, intrigued against her favorite, and

THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

being virtually banished from court, cast about how he might improve his position. He had a former tutor, the Canon Escoiquiz, to whom he was attached. This man had been exiled from court and was living at Toledo. Ferdinand wrote to him entreating his advice. Escoiquiz, impressed by the mighty power of Napoleon, and assured also of his hostility to the Prince of the Peace, advised him to apply secretly to the French Emperor, and to offer — as he was now a widower — to give his hand in marriage to some lady of the Bonaparte family, or at least of the Emperor's choice.

. Then began a secret intrigue or understanding with De Beauharnais, nephew by marriage to the Empress Josephine. De Beauharnais was the French ambassador at Madrid ; but he had been by no means instructed in the designs of his master.

On October it, 1807, Ferdinand, the descendant of kings, addressed the following abject letter to the successful soldier : —

Sire, — The fear of troubling your Imperial and Royal Majesty in the midst of those more important affairs which incessantly demand your attention, has hitherto prevented me from gratifying in a direct manner the warmest wish of my heart, — that of expressing, at least in writing, the sentiments of respect, esteem, and attachment which I entertain for a hero who has been sent by Providence to save Europe from the confusion with which it was threatened, to sustain its tottering thrones, and to restore to the nations tranquillity and happiness.