The war-clouds burst, and from amid the thunder and smoke of battle at
Jena, Eylau, and Friedland, the victor's figure arose more imperious
than ever. All the crowned heads of Europe but one[47] hastened to do
him homage, among them Charles IV of Spain and the Prince of Asturias,
his son.
The next step in the grand drama that was being enacted was the
occupation of Spanish territory by what Bonaparte was pleased to call
an army of observation. This time Godoy's suspicions became confirmed,
and to save the royal family he counsels the king to withdraw to
Andalusia. Ferdinand conspires to dethrone his father, the people
become excited, riots take place, Godoy's residence in Aranguez is
attacked by the mob, and the king abdicates in favor of his son.
Napoleon himself now lands at Bayona. Charles and his son hasten
thither to salute Europe's master, and, after declaring that his
abdication was imposed on him by violence, the king resumes his
crown and humbly lays it at the feet of the arbiter of the fate of
kings, who stoops to pick it up only to offer it to his brother Louis,
who refuses it. Then he places it on the head of his younger brother
Joseph.
Thus fared the crown of Spain, the erstwhile proud mistress of half
the world, and the degenerate successors of Charles V accept an asylum
in France from the hands of a soldier of fortune.
But if their rulers had lost all sense of dignity, all feeling of
national pride, the Spanish nation remained true to itself, and when
the doings at Bayona became known a cry of indignation went up from
the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean.
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