Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The War in the Peninsula 1808-1814
Had his statecraft not failed him for once, Na poleon might have governed Spain, for a time at least, through the Bourbons, leaving Charles or Ferdinand a Shadowy supremacy. When they called him in to arbitrate in the scandals of the palace, they had abdicated all free will and placed themselves absolutely at his disposition. The Prince of Peace, the all-powerful favourite, trembling for the consequences of his con tumacy before the battle of Jena, was his obsequious tool, ready to sell his master and the liberties of the nation. Doubtless the prudent course was Napoleon's first idea. But with more familiar knowledge his con tempt had increased for the senile king and the hereditary prince. He saw that the courtiers and aristocracy were corrupt to the core; that the ministers and place-hunters were venal as Godoy, and would have been as base had they enjoyed Godoy's opportunities. It seemed well to get rid altogether of a dynasty, who might easily be intimidated but were never to be trusted. And it would be as gratifying to his ambition as to his pride to succeed where Louis the Grand had failed, to efface the Pyrenees and to annex another kingdom for the aggrandisement of the Buonapartes.
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