Napoleon in Spain

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter seven the Story of Napoleon, but Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Patrick Seville. Chapter seven Napoleon in Spain. Besides fighting with Britain,
Napoleon tried to conquer our islands by ruining our trade.
He forbade all countries on the continent to trade with Britain.

(00:24):
But in spite of Napoleon's orders, Portugal went on trading
with Britain. Now, soon after Napoleon returned from Tilsit, he
sent a message to the Prince Regent of Portugal telling
him that he must stop trading with Britain, must seize
all British goods and property in Portugal, and declare war
on Britain. If he did not do all this, Napoleon

(00:46):
threatened that he would declare war with Portugal. Portugal is
only a little country, quite unable to stand against such
a powerful conquerors Napoleon. So the Prince region agreed to
all that was asked, except the seizing of British goods,
that he would not do. Then Napoleon prepared to fight. France,

(01:08):
at this time had hardly a navy. Napoleon had not
enough ships in which to send his troops by sea.
To make war in Portugal, he had to pass through Spain.
So now he made a secret treaty with the King
of Spain, by which his troops were to be allowed
to pass through that country. And when, by the help

(01:28):
of Spanish soldiers, he had conquered Portugal, he promised to
divide it with Spain. The Kingdom of Portugal was at
this time ruled by a regent. The Queen Maria the
First was mad and her son, Prince John, ruled for her. Now,
when the regent heard that Napoleon was gathering an army

(01:49):
to fight him, he made up his mind to leave
the war to Britain and take his poor mad mother
away to Brazil, which was then a Portuguese colony. So
one wet and cold November morning, the Queen and Prince
and many of the nobles set sail, leaving a sad
and morning people behind. Meanwhile, Napoleon had gathered a large

(02:12):
army at Bayonne, a strongly fortified town close to the Pyrenees,
but on the French side of them. This army, under
Marshal Jennau, now came marching quickly through Spain to Lisbond,
the capital of Portugal. They crossed the Pyrenees, which, next
to the Alps, are the highest mountains in Europe. Over

(02:34):
the windswept plain, they came across rivers, down rugged valleys
by muddy tracks which could scarcely be called roads. The
men were weary, but Janeaux urged them onward. The land
was barren and bare, and they had often hardly enough
to eat for. As was usual with Napoleon's armies, they

(02:54):
carried no supplies with them, but trusted to finding what
they needed in the land they passed through. I will
not have the march kept back because of supplies, said
the Emperor. Twenty thousand men can find food anywhere, even
in a desert. Most of the soldiers in this army
were mere boys, raw recruits, unused to such hardships. Many

(03:16):
of them dropped out of the ranks, overcome with weariness,
and were left by the wayside to die. At last.
Little more than a month after they had set out
from Bayonne, they arrived footsore, hungry, and ragged at Lisbond.
Too late. The ship carrying the Queen and Prince was
already far out to sea. The royal family had escaped,

(03:39):
but the French took possession of the country. There was
little fighting. Had there been in the Portuguese army, even
a handful of bold and resolute men, and may have
gone ill with Geno's raw and worn out soldiers, but
there were none such everywhere. The French pulled down the
royal arms of Portugal and set those of Napoleon up.

(04:01):
Many of the Portuguese soldiers were sent away to France,
so that they might not have a chance of fighting
for their country, even if a leaders should appear. The
Portuguese people were made to pay great sums of money
to the conqueror, who declared that the House of Braganza,
that is, the royal house of Portugal, had ceased to reign.

(04:21):
And while all this was happening, French troops kept on
pouring into Spain, and far greater numbers than were needed
to conquer little Portugal. Write descriptions of all the provinces
through which you pass, said Napoleon, as he sent them away.
Describe the roads and the nature of the land. Send
me sketches that I may see the distance of the villages,

(04:43):
the nature of the country, and the resources of the land.
All this was not necessary if he merely intended to
pass through the land to reach Portugal. No, he had
another design, far greater than the conquest of Portugal. In
his mind. Spain at this time was badly ruled. The King,

(05:04):
Charles the Fourth, was old and foolish. All the power
was in the hands of the Queen, who was not
a good woman, and of Manuel Godoy, her favorite. He
was not a good man, but he had given the
beautiful name of the Prince of Peace because at one
time he had helped to make a peace with France.
The king's eldest son, Ferdinand, hated Goodoy and quarreled with him.

(05:29):
So the court of Spain was full of strife. Now
both sides appealed to Napoleon for help. It was rather
like mice putting their heads into a cat's mouth. The
king and Queen began to think so, and they decided
to run away, as the Queen and Prince of Portugal
had done, and take refuge from all their troubles in America.

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But when the people found out what they meant to do,
they were very angry and broke out into a riot.
They burst into Godoy's palace in search of the man
they hated. They could not find him, so they wreaked
their vengeance on the beautiful furniture and pictures, leaving the
palace a waste of splinters and rags. Meanwhile, he, trembling

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in fear, was hiding in a roll of matting in
the attic. There for two days he remained until at last,
driven by hunger, he crept out. He hoped to escaped unseen,
but at once he was seized and would have been
torn to pieces, but the angry mob had not. Prince
Ferdinand begged for his life. Now, the weak old king

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of Spain, trembling for the life of his friend, the
Prince of Peace, decided to give up the throne to
his son Ferdinand. He hoped in this way to quiet
the riot, but the people, when they heard the news,
went mad with joy, and to show it, they burned
in sack the houses belonged to Godoy, his friends and relatives,
while they proclaimed Ferdinand king with shouting and cheering. But

(06:56):
their joy was short lived. Almost at once, the old
king being to be sorry, they had given up the
crown and wanted it back again. And meanwhile French troops
were closing in round Madrid. Soon it became known that
Napoleon himself was coming, and hearing that his father and
mother were going to meet the Emperor, Ferdinand resolved to

(07:16):
go too and lay his case before him. The people
were very unwilling that he should go, for they felt
sure that some evil would befall their young king. At
one place, as he traveled through the land, they caught
the traces of his horses, thinking to make him give
up his intention, but he went on as there was

(07:36):
still no sign of Napoleon. When Ferdinand reached the border,
he crossed into France and met him at Bayonne. There
too came the old King and Queen and Manuel Godoy
beyond their own borders, surrounded by French soldiers. They were
Napoleon's prisoners. They had a free will, it seemed, walked
into the trap. And now Napoleon told them that it

(08:01):
was useless to quarrel about who should be king of Spain,
as he wanted the throne for one of his own family.
The House of Burble had ceased to reign. He said,
in his usual grand way, what could the poor Spanish
kings do? The whole country was in the hands of
the French, and they themselves prisoners in a foreign land,

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so at the bidding of Napoleon, they signed away the
crown in the throne of Spain without striking a blow.
Napoleon had added two more kingdoms to his conquest, and
with Spain went all her rich colonies. But it had
been done by base treachery. Even he himself long after
said the whole thing, where is an ugly look? Since

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I have fallen? Napoleon now made his brother Joseph, king
of Spain. But the people of Spain would have no
Bonaparte to reign over them. The Spaniards, though the most
polite and courteous of men, are idle and indolent, so
them showing any innerery. But now they were thoroughly aroused.

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To a man, they rebelled. From every town and village
they flocked, ready to fight for their freedom and their king. Meanwhile,
the new king, Joseph, guarded by French troops, came to
live in the capital. The Spaniards received him in sullen silence,
and as Joseph looked at the dark faces which surrounded him,

(09:26):
he felt that he had not a friend among them.
Everywhere there was fighting, Yet so sure was Napoleon now
that everything would go on in Spain, just as he
wished that. He left Bayonne and set out in a
tour through some of the French towns. But even as
Napoleon started, messengers were speeding northward with the news that

(09:48):
Donal DuPont and all his men had surrendered to the Spaniards.
Napoleon was furiously angry. Could I have expected that from DuPont?
He cried, a man I loved? Had he no other
way to save his soldiers? Better? Far better to have
died with arms in their hands. You can always supply

(10:09):
the place of soldiers. Honor alone, once lost, can never
be regained. Everywhere all through Spain, battles were fought, towns
were besieged. One of the most famous sieges was that
of Saragoza. The fortifications were poor, but the hearts of
the people were stout. Day by day they held out,

(10:31):
the women fighting beside the men. One woman named Maria
Augustine became famous and was called the Maid of Saragoza.
She fought beside her lover, helping him to fire the
cannon of which he was in charge, and when he
fell dead, she still went on fighting and worked the
cannon herself. Hunger and disease fought against the brave defenders.

(10:56):
Still they held out, but the French at last gained
possession of a convent which was almost within the walls.
Their leader then sent a summons to the town. It
was short and sharp headquarters, Saint Angracia. Surrender was all
it said. The reply was as sharp headquarters, Saragoza. War

(11:20):
to the knife. At last, hearing the defeat at Balen,
where DuPont and all his men had lain down their
arms to the Spaniards, the French gave up the siege
of Saragoza and marched away, foiled by a woman's hand
before a battered wall. Afterwards, when the War of the
Beeration was over, Maria Augustine received medals, as did other soldiers,

(11:45):
and reward of her bravery, and her portrait was bought
by people all over Europe. It was long ere the
name of the Maid of Saragoza was forgotten. But now
Spain was not left to fight her War of the
Beeration unaided. Britain had been at war with Spain in
the Battle of Chafalgar. The fleet of Spain had been

(12:06):
destroyed with that of France. But the Kingdom thus nobly
struggled against the usurpation and tyranny of France. Can no
longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, said
King George. It is recognized by me as a natural friend,
and ally so British troops were sent to help the
Spaniards in their struggle, and thus began for us the

(12:28):
war which we call the Peninsular War. It would be
impossible to follow all this war. The story of it
belongs to another place, especially as Napoleon himself was very
little with his soldiers in Spain. For even while this
great struggle was going on, he began another war with Austria. Indeed,
it was not only the Austrians who now fought in Tayrol.

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The peasants had risen under a brave leader called Huvel
in Germany and Poland, in Italy. Everywhere the people arose.
In many places they won battles, But after all, where
Napoleon led there was the heart of the fight, and
he was everywhere victorious. It was near the village of

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Wogarum that the deciding battle of the war took place.
The Austrians fought with splendid courage, and when night came,
of the fifty thousand who lay dead, nearly as many
were French as Austrian. It was one of the fiercest
battles ever fought, and to Napoleon accounted barely a victory.

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Yet for the Emperor of Austria it was enough. He
was not made of stern stuff of heroes and patriots.
Once more he yielded, and on the fourteenth of October,
the Treaty of Scombron, so called from the name of
the beautiful palace in Vienna where Napoleon was living, was signed.
By this treaty, Austria lost still more land Napoleon took

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for France. The lands lying around the Andriatic parts of
Upper Austria, Galicia and Bohemia were given to Napoleon's vassal
kings to reward them for having helped him. For it
must be remembered that Napoleon's great armies were not made
up of only Frenchmen, but of men from every country
which he had conquered or over whose ruler he held Sway,

(14:19):
after the Treaty of Scombron was signed, Napoleon returned to Paris,
and now one of the strangest things in his life happened.
You remember that, long ago, when the Emperor was a
poor soldier, he had married a beautiful lady called Josephine
de Barroney. He had loved her very much. To live
for Josephine, that is the history of my life. He

(14:42):
had written. Then, I prize honor, since you prize it.
I prize victory, since it pleases you. Now glory, if
not honor, was heaped upon him. He had piled victory
upon victory. But he forgot what he had written. As
a young in eager bank, he put away his beautiful

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wife and married the Duchess Marie Louise, the daughter of
his late enemy, the Emperor of Austria. One reason why
Napoleon did this was that his pride had grown with
his power. He still loved Osephine, but he longed to
have a great lady for his wife, a princess, the
daughter of a long line of kings, to be the

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mother of his children. Marie Louise was little more than
the girl. She had hated Napoleon, and once when she
heard that he had been defeated, she said that she
was glad and hoped that it would happen again now.
She came to be his wife because her father told her,
perhaps that this marriage would help to bring peace and

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freedom to her country. So she became the Empress Marie
Louise end of Chapter seven