all-powerful minister. Metternich was easily dis-
posed in the beautiful lady's favour and readily
granted her permission to send an agent, Don Juan
Martinez, to Vienna to ask for passports for herself
and Godoy. Martinez was in the pay of Vargas
31 8 Godoy: the Quecn^s Favourite
Laguna, and the scheme was very soon communicated
to the court of Madrid. Godoy at Vienna, perhaps
at the ear of Francis II., was a possibility sufficient
to appal Ferdinand VII. and to enkindle all his latent
hate. He at once despatched an envoy to the em-
peror, selecting no other than Ceballos, who had
already repaid Godoy's services to him in the past
with so many injuries.
While this turncoat was on his way to Vienna, his
colleague at Rome, with the connivance of the gover-
nor, Tiberio Pacca, occupied himself with intercepting
Godoy's correspondence with Kaunitz and Pepita. He
worked on Charles's fear of losing his favourite and dis-
pleasing his son and liege lord so far as to induce him
to write personally to the emperor asking him to with-
draw the invitation issued by Metternich. The letter
was drafted by Vargas Laguna ; otherwise it would be
difficult to explain or to excuse the language in which
the old king speaks of his most loyal friend : " Your
majesty is not ignorant of the hatred of the Spanish
nation for Godoy, nor of the measures which I, my
son, and the Cortes have successively adopted against
him. That he has continued about my person and
that his prosecution has been abandoned must be
attributed to my benevolent mediation and to the
love and respect which my son entertains for me.
Such kindness should have filled the heart of Godoy
with gratitude.. . . . Notwithstanding, he has per-
mitted himself, without consulting me, to solicit
from your majesty not only naturalisation as an
Austrian subject, but the honours sovereigns are
accustomed to reserve for their most faithful
subjects."
The Last Long Scene 319
The king wound up by asking the emperor not to
grant any request that would trouble his beloved son,
Ferdinand, and vowing that he would not tolerate
Godoy near him if he succeeded in his desire. This
letter was handed to Francis H. by Ceballos. On
February 2, 181 8, the emperor replied that he
had ordered his ambassador in Rome to inform the
Prince of the Peace that no Spanish subject could be
admitted into his dominions without the consent of
his natural lord.
The unworthy old dotard Charles had, in obedience
to his unnatural son, ruined the last hopes of the
man who had worked so much, suffered so much, and
lost so much in his cause. He even lent himself
to the persecution of Pepita Tudo and her children.
Ferdinand professed to believe that Godoy or his
mistress was possessed of some of the crown jewels
missing ever since the French invasion. Charles dis-
graced himself by asking the grand-duke of Tuscany,
who had taken the Tudo into his favour, to remove
her from his dominions and to allow the Spanish
minister to search her coffers ; but he pleaded that
his old favourite should not again be removed from
Rome.
Pepita protested, with her customary vehemence,
against these disgraceful aspersions. The death of
her younger son, Luis, added to her grief and to the
unhappy Godoy's. The positive declaration of Maria
Luisa that the few jewels in the possession of her
favourites were lawfully theirs and that much of the
missing treasure had been sold by her to supply the
needs of her family in exile at last caused Ferdinand
and his agents to cease their malicious pursuit ;
320 Godoy: the Quccn^s Favourite
but so long as his old enemy lived Godoy and his
mistress were subject to the persistent annoyance and
supervision of his spies.
They were soon robbed of their steadfast protectress.
In the last days of the year 1818 the queen fell ill.
At a quarter past ten on the night of January 2 she
died, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, her last
glances wandering from her old lover and faithful
friend to her two youngest daughters, who arrived
only in time to close her eyes. Her husband was not
present. He was on a visit to his brother at Naples.
In his old age he seems to have contracted a dislike
for all those he had formerly loved. He was not
much troubled by his wife's death. Within eighteen
days he followed her to the tomb.
Godoy mourned bitterly the loss of the mistress
who had befriended him to the last and of the master
who had betrayed him. By a will executed in 1 81 5
the queen had bequeathed everything she possessed
to Godoy, " to whom, in discharge of our conscience,
we owe this indemnification for the many great losses
he has suffered in obedience to our orders and to those
of the king here present, and because we refused the
permission he sought to vacate his offices and retire
into private life." The will was respectfully trans*
mitted by Godoy to Ferdinand VII. His catholic
majesty ignored it, having been previously informed
that his father had withdrawn his consent to this
disposition of his wife's property. Regardless of
their mother's wishes, the princes and princesses all
greedily clamoured for their share in her estate.
Godoy, now approaching old age, was left penniless.
For years past he had subsisted on the bounty of the
The Last Long Scene 321
queen ; for to the last he had made his country the
sole repository of his fortune. He was beggared now
by the cowardly deference of Charles to his son's
animosity ; yet he respected the ungrateful old man's
wishes and resolved to attempt no defence of his
career till Ferdinand also had passed away. His
patience was rewarded. In 1833 his bitterest enemy
died, leaving a legacy of civil war and fratricidal strife
to his disillusioned subjects.
Godoy now found himself in Paris, old and almost
destitute. His appeals to successive Spanish ministers
were futile. No one heeded him ; he was forgotten
by friend and foe alike. The recommendations of
successive ambassadors to the cabinet of Madrid were
ignored. In remembrance at last of his generosity
to the French royalist exiles, Louis Philippe settled an
annuity of ^200 upon him. In 1836 he published
his memoirs, said to have been written, at his dic-
tation, by a Spanish clergyman exiled to Paris. His
mild treatment of enemies, his readiness to impute
good motives to most of his opponents, his touching
loyalty to the old king who had at the last betrayed
him, should have done much to restore him to the
favour of his countrymen ; but a new generation had
arisen who took no interest, friendly or hostile, in
this venerable survivor of a bygone age.
Harder to bear than the neglect of his countrymen
was his abandonment by those dearest to him. His
daughter Carlota had gone back to Spain and been
granted his estates in Valencia. On the death of his
wife he married Pepita in order to legitimate their
son ; but she, too, deserted him and returned, upon
the death of Ferdinand, to Madrid. Who was there
19
322 Godoy: the Queen^s Favourite
to care for this penniless, exiled old man, approaching
his seventieth year ?
In these last sad d^ys we catch very few glimpses
of the man who had once ruled over Spain and half
the New World. Lord Holland, at least, had not
forgotten him, and he refers with gratitude in his
memoirs to his lordship as the only person who, since
his fall, had shown any recollection of any service, great
or small, received from him. He presently received
a visit from the Whig nobleman, who, writing on
September 19, 1838, says : " I saw the Prince of
the Peace, much altered in appearance, but still the
same character of countenance. Good-humoured,
self-satisfied, somewhat jovial and hearty, in his bad
French and chuckling voice, and an arch expression
in his eyes, he complained much of the ingratitude
of the world. He complained bitterly of the Tudo,
to whom, he said, he had been attached from his
youth, and for whom he had incurred the imputation
of bigamy, and whom all the world knew he had
actually married, after the death of his first wife,
for the purpose of legitimating her son. He had
settled on her all he had in the world out of Spain,
and she had left him and taken the whole, so that he
was reduced to absolute penury, and lived entirely
on the small pension Louis Philippe allowed him.
" His estates . . . had been distributed in a strange
way : his Soto de Roma had been bestowed on the
Duke of Wellington, who had earned it ; but he knew
of no sentence or judgment of law depriving him of
it. As to the Alb uf era and his encomiendas^ these
had been conferred on the Infante Don Francisco ;
so that whenever he claimed his lands he found some
The Last Long Scene 323
one in the enjoyment of them whom he had little
chance of dispossessing. He rather laughed at this
and his own helplessness, but he spoke with more
bitterness of the Tudo's ingratitude, and with some
indignation of the Liberals depriving him of the title
of captain-general. He had no great complaint of
Napoleon ... he had offered him fair terms of
reconciliation, if he had thought it either honourable
or possible to have accepted of them. . . . He spoke
with less bitterness of Ferdinand and with more of
Don Carlos than I expected.
" Soon after he left me I met, on the landing-place
of the hotel stairs, a dark and somewhat stately lady-
carried by two or three servants on a footstool to a
story above our apartment. ... It was the duchess
of Sueca, who is the daughter of the Prince of the
Peace and possesses no inconsiderable portion of his
landed property. But she neither allows him a
sixpence out of them or keeps up any intercourse with
him. She is married to a Roman prince. The Tudo
is living in comparative splendour at Madrid, while
her husband is training a miserable existence as a
pensioner or almost beggar in Paris, surrounded by
relations, acknowledged or unacknowledged children,
grandchildren, and what not — infantes, princesses,
duchesses, etc., not one of which condescends to take
the least notice of him or show the slightest tenderness,
regard, or interest about one to whom some owe their
station and riches, and all more or less their very
existence."
About the same time Godoy was consoled by a
testimony of good-will from young Spain in the person
of the brilliant writer, Ramon de Mesonero y Romanos,
324 Godoy: the Queen*s Favourite
who has left us his recollections of the old man in his
last days :
" Happening to be in Paris and on the most cordial
terms with the venerable and affable Don Juan
Antonio Melon, an old friend of my father's, I
expressed to him my desire to pay my respects to
that famous but fallen historical personage, the Prince
of the Peace. We directed our steps, then, to the
humble dwelling of the man still entitled Prince of
Bassano, which was situated in a street behind the
Passage de I'Opera, on the fourth floor. The prince
received us with the greatest courtesy, and, Melon
having mentioned that I was a writer, he seemed
pleased and spoke freely about his misfortunes and
the injustice with which he had been treated by
certain historians, especially the count of Toreno.
He asked me, also, if I had read his memoirs and what
opinion the new generation had formed of him.
" I succeeded in convincing him that we had for-
gotten the passionate animosities and prejudices of
our fathers, and that, having suffered under the rule
of Ferdinand VH., with his Macanaces, Eguias, and
Calomardes, we were rather disposed to envy those
who had lived under governments more enlightened
and tolerant. I spoke with approval of his beneficent
endeavours to promote science and the culture of the
nation ; of the protection he extended to the men
of talent of his day ; of the travels of Rojas Clemente
and Badia which he had initiated ; of the expedition
of Balmis to America to disseminate vaccin, — all of
which seemed to gratify him extremely. He thanked
me in accents borrowed from the Italian language,
which he had used habitually for thirty years past.
The Last Long Scene 325
and repeated that his most ardent wish was to return
to Spain and take a look round the Prado ; but that
the Government and the courts, everlastingly post-
poning his rehabilitation, deprived him of that
pleasure. He hoped, however, much from the justice
of his cause and the talent of his defenders, Perez
Hernandez and Pacheco. I replied that, being hon-
oured with the friendship of both those eminent
jurists, I would endeavour to reanimate their exertions
on behalf of the prince, and promised to do my own
humble best for his vindication."
Mesonero Romanos did not forget his promise,
and did justice to Godoy's services to civilisation in
a book he shortly afterwards published on Madrid
ancient and modern. Nor were the efforts of the
advocates unsuccessful in the end. On May 31, 1847,
— thirty-nine years after the catastrophe of Aranjuez —
Queen Isabella H. signed the decree restoring the
Prince of the Peace to his rank and dignities and
ordering the restoration of his property. But the
actual possessors of his estates well knew how, by the
tedious processes and circumlocutions of Spanish law,
to postpone from month to month the fulfilment
of this act of tardy justice. Against the arts of
procrastination so well understood by his countrymen
a man of fourscore cannot long contend. On
October 4,,,! 851, the unjust possessors of his lands
breathed freely — Godoy would never come back to
Spain. He had ended his long exile in a foreign land.
He passed away unremarked and scarce remembered
except by those who had good reasons to wish him
gone. The notice of his death appeared in but one
Spanish journal ; his epitaph was written by the
326 Godoy : the Queen*s Favourite
last Spaniard who had defended him during life.
Mesonero Romanes wrote :
" We have seen this Colossus who, in our fathers'
time, directed the destinies of the monarchy and the
treasures of the New World, reduced to a modest
annuity of six thousand francs ; and, so resigned to his
fate and the dark vicissitudes of life, that he would
sit contentedly in the gardens of the Palais Royal or
the Tuileries, playing with the children, recovering
their hoops and tops, lending them his stick to ride
on, and taking them tenderly on his knee. He was
well known to the strolling players who haunted these
spots, and who took him for a retired actor or a veteran
devotee of the theatre. By them he was known only
as Monsieur Manuel. None of them guessed that
his noble brow had once borne a prince's crown ;
that from his bowed shoulders had once hung a truly
royal mantle ; that the ring on his finger had been
placed there on his marriage with a descendant of
Philip V. and Louis XIV. His pleasant smile of
benevolence and interest over and over again procured
the offer of a job as stage manager or prompter for
him whom armies and fleets had obeyed, who had
warred against the great republic, and who had ne-
gotiated treaties on equal terms with the emperor
himself.
" Truly the career of this man, as much as by his
rapid and amazing elevation as by his abysmal fall
and protracted agony, is most remarkable and perhaps
without parallel in the annals of history. Don
Alvaro de Luna and Calderon, dying on the scaffold,
appropriately concluded their tragic history. Olivares
and Lerma, the one banished to his estates, the other
The Last Long Scene 327
covering himself with ^the purple of the cardinal,
barely survived their disgrace ; Nithard, Valenzuela,
Alberoni, Ripperda, the Princesse des Ursins, Squillace
— all died far from the scene of their triumphs, but
not completely forgotten or deprived of political
importance.
" Godoy alone has dragged on, through half a cen-
tury, an obscure and miserable existence in presence
of the great events of European history and without
figuring in any of them. He has survived his own
history ; he has heard the judgments of posterity ; he
has assisted at his own obsequies and has remained
indifferent to the indifference of three generations.
His death alone, in the eighty-fifth year of his age
and the forty-fourth of his exile, has recalled his
name to men and reminded the French capital of his
existence. Only a few Spaniards accompanied his
corpse to the church of St. Roch, where it was de-
posited, awaiting removal to his fatherland. The
memory of the Prince of the Peace has been thought
worthy, in the whole Spanish press, only of these few
lines ! "
"When I was last in Paris in 1865," continues
Mesonero Romanos, " I visited, as my custom is, the
cemetery of Pere Lachaise and lingered at that space
to the left of the chapel, known as the Spaniards'
Island. There, where are buried Moratin, Urquijo,
Fernan-Nuiiez, Garcia Suelto, and the tenor, Garcia,
and not far from the sepulchre of General Ballesteros,
is a small railed-in grave ; above it a tablet announces
that there lie the ashes of Don Manuel Godoy, Prince
of the Peace and Duke of Alcudia, the prodigy of
fortune and saddest example of ill luck."
328 Godoy : the Queen^s Favourite
The man who fell in a supreme effort to rid Spain
of her enemies would prefer that the last words over
his tomb should proceed from a Spanish heart, even
if transcribed by an English pen.
INDEX
The names of Godoy [Manuel), Charles IV., Maria Luisa, and
Napoleon I. are omitted
Abrantes, duchesse d' . See Junot,
Mme
Alba, duchess of, 28
Alquier, 121
Amiens, peace of, 140
Antonio, Infante, 275, 277, 295
Aranda, count of, 50, 53, 56,
69. 72, 73
Arguelles, 199
Azara, 99, 121, 138, 140, 164
Badia y Leblich, 147
Bale, treaty of, 77
Beauharnais, 219 et seq., 238, 281,
297
Beurnonvillef 152 et seq., 185, 192
Bonaparte, Charlotte, 240
Bonaparte, Joseph, 187, 310
Bonaparte, Lucien, 129, 132-45
Bourgoing, 53, 65
Caballero, iii, 114, 217, 233, 235,
242, 246, 273
Caballero, Eugenio, 243
Cabarrus, 76, 85, 98, 108
Campomanes, 93, 135, 242
Carlota Joaquina, princess of
Portugal, 98
Ceballos, 130, 132, 135, 151, 154,
187, 295, 299, 310. 318
Charles III., 23, 26, 36
Condillac, 25
Del Campo, 109
Duroc, 199, 207, 257, 309
Eden (Lord St. Helens), 23, 40, 61
Escoiquiz, 174 et seq., 187, 219,
221, 241, 246, 295
Espinosa, 199
Exelmans, General, 300
Ferdinand, prince of Asturias,
afterwards Ferdinand VII., 145,
173, 186, 211 et seq., 223, 226,
264, 281, 284
Floridablanca, 37, 39, 40-43, 48
Fontainebleau, treaty of, 240
Francisco de Paula, Infante, 312,
316
Frere, Hookham, 153, 164-9
Godoy, Antonia, 16, 121
Godoy, Carlota Luisa, duchess of
Alcudia, 127, 313, 321, 323
Godoy, Diego, 17, 80, 218, 278, 290
Godoy, Jose, 16, 79
Godoy, Luis, 17, 32, 80
Godoy, Ramona, 16
Goya, 28
Holland, Lord, 83, 322
Infantado, duke del, 233, 246,
295. 3"
Isabella II., 325
Izquierdo, 191 et seq., 204, 207,
262-70
Jovellanos, 108, 112
329
330
Inde:
Junot, due d' Abrantes, 182, 206,
239, 248, 258
Junot, Mme, duchesse d' Abrantes,
179
Lancaster, Count, 27
Louis XVI., 40, 41, 69
Malaspina, 100
Mall6, 127
Maria, Antonia, princess of As-
turias, 176, 187, 188
Maria Isabel, Infanta, 143, 145
Maria Luisa, queen of Etruria,
116, 133. 252, 265, 292, 297,
312, 314
Maria Teresa, Princess of the
Peace, 107, 279, 313
Masserano, prince of, 194, 207,
238
Matallana, countess of, loi
Mesonero y Romanos, 323
Moratin, 89, 327
Murat, 251, 271, 292 et seq., 315
Musquitz, 102, 117, 122
Nelson, 182-5
Ocariz, 62
Ortiz, 28
Osuna, duke of, 109, 118
Parma, Luis, infante of, 118, 133
Perignon, General, 104
Pignatelli, 28
Pius VI., 99
Ricardos, General, 71
Saavedra, 108, iii, 113, 117, 119,
120
Saint-Cyr, Gouvion, 137, 139
San Ildefonso, treaty of, 96
Savary, 295
Stroganov, 198
Talleyrand, 138, 207
Tallien, Mme, 76
Trafalgar, battle of, 185
Truguet, no, 116
Tudo, Dona Josefa, 102, 251, 280,
313, 316, 317, 321, 323
Tudo, Magdalena, 103, 313
Tudo, Socorro, 103, 313
Urquijo, 119-31. 3io, 327
Vallabriga, Maria de, 107
Vargas Laguna, ^16 et seq.
Zinoviev, 38, 61
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
loo J
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