island had for a long time past belonged to no one
in particular.
CHAPTER V
HALCYON DAYS FOR SPAIN
Great was the joy in Spain and France at the con-
clusion of the treaty of Bale. The news was received
with acclamations by the French troops on the
slopes of the Pyrenees, who, ragged, ill-fed, and
weary, were in no mood to test a Spanish welcome
further. By the Spaniards the peace was looked
upon as a victory. Honour was saved and practically
all besides.
It was Godoy's great hour. Having launched his
country on a perilous course, he had guided it be-
tween the rocks to a pleasant anchorage. Proud of
having discerned so promising a statesman, well
satisfied with his performances, glad paternally of
his success, Charles loaded Manuel with honours.
He raised him to a rank held only once before in
Spain by one not of the blood-royal (Don Luis de
Haro, favourite of Philip IV.), and commemorated
his diplomatic victory by conferring on him the title
of Prince of the Peace. With this went the style
of " highness," and the not very valuable privilege of
having the image of Janus borne before him on
solemn occasions' — an emblem of foresight gained by
reflection on the past. What other favours the king
of Spain could give, he gave with open hands.
Here is the list of Godoy's dignities and titles :
78
Halcyon Days for Spain 79
Prince of the Peace, duke of la Alcudia and Sueca,
prince Godoy, prince of Bassano, baron of Mascalbo,
lord of Soto de Roma and Albufera, knight of the
Golden Fleece, comendador of Santiago, grand-cross
of the order of Charles III. and St. Ermengild,
provost of St. John of Jerusalem, captain-general, and
generalissimo of Spain. To these in after-years were
added the title of count of Evoramonte and knight
of the order of Christ hy the king of Portugal, the
grand-cross of the order of St. Ferdinand and St.
Januarius by the king of the Two Sicilies, and the
grand-cross of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon.
At twenty-eight a man seldom regards his own
aggrandisement with philosophical indifference or
Christian humility. Godoy was exceedingly well
pleased with himself, and no doubt regarded these
honours as justly due to him. Every prophet wants
to be honoured in his own country, so the Prince of
the Peace took care to parade his glory in Estrema-
dura. While the negotiations were going on at Bale,
Charles and Maria Luisa thought lit to revive the
loyalty of their subjects by exhibiting their gracious
persons. To Seville accordingly they went, osten-
sibly to return thanks at the tomb of St. Ferdinand
for the unlucky recovery from illness of their first-
born son.
Seizing this opportunity, Godoy persuaded their
majesties to return in a very roundabout fashion via
Badajoz, where they were entertained by his father
in the house in which he was born. It must have
undergone an elaborate process of furbishing-up, I
imagine ; but this Godoy senior could now well
afford, for his son had appointed him, by what was
8o Godoy: the Queen's Favourite
perhaps an excess of filial piety, president of the
Board of Finance. Possibly the Prince of the Peace
might have defended the appointment on the ground
that a nobleman who had kept up a certain amount of
state all his life on nothing in particular a year, would
know better than any one how to make money go a
long way.
His brother Luis was gazetted major-general, a
step which he had merited by his valour in the recent
campaign. Then or afterwards he was appointed
captain-general of Estremadura. He married Dona
Juana de Armendariz, " of the marquises of Castel-
fuente." Diego, Manuel's younger brother, became
In course of time duke of Almodovar del Campo.
By his wife, a relative of the count de la Canada, he
left no children. The sisters, Antonia and Ramona,
married respectively the marquis of Branciforte and
the count of Fuente Blanca.
After the king, Godoy was the most powerful man
in Spain. His fortune amounted to forty millions
of francs ; he held open court In the grandiose palace
which is now the Ministry of Marine. The nobility
sneered at the upstart, and denied him the familiar
style of " thou " which was generally employed
between them in token of fellowship. The common
people told each other coarse jokes about the choricerOy
or sausage-maker, as they called him, in allusion to his
native province ; but everybody was well pleased
with the results of his diplomacy, and thousands
hastened to pay him court and to throng his saloons.-
A Spanish writer * has transmitted to us his recol-
lections of the Prince of the Peace in all the pomp
» " Recuerdos de un Anciano." Don A. Alcala Galiano,
Halcyon Days for Spain 8i
and circumstance of his power. " His mansion was
guarded by a special corps, considered a part of the
Royal Carbineers, but differing from them in uniform,
which resembled rather that of the hussars of those
days. The guard was composed of picked men and
of particularly smart-looking officers. A staircase,
constructed at enormous cost, but ostentatious rather
than tasteful, led to a succession of reception-rooms.
The crowd filled the principal room, which was
long and narrow, and overflowed into two or three
smaller apartments. This crowd was made up of
persons of all classes and categories, most of them
there in search of preferment, others out of curiosity,
some again there lest their absence should be re-
marked. The sexes were represented in about equal
proportions. As the entry was free to all, a few
women of doubtful reputation could be seen there,
even perhaps a courtesan or two of the richer sort.
And with them, sad to say, were ladies, respectable
by their birth and position, who used their charms
to secure the good-will of the all-powerful minister,
and bartered their virtue for his favours. Mothers
there were, though seldom, ready to sell their daughters
and husbands their wives. In its blind hatred the
mob has exaggerated the number of these enormities,
but exaggerated them only. For the favourite him-
self in after-years, pleaded guilty to transgressions
in the matter of love, if such transactions can be
dignified by that name.
" The routine followed at this court was that
used by the sovereign, and on occasions by the captains-
general of our provinces. The Prince of the Peace
issued from the inner apartments ; the murmur at
82 Godoy: the Queen^s Favourite
once ceased, and those present placed themselves in
a double line, every one anxious to be seen or at
least heard by the object of their somewhat inter-
ested devotion.
" It may not be out of place to give a rough sketch
of this famous personage. Don Manuel Godoy, the
commencement of whose elevation was due altogether
to his personal advantages, was tall, full-bodied
though not fat, heavy about the shoulders so as to
carry the head rather low, and very fresh-coloured —
a circumstance sufficiently curious in a native of Estre-
madura, where complexions generally reflect the
parched face of the landscape. The whiteness of his
skin was relieved by the redness of his cheeks, which
his enemies were fond of attributing to art ; but
there can be no doubt at all that it was the work of
nature. He wore the uniform of a captain-general,
but with a blue sash, to distinguish him as generalis-
simo. He carried in his hand his baton and his
plumed cocked hat. His countenance was mild but
not expressive ; his speech sufficiently to the point,
if not specially brilliant, though at times he made
jokes, which never failed to provoke smiles more or
less forced. He had a notable memory for faces and
for the respective business of each of his visitors, in
the midst of such a confusion of persons and affairs —
a faculty common in princes, thanks to its being so
much exercised by them. The reception over, the
crowd streamed out — most of them to abuse the
man before whom a minute earlier they had bowed as
respectful suppliants."
The prince's accessibility and affability are favour-
ably commented upon by Blanco White ; " Very
Halcyon Days for Spain 83
different from the ministers who tremble before
him, he can be approached by any individual in the
kingdom without an introduction, and in the certainty
of receiving a civil if not a favourable answer." His
recommendation " is not always made the reward of
flattery or of more degrading servility." It was
admitted by a French minister, who had good reason
to dislike him, that he never encouraged corrupt
practices, and that he was ready to sustain a just
cause — " even by unjust means."
Lucien Bonaparte avowed himself his friend. " The
number of enemies which he owes to his extraordinary
favour with the king and queen will not prevent me
saying that the Prince of the Peace, as I saw him, was
at all times amiable, obliging, sincere, compassionate,
chivalrously gallant towards women, personally coura-
geous, much better informed than his traducers care
to admit ; in short I was as much his friend as he
showed himself to be mine on every occasion."
Bourgoing, who knew him at the dawn of his pros-
perity, remarked that the favourite inspired more
jealousy than hatred. " He tries to please as many
as possible. He has given several proofs of humanity
and kindness, he remedies injustices." To his good
qualities, and in particular to his kindness of heart,
Lord Holland — no friend of kings and their favourites
— bears ready witness.
" His manner," says his lordship, " though some-
what indolent, or what the French call nonchalant,
was graceful and attractive. Though he had neither
education or reading [?], his language was at once
elegant and peculiar, and notwithstanding his humble
origin [sic\ his whole deportment announced more
§4 Godoy: the Queen's Favourite
than that of any untravelled Spaniard I ever met
with that mixture of dignity, politeness, propriety, and
ease which the habits of good company are supposed
exclusively to confer. He seemed born for a high
station. Without any effort he would have passed,
wherever he was, for the first man in the company.
I never conversed with him sufficiently to form any
judgment of his understanding. Our interviews were
mere interchanges of civility. But a transaction of
no importance to the public, but of great importance
to the parties concerned, took place between us,
and he not only behaved with great courtesy to me
but showed both humanity and magnanimity. A
young English gentleman of the name of Powell had,
before the war between England and Spain, engaged
either with General Miranda or some other South
American adventurer in an expedition to liberate
the Spanish colonies. He was taken. By law his
life was forfeited, but he was condemned by a sentence
nearly equivalent to perpetual imprisonment in the
unwholesome fortress of Omoa. His father, chief
justice of Canada, on hearing the sad tidings, hastened
to England. Unfortunately hostilities had com-
menced under circumstances calculated to exasperate
the people and Government of Spain. The chief
justice was, however, determined to try the efficacy
of a personal application to alleviate the sufferings of
his son by a change of prison, since he despaired of
obtaining his release. He proceeded to Spain, fur-
nished with a letter of introduction to the Prince of
the Peace from me, to whom he applied as one recently
arrived from thence and not involved in the angry
feelings and discussions which had led to the rupture
Halcyon Days for Spain 85
between the two countries. The prince received
him at Aranjuez, and, on reading the letter and hearing
the story, bade the anxious father remain till he had
seen the king, and left the room for that purpose
without ceremony or delay. He soon returned with
an order, not for the change of prison, but for the
immediate liberation of the young man. Nor was he
satisfied with this act of humanity, for with a smile
of benevolence he added that a father who had come
so far to render a service to his child would probably
like to be the bearer of good intelligence himself,
and accordingly he furnished him with a passport
and permission to sail in a Spanish frigate then pre-
paring to leave Cadiz for the West Indies."
He displayed, as we know, even greater magnanimity
towards his personal enemies and rivals. " He cele-
brated his triumph with a feigned generosity," admits.
M. Alexandre Tratchevsky, with unfeigned ungener-
osity. * Aranda was released from his gilded cage
on the Alhambra hill ; Floridablanca was set free
from his prison and allowed to reside at his native
city of Murcia ; Cabarrus, one of his associates, who
had been implicated in a banking scandal, was not
only set at liberty, but employed by the Prime Minister
in diplomatic and financial business to the advantage
of the State.
Benevolence is the essential quality in a ruler.
Without it efficiency and sagacity may be mischievous
rather than beneficial. Government exists only to
promote the happiness of the governed. This Godoy
never forgot. By his administration of Spain he well
deserved his title. It is but fair to acknowledge the
* " Revue Historique," vol. ixxiii. p. 43.
86 Godoy : the Queen*s Favourite
mildness and tolerance of his sway, reluctantly admits
a Spanish critic. " My administration," boasts the
Prince of the Peace, " has left no traces of blood.
State trials were extremely rare, and were menaces
rather than serious prosecutions. In the gaols only
common malefactors were to be found. Through-
out this stormy period trials by the Inquisition,
arbitrary imprisonments, and harsh penalties were
unknown among us."
The claws of the Holy Office the young minister
very soon cut. We have seen how he refused to
surrender Aranda to its clutches. Olavide, who had
been savagely persecuted in the preceding reign and
then banished on account of his " philosophical "
opinions, he not only recalled but endowed with a
pension. He next dragged out of the Inquisition's
fangs an unfortunate Hebrew who had come over
from Morocco to visit the graves of his forefathers.
When Don Ramon de Salas was prosecuted by the
same dread tribunal, this upstart minister coolly
ordered the matter to be referred to the Council of
Castile ; and wound up by obtaining a decree from
the king forbidding the Holy Inquisition to undertake
any proceedings without the royal assent. For this
he was not forgiven by the church of Spain.
He was the Maecenas of his age. The best friend
of enlightenment Spain has ever had, Hume calls
him. This man, who was sneered at as unlettered,
as hardly able to write his own name, at least rever-
enced and encouraged intellect in others. He sought
out men of learning and ability in the remotest corners
of the country, and strove to reward them and to
benefit the State by giving them posts in the govern-
GODOY,
87
Halcyon Days for Spain 89
ment service. His immense fortune was lavishly
employed in the patronage and assistance of struggling
genius. His name is for ever associated with the fame
of Melendez, one of Spain's most distinguished men
of letters. To him Moratin owed not only his
training as a dramatic writer, but the position in
society which assured his success. When the minister
fell, the dramatist refused to turn against him. " I
was neither his friend nor his counsellor nor his
servant," he said, " but all that I was I owed to him ;
and although we have nowadays a convenient philo-
sophy which teaches men to receive benefits without
gratitude, and to pay with reproach favours asked
and received when circumstances alter, I value my
own good opinion too much to condescend to such
infamy."
Floridablanca and his successor, alarmed by the
progress of revolutionary ideas, had endeavoured
to uproot the tree of learning which Charles HI.
had sedulously cultivated. Not so Godoy. He re-
organised the universities, and promulgated a new
scheme of public instruction. He did his utmost to
fill the academic chairs with the ablest men that
Spain could produce. He had no fear of the diffusion
of culture. The censorship, rigidly enforced by his
predecessors, was relaxed and foreign works were
freely admitted into the kingdom, provided that they
did not directly assail the principles of monarchy and
religion.
Godoy's best services to his country consisted
perhaps in the furtherance of practical education.
In 1795 he founded the Royal Medical College at
Madrid. Before his time any village barber or
6
go Godoy: the Queen's Favourite
quack, however ignorant, was able to practise upon
the king's subjects ; now, hy royal decree, no one
was allowed to exercise the profession of a surgeon or
physician without having received a diploma from
the competent medical authority. Thousands of
Spaniards must have been indebted for their health
and life to Godoy, thanks to this reform alone. Nor
did he forget the animal kingdom. To him the
veterinary college of Madrid owes its existence. A
staff of linguists was kept at work to translate the
leading medical works of Europe into Spanish. Such
was Godoy's concern for the bodies of his country-
men that a pious friend thought fit to adjure him to
take heed rather for their souls and to remind him
that physician and materialist were generally synony-
mous terms.
The man, unlike most statesmen, was genuinely
anxious to do practical good. Not content with
founding learned institutions and stimulating a taste
for culture, he tried hard to teach his countrymen
how to earn their living. He strenuously encouraged
technical education. Commissioners were despatched
to England to report on the best methods of pro-
moting industry. Schools for instruction in the handi-
crafts were established in Madrid and the provinces.
The instruments used in the medical college and the
royal observatory were all made by Spanish hands
in the adjacent workshops. A school of clock-making
and a factory for musical instruments were opened
in 1798. Experts were called in to teach the Spaniards
how to design wall-papers. New methods were
introduced into the cloth-making and silk industries.
Pamphlets explaining them were printed at the
Halcyon Days for Spain 91
expense of the State and distributed free. The
economical works of Adam Smith and Hume, hitherto
banned as the works of the devil, were translated
and circulated.
This profligate and upstart, as his enemies loved
to call him, was like the gentle-hearted Captain
Coram, profoundly moved by the plight of the
foundling children left to perish in the streets of
Spanish cities. A hospital for their reception had
indeed been founded by Charles III., but it was
shamefully mismanaged and wholly insufhcient for
the needs of the time. Of course there were in
Spain then, as in England to-day, " moralists " who
wanted to punish vice by striking at its helpless
victims ; though in that catholic land none dared to
brand this concern for human life as sentimentality.
" I looked upon it," says Godoy, " as the duty of the
State to come to the aid of these unfortunates. It
behoved the Government to stand them in lieu of
father and mother, and not to punish them for the
insensibility or weakness of the authors of their
being."
Charles was moved by his favourite's appeal. The
decrees of 1794 and 1796 directed the work of his
father to be reorganised and extended. His majesty
announced that he would take effectual measures
for the relief of destitute and abandoned children,
and sternly forbade any one to speak of them as
" bastards " or " illegitimate." He also lent a willing
ear to Godoy's plea for the deaf and dumb. Instead
of consigning these luckless ones to the lethal chamber,
according to the recommendation of modern deans
and journalists, the minister had them taught the
92 Gcxioy: the Queen's Favourite
deaf-and-dumb alphabet and trained in useful handi-
crafts.
A reformer, in a sweeping sense, Godoy was not.
He sympathised with the social and intellectual
tendencies of the revolution, but he was firmly-
attached to the ancient form of government in Spain.
He believed in hereditary monarchy limited by law.
In the old Council of Castile he saw the germs of
a valuable consultative assembly, and he caused the
Council of Ministers to sit practically permanently.
He refused to deprive the Basques of their old liberties
and institutions in punishment of their demonstra-
tions of sympathy with the French invaders. His
policy was almost wholly constructive. He had
faith in the institutions of his country, and believed
that they could be adapted to the increasing require-
ments of successive generations. He was no inno-
vator, yet he did not hesitate to attack abuses. As
an Extremeno he had witnessed the injury done to
agriculture by the Mesta, a powerful corporation
existing from ancient times privileged to pasture
their enormous flocks on vast areas of country. Thanks-
to him, these privileges were curtailed and after-
wards abolished. The authority of the trade guilds
was limited in the interests of artisans, and the In-
quisition was strictly forbidden to interfere with
foreign workmen not of the catholic religion whom
the minister wished to attract to the country.
Godoy, in fact, resumed and infused a more humane
spirit into the policy of internal amelioration begun
in the preceding reign and reversed by Floridablanca.
The material prosperity of the country was un-
deniable — roads were made, industry flourished, life
Halcyon Days for Spain 93
and property were secure, opinions were respected.
The will to do good amply made up for the young
minister's want of experience.
He was well aware of his own deficiencies. Finance
is the stumbling-block to the tyro statesman. Godoy,
therefore, greedily availed himself in this depart-
ment of the services of experts. Of these the crafty
Cabarrus was one — the man who afterwards served
Joseph Bonaparte in the like capacity. But the
resources of Spain were limited and its expenses
enormous. The ablest financier could achieve little.
Godoy took care, at least, that the burden of taxation
should fall almost entirely on the rich. He thought
that those who live merely by virtue of their ancestors'
thrift owe more to the State than those who enrich
it by their own labour.
The people proved less grateful than the poets.
They had long lagged behind their rulers in the path
of social reform, and resented even the attempts to
revive their flagging industries. The landowners and
wealthy religious bodies called upon by the minister
to disgorge their riches were then, as always, able
to make the poor weep with them. The rich man
revenges himself on the poor by reducing his wage or
refusing him alms, and the poor man can easily be
persuaded that the blame is that of the Government
which has taxed the rich man. Yet, perhaps, if
Spain had remained deaf the next twelve years to the
threats and temptations of her northern neighbours,
the administration of Godoy might still have been
remembered with thankfulness.
CHAPTER VI
THE ALLIANCE WITH THE REGICIDES
Manuel Godoy was essentially an easy-going, kindly
disposed man, much fonder of pleasure than of work.
His own instincts and interests were in harmony
with his new title ; yet no sooner had he brought
one war to a conclusion than he proposed to embark
upon another. Immediately upon the signature of
the treaty of Bale, he determined to join his late
enemy in an attack upon his late ally. France was
the natural friend, England the natural enemy of
Spain. The two Latin peoples fell weeping into
each other's arms. Republicans and monarchists
discovered that they were brothers. The Spanish
ambassador at Paris — the son, by the way, of an
Englishwoman named Field — manifested a truly re-
publican simplicity and a truly Parisian indifference
to propriety. The grateful Directory discontinued
its efforts to seduce the subjects of King Charles
from their allegiance. Spain's overtures on behalf
of the Pope and the Italian princes were listened to
with politeness. " Spain," cried Burke, " has become
the fief of the regicides."
This unnatural alliance between the cousin of
Louis XVI. and the representatives of his executioners
is hard to explain. It is boldly asserted by an English
94
The Alliance with the Regicides 95
historian * that Charles IV. looked for the speedy-
break-up of the republic, and hoped to be called to
succeed his kinsman on the throne of France. This
theory meets with no approval from Spanish writers ;
it is not hinted at in the memoirs of the time ; but
it certainly offers the most satisfactory explanation