opportunity or the intention of opening a single
learned work. . . . His figure was most ungainly,
corpulent, short, and crooked ; his face pale and
unmeaning." He was, it seems, a drunkard, adulterer,



ri2 Godoy : the Queen's Favourite

extortioner. His wife endeavoured to keep him at
home that others might not see him in " a beastly
state." "He was an ill-intentioned man, a ready
tool of mischief and an enemy to every virtue, without
a single spark of honour or generosity."

It is seldom that the good-natured Godoy uses
such language even about his enemies, but it is echoed
less emphatically by disinterested historians. Cabal-
lero was a bitter reactionary, who wished to plunge
Spain back into the dark ages. Yet he allied himself
with the French revolutionaries now as readily as he
did in after-years with the invaders of his country.
He had managed to worm himself into the confidence
of Charles, representing the minister as at once a
dangerous innovator and the obstacle in the way of
an understanding with France.

It was he probably who told the king that Godoy,

in inviting Jovellanos to join the ministry, had used

the words, " Come then, my friend, and take your

place in our executive directory." Charles was

naturally alarmed by this use of a word which had

then a purely republican significance. He sent for

the Prime Minister and asked him if he could refute

this allegation. Godoy sent to his ofhce and laid

the draft of the letter before his master. He had

used the expression, " our monarchical directory."

He besought the king to demand the original from

Jovellanos, who had by this time reached Madrid.

His majesty sulkily refused, and acknowledged, years

afterwards, that he had not been altogether satisfied

by his favourite's explanation.

Maria Luisa seems to have made no effort to save
her nominal lover. She may have feared war with



The Alliance with the Regicides 113

France more than she cared for him. More pro-
bably a temporary estrangement between them had
resulted either from her discovery of his relations
with Pepita or from the marriage she had herself
helped to bring about. At such intervals she in-
variably consoled h^erself with a new lover, and she
may now have been too much occupied with him
to concern herself about the fate of his rival.

Probably by the express command of the king,
Godoy at last issued a decree banishing all the French
exiles who elected to remain in the Spanish dominions
to the island of Mallorca. That no term was fixed
for compliance with this order was no doubt due
to the pertinacious humanity of the Prime Minister.
As a counterstroke, he revoked on his own responsi-
bility the sentence of exile passed in the previous
reign on the Spanish members of the Society of Jesus,
thus permitting " many venerable old men, who had
lost all hope of ever again seeing their country, to be
restored to their families and to enjoy in peace the
sweets of domestic happiness." The exasperated
French ambassador pressed his confederates hard.
This pestilent prince must be got rid of.

At the Council on March 28, 1798, Saavedra pro-
posed to disband a part of the army to relieve the
overburdened Treasury. Godoy sprung to oppose
this measure, pointing out that the English might
land in Portugal, and the French demand a passage
through Spain to attack them. *' Let us," he cried,
" exercise our troops without intermission, let us
inure them to hardships." He went on to urge the
importance of the camps of instruction which he
had formed at Algeciras and on the Portuguese



114 Godoy: the Queen*s Favourite

frontier. The king had been prejudiced against
these, as innovations, by Caballero. " No," he inter-
rupted, " these camps are of no avail."

The Prince of the Peace sank back in his chair,
silent. The Council broke up. The minister hast-
ened to the king and asked, not for the first time, to
be relieved of his portfolio. Frightened by France,
egged on by Saavedra, his majesty tearfully assented.
He drew from his pocket a paper in the handwriting
of Caballero. It was thus worded : ** Yielding to
your repeated verbal and written solicitations to be
relieved from the office of secretary of State and
sergeant-major of my bodyguard, I relieve you from
the duties of these offices ; I appoint ad interim
Don Francisco de Saavedra to the former, and the
Marquis de Ruchena to the latter, to whom you will
give up all that pertains to these offices. You shall
continue to enjoy all the honours, allowances, emolu-
ments, and right of access to the court that you now
hold ; and I assure you that I am in the highest
degree satisfied with the proofs of affection, zeal, and
capacity which you have given me during your
ministry ; for these I shall be grateful so long as I
live, and at every opportunity I will give you un-
equivocal proofs of my gratitude for your singular



services."



This decree was dated March 28, 1798. Godoy
shook his master by the hand, well aware that his
was not the hand that had struck the blow. He had
not feared France as an enemy ; he had sought her
as an ally ; he would not accept her as a mistress.
His fall became him better than his rise. He im-
mediately went to the office of the secretary of State.



The Alliance with the Regicides 115

He embraced his successor, handed him the keys and
papers, and returned home accompanied by a numerous
retinue of sympathisers. " They had shown," he
says, ** less eagerness to hail my rising fortune than
to testify their regret at my disgrace."



CHAPTER VII

GODOY IN THE BACKGROUND

Now the pilot had been driven from the helm, the
Spanish ship of state was towed by France. Truguet
found in Saavedra and Jovellanos docile instruments.
The markets of Spain were, at his instigation, closed
to British goods ; the decree against the emigres
was put into immediate execution ; the due d'Havre,
the agent of the French princes, was expelled, and
the due de Saint-Simon, a French officer old in the
Spanish service, was deprived of his offices. Strongly
anti-clerical in sentiment, the new ministers enforced
the order of expulsion with especial severity against
refugee priests. These were shipped off in such
numbers to Mallorca that the islanders refused at
length to receive them. The most catholic king
dared not resist the behests of his Infidel ally. But
he was not willing to declare war against his son-in-
law of Lisbon. To overcome his resistance, Truguet
laid siege to the heart of the infanta Maria Lulsa — a
conquest which he hoped " might be to the interest
of the republic."

The Directory thought that the fallen minister's
influence might, after all, be more useful to them.
They sent a secret agent, named Segui, to invite him
to persuade the court of Lisbon to abandon the
English alliance. Truguet detected this intrigue and

1X6



Godoy in the Background 117

protested to his employers. He was promptly recalled,
but would only deliver up the embassy to his successor
under the threat of being treated as an emigre. He
skulked for some time on the frontier, and, on setting
foot in France, was arrested. He was finally exiled
to Holland.

Godoy, meanwhile, came and went at the palace,
minutely informed as to all the proceedings of the
new Government. Charles, it is said, in a passing
mood of anger with his favourite, offered to banish
him from court. Saavedra rejected the proposal,
let us hope, as much from motives of gratitude as
from prudence. The prince had, in reality, lost
nothing of his influence over the king, and the queen
he could always bring to her knees when he felt
disposed to play the lover.

He regularly corresponded with the royal couple
while absent from the court. His letters strike us
as fawning and Uriah Heep-ish ; but such a tone
must have seemed quite proper and natural to a
Spaniard at that time addressing one of the Two
Majesties (the other was God). " Lady," writes the
fallen minister to her majesty, " a man persecuted by
envy and abhorred by the unjust may not repose
where their shafts may reach him. I know what
those who have obeyed and feared me speak and think
of me, I know the degree of authority to which they
have attained ; will my pretension, then, be indis-
creet ? I am well content ; solitude and ruined
walls are agreeable to me ; I ask nothing from vio-
lence, I wish nothing to be disturbed on my account ;
so if your majesty knows what I ought to do, and
has any sentiment of good-will towards me, speak



II 8 Godoy: the Queen*s Favourite

and I will obey. Manuel will not act otherwise —
Manuel who has given so many moments of pleasure
to your majesties, will never give you an instant's
distress and will ever be the same faithful and grateful
vassal.'*

A month later — -that is, on October 29, 1798 —
he writes to the king ; " Your majesty be thanked :
you remember and respect your poor yassal. My
lord, what a reward do you not give me by your
virtuous consideration 1 Yes, God will reward your
majesty as you dispense to me the food of my love
and devotion. . . ." These rapturous passages are
usually the prelude to a discussion of the political
situation, which must of course have been invited
by the king.

In the letter quoted by Arteche the ex-minister
confines himself almost exclusively to advice upon
internal policy, very sensibly reminding his majesty
that the continuance of the war with Britain need
not hinder the development of agriculture and indus-
tries, and urging, as ever, the necessity of military
colleges and a more general system of instruction for
the army.

Meanwhile he watched the attitude of his suc-
cessors with contempt and apprehension. He had
inaugurated the French alliance, it was true ; but
it was not he who had converted that alliance into
bondage. Within a few weeks of his dismissal he
was recognised as the leader of the catholic party,
which favoured England. To his banner rallied his
old enemy Musquitz, the infante of Parma, and the
duke of Osuna.

The reign of the new ministers was brief. Saavedra,



Godoy in the Background 119

prostrated by ill health, resigned his offices one by
one, and was finally relieved of the secretaryship in
February 1799, eleven months after the fall of Godoy.
His colleague Jovellanos likewise fell ill in the pre-
ceding August, and threw up his appointments.
The sickness of both statesmen was attributed to the
agency of Godoy or the queen. A servant of Jovel-
lanos is said to have been bribed with ten ounces of
gold to poison his master, but confessed his design
before it was too late. The slander is absurd. It
was warranted by nothing in Godoy's character or
career ; and the queen of Spain could have used less
dangerous means to rid herself of obnoxious ministers.

If she did conspire to effect their downfall, it was
not in the Interest of Godoy. Her susceptible
majesty was now in love with Saavedra's under-
secretary. This was Mariano Luis Urquijo, a native
of Bilbao, a handsome fellow, thirty years old. He
was an ardent disciple of Voltaire, and a deadly enemy
of the Catholic Church. Appointed secretary of
legation at London, he always received official visitors
with Tom Paine's " Age of Reason " ostentatiously
displayed on the table before him. He had the anti-
clerical cause so close at heart that, on hearing of the
peace of Tolentino, which disappointed his hope of
seeing the final destruction of the Holy See, he ran a
mile along the Uxbridge Road and threw himself into
the pond in Kensington Gardens. He was fished out
and resuscitated by a Dr. Carlisle. In the same
year he returned to Madrid and was promoted to the
rank of chief clerk in the office of the secretary of
State.

" Every Spanish minister," Blanco White tells us.



120 Godoyi the Queen^s Favourite

" has a day apportioned in the course of the week —
called the Dia de Des-pacho — when he lays before the
king the contents of his portfolio, to dispose of them
according to his majesty's pleasure. The queen, who
is excessively fond of power, never fails to attend on
these occasions. The minister, during this audience,
stands, or, if desired, sits on a small stool placed
between him and the king and queen. The love of
patronage, not of business is, of course, the object
of the queen's assiduity ; while nothing but the love
of gossip enables her husband to endure the drudgery
of these sittings.

During Saavedra's ministry his majesty was highly
delighted with the premier's powers of conversation
and his inexhaustible fund of good stories. The
portfolio was laid upon the table ; the queen men-
tioned the names of her proteges, and the king, referring
all other business to the decision of the minister, began
a comfortable chat which lasted till bedtime. When
Saavedra was taken with sudden illness, the duty of
carrying the portfolio to the king devolved upon the
under-secretary. Urquijo's handsome person and
elegant manners made a deep impression upon the
queen ; and ten thousand whispers spread the im-
portant news the next morning that her majesty had
desired the young clerk to " take a seat."

This seat was only preparatory to one in the cabinet.
The queen persuaded herself that she was in love with
the under-secretary and longed to show the arrogant
Manuel that she could make others as she had made
him. The inopportune recovery of Saavedra upset
her plans for the moment. The minister perceived
he had a rival in his subordinate, and got the king to



Godoy in the Background 121

name him his representative in Holland. Urquijo
had hardly started, however, before he was recalled.
Saavedra had definitely resigned, and Maria Luisa
at once suggested the under-secretary as his successor.
Charles adopted this proposal, chiefly to humour the
French, to whom he knew Urquijo's views would be
acceptable.

The young statesman fell in rather reluctantly
with these schemes for his own aggrandisement. He
knew that he was expected, in return, to make love to
her majesty, who, as her husband did not hesitate to
tell her, had become desperately old and ugly. More-
over, Urquijo already had a mistress, and she was
no other than Antonia, marquesa de Branciforte,
the sister of Godoy. Ambition in the long run
overcame both aversion and loyalty. With shut eyes
Urquijo swallowed the bait at a gulp, and was desig-
nated on February 21, 1799, as acting first secretary
of State.

This new appointment at first gave considerable
satisfaction to the predominant partner. " The views
of M. Urquijo on the liberties of the church of Spain
and the abuse of papal authority are infinitely sound,"
wrote Alquier, the new French ambassador ; but his
views as to the liberties of the Spanish State and the
abuses of its ally's authority proved to be equally
firmly rooted. The Directory did not want another
Godoy at Madrid. Alquier intimated to King
Charles that the French Government would like to
see Azara, his ambassador in Paris, at the head of
the ministry. His catholic majesty, with more dignity
than was his wont, indignantly repudiated the right
of his ally to interfere in his choice of ministers. He



122 Godoy: the Queen's Favourite

had not, strangely enough, dared as much to save
Godoy, which rather encourages the belief that now
he was backed by his wife and that then he was not.

In June the administration which thus attempted
to dictate to its neighbours was no more. Whatever
hopes Charles may have cherished of being called to
the throne of France were revived by the resignation
of the Directory ; they were speedily dashed by the
events of the loth of Brumaire and the assumption
of the government of France by the great soldier
who was to tear the crown from off his brov/.

In his enthusiastic admiration for the First Consul,
the Spanish king forgot his disappointment. " At
the court and in the ministry," wrote the French
ambassadors, " general satisfaction is expressed. Per-
haps it is thought that this change in our government
is part of a scheme to restore tranquillity to Europe ;
for Spain has imperious need of peace." Peace, how-
ever, she was not to enjoy for many years to come.
If war at the bidding of the Directory was tolerable
by Charles, how much more was it tolerable in con-
junction with his favourite hero ! Here was no
longer an alliance with the regicides, but with the
young conqueror who had rescued the realm of
St. Louis from their blood-stained hands.

The Tsar had declared war against Charles because
he had refused to join the coalition against France.
Bonaparte recognised, as he had done in Italy, the
value of the republic's only independent ally. King
and First Consul vied with each other in the exchange
of courtiers. Musquitz, Azara's successor at the
Legation in Paris, was ordered by Charles to entertain
Mme Bonaparte at a banquet.




URQUIJO.

Goya)



123



Godoy in the Background 125

The Consul, rightly accounting Godoy to be still
one of the powers in Spain, sent him a magnificent
suit of damascened armour in token of his esteem.
This present was the one topic of conversation in
Madrid. Charles wanted to know why he had been
forgotten ; Maria Luisa asked whether the Consul
proposed to send her anything. Her majesty presently
received a superb breakfast-service and an exquisite
costume of muslin embroidered by the most skilful
hands in Paris.- Urquijo, as Prime Minister, could
not well be forgotten; in his character of an austere
philosopher, he selected as his presents a Bible and a
Vergil printed by Didot, to which was incongruously
added by the Consul a case of pistols.

Charles, without waiting for the arms promised him,
sent his new ally sixteen of his most beautiful horses,
each worth two to three hundred pounds. This
princely gift was despatched in charge of a veterinary
surgeon, a deputy master of the horse, and twenty-
four grooms, all wearing the Spanish arms. His
majesty expressed his desire that the members of the
escort should be given every facility for assisting at
mass while traversing French territory. Bonaparte
gave immediate orders to this effect. " Ah," said the
gratified monarch, " I recognise there the act of the
First Consul ! I know that he is a catholic, like me,
and rejoice that we are of the same religion." In his
delight his majesty commissioned David to execute
for him a life-size portrait of his new friend. The
horses were received by the Consul with every sign of
pleasure and gratitude ; but he kept poor Charles
waiting for his guns till May 1802.

By that time Spain had paid a long price for the
8



126 Godoy: the Queen's Favourite

gift to her sovereign. The new ruler of France
expressed his desire to augment the dignity of his good
ally's cousin, the young prince of Parma. Charles
and Maria Luisa listened rapturously to the tempter.
General Berthier was sent, with a great flourish of
trumpets, to Madrid to arrange matters to the liking
of his catholic majesty. On October I, 1800, a treaty
marked " preliminary and secret " was drawn up at
San Ildefonso. By the first and second articles the
First Consul bound himself to carve out of Tuscany
and the Roman Legations a kingdom of not less than
one million inhabitants for the prince ; but, in return,
Spain had to make her neighbour a present of six
line-of-battle ships and to surrender the whole of the
vast province of Louisiana, which she had acquired
from France forty years before. Spain had thus to
pay with an enormous slice of her empire for the
aggrandisement of her sovereign's family.

This treaty was signed by Urquijo, probably very
much against his will. He was a good friend of the
French republic, but he distrusted General Bona-
parte. He had already refused to send troops to
besiege Malta and ships to raise the blockade of the
Egyptian ports. The First Consul knew him for a
foe, and paid court, as we know, to Godoy.

Urquijo meanwhile pursued the same policy as
his rival, but with infinitely less tact and no success.
His hatred of the Church carried him altogether
beyond the pale of his countrymen's sympathies.
He aimed at emancipating the Spanish hierarchy
from the control of Rome, and ordered the trans-
lation of a Portuguese work by Pereira exposing the
exactions and abuses of the papal chancery. This



Godoy in the Background 127

provoked a strongly worded remonstrance from
Casoni, the nuncio. The minister, backed hy the
French ambassador, handed him his passports. The
indignant cleric invoked the good offices of Godoy,
who, as he tells us, without in the least impugning
the policy of the Government, persuaded the king
to revoke the order of dismissal.

This incident did not teach Urquijo wisdom. He
continued his anti-clerical campaign, although both
the catholic and the French factions had now combined
to overthrow him. The marquises of Solis, of Villa
Lopez, of Casares, and of Santiago openly laboured to
secure the return of Godoy to the ministry. Yet on
October 7, 1800, the Prime Minister foolishly allowed
his rival to appear at court and to have a long audience
of Charles on the occasion of the birth of his only
daughter, Carlota Luisa. The queen stood sponsor
to the child, and the ceremony of baptism was con-
ducted with a splendour befitting a princess. The
little girl was, it is true, the great-granddaughter
of a king. It was plain to everybody, except to
Urquijo, that Maria Luisa was returning to her old
love.

She had never been able to secure even the lip-
worship of her last-created minister. Whether he
had remained true to the sister of his rival, or, like
him, had divided his affection between many women,
he had utterly failed to convince the queen of his
devotion. Still incensed against Godoy, her majesty
looked out for yet another lover in that nursery of
royal favourites, the royal guard. This time the
handkerchief was thrown to a South American named
Mallo, a personage who seems to have been little more



128 Godoy: the Queen's Favourite

than a proper noun. He was presumably pleasing
in form and feature, but of his character we know
nothing ; still, in their affected zeal for morality,
historians have bespattered him with every contemp-
tuous epithet in their respective languages. He was,
we are told, a coxcomb, an absurd, vain fop, an idiot,
un jeune fat sans intelligence . . . absolument nul.
Godoy himself could not have used him more
harshly.

Her majesty repaid the homage of her new swain
so well that presently every one noticed his apparent
wealth and prosperity. One day the king observed
him driving up to the palace in a brilliant equipage
drawn by four superb horses. Charles turned to
Godoy : " Who is this Mallo ? " he asked. " Every
day I see him with a new turn-out. Where does he
get his money ? " " Sire," replied the ex-minister,
glancing with a bitter smile towards the queen,
" Mallo has not a penny of his own ; but they say
he is kept by some toothless old woman who robs
her husband to enrich her lover." The king chuckled
and turned to his wife. " Do you hear that, Luisa ?
what do you think of that, eh ? " " Oh, it is probably
one of Manuel's jokes," replied her majesty, with a
wry smile.

It was a joke that she was forced to forgive. Says
Blanco White : " Mallo's day of prosperity was but
short. His vanity, coxcombry, and folly displeased
the king and alarmed the queen ; but in the first
ardour of her attachments she generally had the
weakness of committing her feelings to writing. Mallo
possessed a collection of her letters. Wishing to rid
herself of that absurd, vain fop, and yet dreading an



Godoy in the Background 129

exposure, she employed Godoy in the recovery of
her written tokens. Mallo's house was surrounded
with soldiers in the dead of night, and he was forced
to yield the precious manuscripts into the hands of
his rival. The latter, however, was too well aware
of their value to deliver them to the writer ; and he
is said to have kept them as a powerful charm, if not
to secure his mistress's affection, at least to subdue
her fits of fickleness and jealousy. Mallo was soon
banished and forgotten."

However episodical, this " absurd, vain fop," by
supplanting Urquijo in the queen's regard, had de-
prived him of the only friend capable of withstanding
the forces now massed ao;ainst him. He had infuri-
ated Bonaparte by ordering Mazarredo, the admiral
commanding the Spanish fleet now locked up in
Brest harbour by the English, to force the blockade
and to concentrate his ships at Cadiz. This plan
was so contrary to the designs of the First Consul