Legends -- Pyrenees; Pyrenees -- Description and travel; Pyrenees -- History
The main quarrel between the King and Ferdinand was due to Charles
having abdicated when a riot broke out in Madrid and Ferdinand having
been proclaimed. But Charles afterwards revoked his abdication, which
had been wrung from him by his terrors, and Ferdinand refused to
withdraw his claim to having succeeded his father on the surrender
of the crown by the old man. After the deplorable scene described,
Ferdinand gave way so far as to consent to resign the crown, on
condition that this renunciation was in favour of his father only, and
that it was ratified in Madrid. This did not satisfy Napoleon; it was
not what he wanted.
At this juncture Marbot, the aide-de-camp of Murat, who had been sent
to Madrid, arrived at full gallop to announce to the Emperor that
an insurrection had broken out in the capital, in consequence of an
attempt made to remove the remaining members of the royal family.
This furnished Napoleon with the excuse he wanted. “Unless,” said he to
Ferdinand, whom he accused of having provoked the riot, “unless between
this and midnight you have recognized your father as king, and have
sent information to this effect to Madrid, I will have you dealt with
as a rebel.”
The terrified prince yielded. On 6 May Ferdinand signed a formal
renunciation of the crown. But on the previous day Charles had been
induced also to surrender his claims. Ferdinand in return was to have
the palace of Navarre and an income of six hundred thousand francs;
Charles was accorded the châteaux of Chambord and Compiègne. The
despised and disinherited princes were to receive in all ten millions;
“but,” as Napoleon wrote, “we will reimburse ourselves out of Spain!”
Yet even this undertaking was not observed. Ferdinand was interned in
France.
The stretch of country from Bayonne to the frontier is full of interest
to the Englishman as the scene of the contest between Wellington and
Soult, after the former had driven the French over the frontier and out
of Spain.
The autumn of 1813 had been passed by the greater part of the allied
army of English, Portuguese, and Spaniards under canvas on the cold and
cloudy summits of the Western Pyrenees. They endured great privations.
Their picket and night duties were incessant and harassing; the
weather, moreover, was stormy. The tedium of these camps, and the
sufferings from frost and sleet, exhausted the patience and shook the
constancy of the soldiers of weakest fibre.
But the fall of Pampeluna released the army on the Pyrenees from its
inactivity. It was known that Marshal Soult had prepared a defensive
position on the Nivelle stretching from ten to twelve miles from the
sea at S. Jean de Luz to the Petite Rhune before the village of Sare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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