in the shocking murder of the Duc d’Enghien. When we find the Spanish witnesses, who conversed with Savary during his short stay in Madrid, agreeing that the general promised that Napoleon would recognize Ferdinand as king, give him an imperial princess as wife, and take him into favour, we need not doubt them. It is not disputed that Savary, unlike Murat and Beauharnais, regularly addressed his victim by the royal title, and it is certain that he started in his company and acted as his keeper during the journey[48]. The move that he at first proposed was not a long one: the general said that according to his advices the Emperor must be due at Burgos on April 13: it would be time enough to start to meet him on the tenth. Burgos lies well inside the frontiers of Castile, and if it was packed with French troops, so was Madrid: one place was no more dangerous than the other. [47] It is said that they afterwards turned out to be full of smuggled goods, a private speculation of Savary or his underlings. [48] Savary, in his mendacious autobiography, denies that he persuaded Ferdinand to start for Bayonne. But he is refuted by two contemporary documents. The young king, in his letter of adieu to his father, states that Savary has convinced him of the necessity of going; while Murat in a dispatch to Bonaparte says that ‘Savary has in no small degree contributed to induce the new court to quit Madrid’ [April 8]. Exactly how far the perjuries of Savary went, or how far he was apprised of his master’s final intentions, we cannot tell, but it is certain that on April 10 he set out from Madrid in the King’s company: with them went Escoiquiz, Ferdinand’s clerical confidant, Cevallos the minister of foreign affairs, and half a dozen dukes and marquises chosen from among the King’s old partisans. To administer affairs in his absence Ferdinand nominated a ‘Junta’ or council of regency, with his uncle Don Antonio, a simple and very silly old man, at its head[49]. [49] For Don Antonio’s habits we have on Talleyrand’s authority some very curious stories. He spent most of his time of captivity at Valençay sitting in the library, mutilating illustrated books with his scissors, not to make a scrap-book, but to destroy any engravings that sinned against morals or religion!