In the next paragraph Napoleon tells Ferdinand that he should never have written to him in the preceding autumn without his father’s knowledge--‘in that your royal highness was culpable; but I flatter myself that I contributed by my remonstrances in securing a happy end to the affair of the Escurial.’ Finally Ferdinand might assure himself that he should have from his ally precisely the same treatment that his father had always experienced--which again is a double-edged saying, if we take into consideration the history of the relations of Charles IV and France. The King and his confidant Escoiquiz read and reread this curious document without coming to any certain conclusion: probably they thought (as would any one else who did not know the Emperor thoroughly) that the meeting at Bayonne would open with a scolding, and end with some tiresome concessions, but that Ferdinand’s title would be recognized. Savary’s commentary was reassuring: Spanish witnesses say that he exclaimed ‘I am ready to have my head taken off if, within a quarter of an hour of your majesty’s arrival at Bayonne, the Emperor has not saluted you as King of Spain and the Indies.... The whole negotiation will not take three days, and your majesty will be back in Spain in a moment[50].’ [50] Cevallos, p. 36. On April 19, therefore, the royal party set out amid the groans of the populace of Vittoria, who tried to hold back the horses, and to cut the traces of the King’s coach: on the twentieth they reached Bayonne. Napoleon entertained them at dinner, but would not talk politics: after the meal they were sent home to the not very spacious or magnificent lodgings prepared for them. An hour later the shameless Savary presented himself at the door, with the astounding message that the Emperor had thought matters over, and had come to the conclusion that the best thing for Spain would be that the house of Bourbon should cease to reign, and that a French prince should take their place. A prompt acquiescence in the bargain should be rewarded by the gift of the kingdom of Etruria, which had just been taken from Ferdinand’s widowed sister and her young son.