Napoleon made no reply to his brother’s declaration; he had no intention of taking over the formal responsibility for the government of Spain, and preferred to leave another to answer for all its obvious injustices and oppressions. Affairs were at a standstill for some months, till in April Joseph, taking the opportunity of a formal invitation to become one of the godfathers of the newly-born King of Rome, the heir of the Empire, made a sudden and unauthorized sally to Paris. He started from Madrid on April 23, accompanied by nine of his courtiers and ministers, and crossed the Bidassoa into France on May 10. He made no halt at Bayonne, lest he should be stopped there by orders from his brother, and when, at Dax in Gascony, he received an Imperial dispatch forbidding him to quit Spain, he was able to plead that it was too late to act upon it. Pursuing his journey night and day, he presented himself at Paris on May 15th, and announced to Napoleon that he was come to discharge in person the honourable duties of god-parent at the approaching baptism of his nephew. Though annoyed at the King’s arrival, for refusals and evasions of a brother’s petitions are transacted more easily by letter than face to face, the Emperor thought it well to make no open show of displeasure, and accepted all the explanations given to him. There followed a series of interviews at Rambouillet, in which Joseph allowed himself to be talked out of his project of abdication: for the Emperor declared that he found him useful in his present position, and informed him that it was his duty, as a brother and a French prince, to obey the directions of the head of his house. In return Napoleon promised to make many arrangements which would render the King’s position less intolerable than it had been for the last year. He would provide him with a monthly subsidy of a million francs from the French treasury, of which half would be for the sustenance of his court and ministers, and the other half for the pay of the Army of the Centre. Orders were issued to Soult, commanding the Army of Andalusia, Bessières, commanding the newly-formed Army of the North, and Suchet, so far as the Army of Aragon was concerned (but not for Catalonia), by which they were directed to pay over to a commissary appointed by Joseph one quarter of the gross revenues which they were raising in the districts which they occupied. They were also directed to leave the law courts in the King’s hands, and not to allow judgements to be given in the name of the Emperor. It was this last practice, frequently adopted by Kellermann in Castile, which had irritated Joseph more than any other misdemeanour of the local commandants.