From these well-meant, but not always successful, efforts he was suddenly called away by Napoleon to take the crown of Spain (May 1808). There his difficulties were far greater. Despite the benevolent intentions announced to the Spaniards in his proclamation dated Bayonne, 23rd of June 1808, all reconciliation between them and the French was impossible after Napoleon's treatment of their _de facto_ king, Ferdinand VII. For the varying fortunes of King Joseph in Spain and in the eventful years of the Peninsular War, see SPAIN and PENINSULAR WAR. His sovereignty was little more than titular. Compelled to leave Madrid hastily in August 1808, owing to the Spanish success at Baylen, he was reinstated by Napoleon at the close of the year; and he was thereafter kept in a subordinate position which led him on four occasions to offer to abdicate. The emperor took no notice of these offers, and ordered him to govern with more energy. Between February and May 1810 the emperor placed the northern and north-eastern provinces under the command of French generals as military districts, virtually independent of Joseph's authority. Again the king protested, but in vain. As his trusted adviser, Miot de Melito, observed in his memoirs, Joseph tried to be constitutional king of Spain, whereas after the experience of the years 1808-1809 he could only succeed in the Peninsula by becoming "the mere instrument of a military power." "Bearing a title which was only an oppressive burden, the king had in reality ceased to exist as a monarch, and barely retained some semblance of authority over a small part of the French army as a general. Reduced by the exhausted state of his treasury to the last extremity he at length seriously thought of departure." Joseph took this step in April 1811, and proceeded to Paris in order to extort better terms, or offer his abdication; but he had to return with a monthly subsidy of 500,000 francs and the promise that the army of the centre (the smallest of the five French armies) should be under his control. Late in that year Napoleon united Catalonia to France. Wellington's victory at Salamanca (July 22, 1812) compelled Joseph to leave his capital; and despite the retirement of the British in the autumn of that year, Joseph's authority never fully recovered from that blow. The end of his nominal rule came in the next year, when Wellington utterly overthrew the chief French army, commanded by King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, at Vittoria (June 21, 1813). The king fled from Spain, was disgraced by Napoleon, and received the order to retire incognito to Mortfontaine. The emperor wrote to the minister of war (July 11, 1813):--"His [Joseph's] behaviour has never ceased bringing misfortune upon my army; it is time to make an end of it."