It was all the work of a few short weeks; and the fate of Spain seemed to be sealed with a seal that no human power would be permitted to break. But the people of that land of faith and chivalry were not forgetful of their ancient honor in this the day of their great trial. They boldly refused to ratify the treaty to which father and son had alike put their dishonored names, and sprang to arms to prevent its provisions from being fulfilled by foreign intervention. It was a fierce struggle. For nearly six years, the forces of France were spread over the country, sometimes seeming to cover the whole of it, and sometimes only small portions, but seldom exerting any real control beyond the camps they occupied and the cities they from time to time garrisoned. At last, in 1813, under the leading of England, the invaders were driven through the gorges of the Pyrenees; and, as a part of the great European retribution, Ferdinand the Seventh was replaced on the throne he had so weakly abdicated. He was received by his people with a loyalty that seemed to belong to the earliest ages of the monarchy. But it was lost on him. He returned untaught by the misfortunes he had suffered, and unmoved by a fidelity which had showed itself ready to sacrifice a whole generation and its hopes to his honor and rights. As far as was possible, he restored all the forms and appliances of the old despotism, and thrust from his confidence the very men who had brought him home on their shields, and who only claimed for their country the exercise of a salutary freedom, without which he himself could not be maintained on the throne where their courage and constancy had seated him.[391] Even the Inquisition, which it had been one of the most popular acts of the French invaders to abolish, and one of the wisest acts of the national Cortes to declare incompatible with the constitution of the monarchy, was solemnly reinstated; and if, during a reign protracted through twenty sad and troubled years, any proper freedom was for a moment granted to thought, to speech, or to the press, it was only in consequence of changes over which the prince had no control, and of which he felt himself to be rather the victim than the author.[392]