While Ferdinand, meantime, was chewing the cud of reflection at Vittoria, without those opiates of falsehood and flattery which Savary had continually administered, D. Mariano Luis de Urquijo waited upon him: one of the persons who had suffered under Godoy’s administration, and who had hitherto been regarded as one of the most enlightened Spaniards and truest friends of his country. The new King had annulled the proceedings against him, and he now came to offer his homage and his thanks, and his advice in this critical position of affairs. He told the King’s counsellors that Buonaparte certainly intended to extinguish the dynasty of the Spanish Bourbons; that the language of the Moniteur concerning the tumults at Aranjuez, the movement of his troops, the seizure of the fortresses, and the whole scheme of his policy, made this evident. Fearing and believing this, he asked them what they could propose to themselves from this journey? how they could suffer a king of Spain thus publicly to degrade himself by going towards a foreign state without any formal invitation, without any preparations, without any of the etiquette which ought in such cases to be observed, and without having been recognized as King, for the French studiously called him still Prince of Asturias? To these reasonable questions the poor perplexed ministers could only reply, that they should satisfy the ambition of the Emperor by some cessions of territory, and some commercial advantages. He made answer, that perhaps they might give him all Spain. The Duke del Infantado appeared to feel the force of Urquijo’s remonstrances, but asked if it were possible that a hero like Napoleon could disgrace himself by such an action as this apprehended treachery. Urquijo answered, that both in ancient history and in their own they might find that great men had never scrupled at committing great crimes for great purposes, and posterity nevertheless accounted them heroes. The Duke observed, that all Europe, even France itself, would be shocked at such an act; and that Spain, with the help of England, might prove a formidable enemy. To this Urquijo replied, that Europe was too much exhausted to engage in new wars; and that the separate interests and ambitious views of the different powers prevailed with each of them more than a sense of the necessity of making great sacrifices in order to destroy the system which France had adopted since her fatal revolution. Austria was at this time the only power capable of opposing Buonaparte, if Spain should rise against him; but if Russia and Germany and the rest of Europe were on the opposite side, Austria would be vanquished; the Spanish navy would be destroyed, and Spain would become nothing more than a theatre of war for the English against the French; in which, moreover, the English would never expose themselves unless they had something to gain, for England was not capable of making head against