In Armstrong’s despatch of November 15, already quoted, one more paragraph was worth noting. At the moment he wrote, Napoleon had just given his last orders; General Dupont had not yet received them, and neither Don Carlos IV. nor Lucien Bonaparte knew the change of plan that was intended. Only men like Talleyrand and Duroc could see that from the moment of the peace at Tilsit, Napoleon’s movements had been rapidly and irresistibly converging upon Madrid,--until, by the middle of November, every order had been given, and the Spanish Peninsula lay, as the Emperor told Lucien, “in the hollow of his hand.” Armstrong, writing a fortnight before the royal family of Portugal had turned their vessels’ prows toward Brazil, asked a question which Napoleon himself would hardly have dared to answer: “What will become of the royal houses of Portugal and Spain? I know not. By the way, I consider this question as of no small interest to the United States. If they were sent to America, or are even permitted to withdraw thither, we may conclude that the colonies which excite the imperial longing, and which are in its opinion necessary to France, are not on our side of the Atlantic. If on the other hand they are retained in Europe, it will only be as hostages for the eventual delivery of their colonies; and then, at the distance of three centuries, may be acted over again the tragedy of the Incas, with some few alterations of scenery and names.” All these measures being completed by November 15, the day when Armstrong wrote his despatch, the Emperor left Fontainebleau and went to Italy. He passed through Milan and Verona to Venice; and on his return, stopped a few hours at Mantua,[103] on the night of December 13, to offer Lucien the throne of Spain. Lucien’s story[104] was that being summoned from Rome to an interview, he found his brother alone, at midnight of December 13, seated in a vast room in the palace at Mantua, before a great round table, almost entirely covered by a very large map of Spain, on which he was marking strategical points with black, red, and yellow pins. After a long interview, in which the Emperor made many concessions to his brother’s resistance, Napoleon opened his last and most audacious offer:--