The provisions of the treaty of Fontainebleau were unknown to the Portuguese, a circumstance that procured the Spanish troops a better reception than the French; but that treaty was now no longer regarded by Junot, whose conduct plainly discovered that he considered Portugal to be a possession entirely belonging to France. [Sidenote: Ibid.] [Sidenote: Thiebault.] When all his stragglers were come up, his army recovered from its fatigues, and that he knew that a reinforcement of five thousand men had arrived at Salamanca on its march to Lisbon, Junot proceeded more openly to assume the chief authority; he commenced by exacting a forced loan of two hundred thousand pounds, and not only interfered with the different departments of state, but put Frenchmen into all the lucrative offices; and his promises and protestations of amity became loud and frequent in proportion to his encroachments and the increase of his power. At last being created by Napoleon duke of Abrantes, he threw off all disguise, suppressed the council of regency, seized the reins of government himself, and while he established many useful regulations, made the nation sensibly alive to the fact that he was a despotic conqueror. The flag and the arms of Portugal were replaced by those of France; and of the Portuguese army, eight thousand men were selected and sent from the kingdom, under the command of the marquis d’Alorna and Gomez Frere, two noblemen of the greatest reputation for military talent among the native officers. Five thousand more were attached to the divisions of Junot’s army, and the rest were disbanded. [Sidenote: Thiebault.] [Sidenote: Foy.] An extraordinary contribution of four millions sterling, decreed by Napoleon, was then demanded, under the curious title of a ransom for the state; this sum was exorbitant, and Junot prevailed on the emperor to reduce it one half. He likewise on his own authority accepted the forced loan, the confiscated English merchandise, the church plate, and the royal property, in part payment; but the people were still unable to raise the whole amount, for the court had before taken the greatest part of the church plate and bullion of the kingdom, and had also drawn large sums from the people, under the pretext of defending the country, with which treasure they departed, leaving the public functionaries, the army, private creditors, and even domestic servants, unpaid. But although great discontent and misery prevailed, the tranquillity of Lisbon, during the first month after the arrival of the French, was remarkable; no disturbance took place, the populace were completely controlled by the activity of a police, established under the prince regent’s government by the count de Novion, a French emigrant, and continued by Junot on an extended scale.