The new constitution was calculated to draw forth the resources of Spain: compared to the old system it was a blessing, and it would have been received as such under different circumstances; but now arms were to decide its fate, for in every province of Spain the cry of war had been raised. In Catalonia, in Valencia, in Andalusia, Estremadura, Gallicia, and the Asturias, the people were gathering, and fiercely declaring their determination to resist French intrusion. But Joseph, apparently contented with the acquiescence of the ninety-one notables, and trusting to the powerful support of his brother, crossed the frontier on the 9th of July; and on the 12th arrived at Vittoria. The inhabitants still nourishing the discontent caused by Ferdinand’s journey to Bayonne, seemed disposed to hinder Joseph’s entrance; but their opposition did not break out into actual violence, and the next morning he continued his progress by Miranda del Ebro, Breviesca, Burgos, and Buitrago. The 20th of July he entered Madrid, and upon the 24th he was proclaimed king of Spain and the Indies, with all the solemnities usual upon such occasions; not hesitating to declare himself the enemy of eleven millions of people, the object of a whole nation’s hatred; calling, with a strange accent, from the midst of foreign bands, upon that fierce and haughty race, to accept of a constitution which they did not understand, and which few of them had ever heard of; his only hope of success resting on the strength of his brother’s arms; his claims upon the consent of an imbecile monarch, and the weakness of a few pusillanimous nobles, in contempt of the rights of millions now arming to oppose him. This was the unhallowed part of the enterprise; this it was that rendered his offered constitution odious, covered it with a leprous skin, and drove the noble-minded far from the pollution of its touch! CHAPTER III. [Sidenote: Memoir of O’Farril, and Azanza.] Joseph being proclaimed king, required the council of Castile to take the oath of allegiance prescribed by the constitution; but with unexpected boldness, that body, hitherto obedient, met his orders with a remonstrance. War, virtually declared on the 2d of May, was at this time raging in all parts of the peninsula, and the council was secretly apprized that a great misfortune had befallen the French arms. It was no longer a question between Joseph and some reluctant public bodies, but an awful struggle between great nations; and how the spirit of insurrection breaking forth simultaneously in every province was nourished in each, until it acquired the consistence of regular warfare, I shall now relate.