The Emperor indeed with that wonderful intellectual activity and energy which made him the foremost man of the world, had raised a fresh army and prepared once more to march into the heart of Germany, yet to do this he was forced to withdraw such numbers of old soldiers from Spain that the French army could no longer hope permanently to act on the offensive. This stayed the Peninsula cause upon the very brink of a precipice, for in that very curious, useful, and authentic work, called “_Bourrienne and his errors_,” it appears that early in 1813, the ever factious Conde de Montijo, then a general in Elio’s army, had secretly made proposals to pass over, with the forces under his command, to the king; and soon afterwards the whole army of Del Parque, having advanced into La Mancha, made offers of the same nature. They were actually in negociation with Joseph, when the emperor’s orders obliged the French army to abandon Madrid, and take up the line of the Duero. Then the Spaniards advertised of the French weakness, feared to continue their negociations, Wellington soon afterwards advanced, and as this feeling in favour of the intrusive monarch was certainly not general, the resistance to the invaders revived with the successes of the British general. But if instead of diminishing his forces, Napoleon, victorious in Russia, had strengthened them, this defection would certainly have taken place, and would probably have been followed by others. The king at the head of a Spanish army would then have reconquered Andalusia, Wellington would have been confined to the defence of Portugal, and it is scarcely to be supposed that England would have purchased the independence of that country with her own permanent ruin. This conspiracy is not related by me with entire confidence, because no trace of the transaction is to be found in the correspondence of the king taken at Vittoria. Nevertheless there are abundant proofs that the work called “_Bourrienne and his errors_,” inasmuch as it relates to Joseph’s transactions in Spain, is accurately compiled from that monarch’s correspondence. Many of his papers taken at Vittoria were lost or abstracted at the time, and as in a case involving so many persons’ lives, he would probably have destroyed the proofs of a conspiracy which had failed, there seems little reason to doubt that the general fact is correct. Napoleon also in his memoirs, speaks of secret negociations with the Cortez about this time, and his testimony is corroborated by the correspondence of the British embassy at Cadiz, and by the continued intrigues against the British influence. The next chapter will show that the policy of Spain was not the only source of uneasiness to Lord Wellington. CHAPTER II. [Sidenote: 1813.]