After the victory of Friedland in June 1807, Napoleon stood at the very summit of his glory. The armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had been vanquished in three colossal combats. This Corsican captain had utterly upset all existing theories, contradicted all previous facts, refuted all accepted certainties. He had made a winter campaign in the northern provinces of Prussian and Russian Poland, seven hundred leagues from Paris, and had vanquished his combined enemies at their own doors. It seemed as though destiny had determined to erase for ever from Europe the feudal tradition and the hereditary principle, and to write across the Continent the names of one man and one nation--Napoleon and France. From the raft at Tilsit Bonaparte went back to France to begin these great legislative, industrial, and commercial works which still remain prouder memorials of his greatness than even his most brilliant victories. It was in the midst of these peaceful but ceaseless labours that the little cloud arose beyond the Pyrenean frontier of France which was destined to exert so deep an influence upon his fortunes. Although there existed many and powerful reasons to justify the intervention of France in the affairs of Spain in 1808, it is certain that the course followed by Napoleon on this occasion was neither in keeping with his true interests nor with the policy which had hitherto guided his actions. The state of Spain was notoriously wretched: the treachery of the king and his minister towards Napoleon had been clearly established during the critical period preceding the battle of Jena; but nevertheless, admitting all these facts as politically justifying the French invasion of the Peninsula, there were still stronger and better reasons in favour of non-intervention. Spain was the land of contradictions; the country was the best in Europe for irregular warfare, and the worst for the operations of regular armies. Long before this time it had been well defined as a land where a small army might be defeated, and where a large one would be sure to starve. But beyond all these reasons for non-intervention was the great fact that in invading Spain Napoleon was departing from the rule which hitherto had regulated his action. He was the first to draw the sword. Early in the year 1808 the people of the Peninsula rose in arms against the French. On the field of Baylen a French division was overpowered. The effect of the defeat was electrical; the whole nation was in revolt. Joseph Bonaparte quitted Madrid, and the French withdrew behind the Ebro. The moment was deemed auspicious by the British Government for trying once more the fortunes of a continental war, and in the middle of the year a large English army was despatched to the Peninsula. In the second division of that army Charles Napier sailed for Lisbon to begin his long-wished-for life of active service; he was then twenty-seven years of age. When this