In that storm Spain broke down, but not until she had exhibited considerable power in war, first with France, and then as the ally of France. Her navy was honorably distinguished, though unfortunate, at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, and elsewhere, showing that Spanish valor was not extinct. Napoleon I., unequal to bearing well the good-fortune that had been made complete at Tilsit, and maddened by the success of England in her piratical attack on Denmark, resolved to add Spain to his empire, virtually, if not in terms. He was not content with having her as one of his most useful and submissive dependencies, whose resources were at his command as thoroughly as were those of Belgium and Lombardy, but must needs insist upon having her throne at his disposal. Human folly never perpetrated a grosser blunder than this, and he established that "Spanish ulcer" which undermined the strength of the most magnificent empire that the world had seen for ten centuries; for, if his empire was in some respects inferior to that of Philip II., in others it was superior to the Castilian dominion. Out of his action in the Peninsula grew the Peninsular War, which was to the Spain of our age what the Succession War had been to the Spain of a century earlier. That country was prepared by it for another revival, which came at last, but which also came slowly. Had Ferdinand VII. been a wise and truthful man, or had there been Spanish statesmen capable of governing both monarch and monarchy, the days of Alberoni would have been repeated before 1820. But there was neither an honest monarch nor a great statesman in the kingdom, and Spain daily became weaker and more contemptible. Her colonial empire disappeared, with a few exceptions, such as Cuba and the Philippines. The sun ceased to shine constantly on that empire which had been warmed by his beams through three centuries, and transferred that honor to England. Spanish politics became the world's scorn; and a French army, acting as the police of the Holy Alliance, crossed the Pyrenees, and made Ferdinand VII. once more an absolute king. After his death, a civil war raged for a long time between the Christinos and the Carlists, parties which took their names from the Queen-Mother and from Don Carlos, who claimed to be the legitimate King of the Spains. At length that war was brought to an end, and the throne of Isabella II. appears to be as well established as was that of Isabella I.