The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 3 (of 4) — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 3 (of 4)
John Stuart Mill · en
This ended all resistance. Ferdinand resigned his rights as king into
his father's hands, his rights as heir into those of Napoleon. Charles
had already assigned his rights as king to the same suzerain.[23] The
complacent old man was actually cheerful and joyous, as his
entertainer desired he should be; but Ferdinand, in spite of the fact
that he was to have the chateau of Navarre with an income of a million
francs, in spite of promises that all the royal family would be
liberally pensioned, remained silent and gloomy. Napoleon was not
pleased by this behavior, and in commending him to the hospitality of
Talleyrand, at the splendid castle of Valencay, declared that his
whole character could be summed up in a single word--sullen. Poor
Talleyrand! he saw himself condemned to the "honorable mission" of
turnkey to a dispossessed monarch whose guard of honor was a troop of
eighty mounted police. By the Emperor's grace the young culprit was
not to be committed to jail, for he had voluntarily surrendered
himself; but Talleyrand was to watch and amuse him, and discover, if
possible, some charming and marriageable girl to entangle his
affections, so that in her society he might forget the delights of
power, while time should weaken the promptings of ambition and
revenge. In a few days Charles, Louisa, and Godoy were comfortably
installed at Compiegne, while Ferdinand, with his brother, went
sullenly away to "visit" at Valencay. The prisoner's character was
soon displayed. The day of his arrival at his destination he wrote a
cringing letter to Napoleon, and soon after not only congratulated the
Emperor on the accession of the King of Naples to the throne he had
claimed for his own, but even felicitated Joseph himself on his
coronation as Catholic Majesty.
[Footnote 23: Originals will be found in Oman, Vol. I, pp.
616-18.]
Napoleon knew the mysterious power throughout Europe of that charmed
word "legitimacy." He despised the concept that it expressed, while he
meant to make the most of its power. Having misunderstood the strength
of Spanish patriotism, he now made the blunder of supposing that the
Spaniards would receive as a legitimate prince whomsoever he chose to
appoint as heir to the "legitimacy" which the Spanish Bourbons had
just put into his hands. Louis, moreover, had but recently illustrated
the force of a new environment under the notion of legitimacy.
Replying to Napoleon's letter of March twenty-fifth, he had flatly
refused the Spanish crown, on the ground that he had sworn a solemn
oath to the Dutch. Joseph was immediately restored to favor and
ordered to Bayonne. He came with apparent alacrity, due, as he
claimed, to his desire to free his beloved brother Napoleon from
embarrassment. Soon all was apparently ready for his inauguration.