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LATIN, GREEK, AND ORIENTAL.

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HISTORY OF THE WAR IN SPAIN.

Historia del Levantamiento, Guerra, y Revolucion de España. (History of the Insurrection, War, and Revolution of Spain.) By the Count de Toreno. 5 vols. 8vo. Madrid, 1835-7.

This book has the merits and the faults common to most histories, written by those who have acted their part amidst the events recorded. Many of the scenes described acquire necessarily a more vividly graphic, sometimes even half-dramatic, character, when recorded by eye-witnesses, by participators in their interest; and the narrator is not liable to be misled by false statements, or, indeed, by any thing but his own political passions. He needs, however, no other source of error. In the most philosophical partisans, these are usually strong enough to act upon the mind's eye with the same effect of distortion and false colouring, which glasses, prepared for the nonce, produce upon the bodily organ, and the Conde de Toreno is no exception to the rule. But luckily such prejudices are almost always sufficiently apparent to warn an observant reader against their influence; and upon the present occasion the recollection that the historian is a Spaniard and a liberal might alone prevent hypercredulity towards such representations as the Peninsula, or rather Spain, having been emancipated chiefly by Spanish constancy and valour, or the adoption of the writer's glowing admiration of the Cadiz Cortes. In this last respect, however, his own opinions have latterly undergone some modification; he avows that his opinions were exaggerated in 1812; he was by no means, we think, one of the most revolutionary of the Queen Regent's ministers while in office; and he allows that the British were useful auxiliaries. Of the Duke of Wellington, upon his first landing in Portugal, he says: "The army was commanded by Lieute nant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, since known as Duke of Wellington, of whom we shall give a brief account, as having played a principal part in the Peninsular war." And although he Occasionally censures his early operations, he gives him fair praise from the epoch of the battle of Salamanca.

Having thus shown the colouring to be allowed for, we shall return no more to the subject; but, after a word or two upon the writer's position, during the struggle of which he relates the history, proceed to the history itself. Toreno appears to have been, as a very young man, present in Madrid at the period of Ferdinand's accession, and through the popular outbreak of the 2nd of May. His father was one of the heads of the first rising in Asturias, and he himself, then bearing the second title of Visconde Matarrosa, was one of the Asturian deputies who electrified England with tidings of the Spanish insurrection against Napoleon. He was afterwards one of the provincial deputies VOL. I.—NO. II.—JUNE, 1839.

I

who compelled the reluctant regency to convoke the Cortes, and representative for Leon in the extraordinary Cortes.

Toreno begins his history from Godoy's incipient mistrust of Napoleon, in 1805. But of the events of that time, or of the disgraceful palace intrigues ending in the Aranjuez tumult, the abdication of Charles IV., and Napoleon's vicarious usurpation of his crown, our Conde seems to have no especial knowledge beyond other writers. Of this portion of his work, therefore, suffice it to say that, although he acquits the Prince of the Peace of treasonable subserviency to the French Emperor, and the Prince of Asturias of parricidal intentions, he throws abundant blame, moral and intellectual, upon all parties, and thinks that Ferdinand did intentionally provoke the Aranjuez riot, by revealing to an officer of the guards the proposed departure of the royal family, and his own reluctance to leave Spain for America. Many of this prince's faults he ascribes to his neglected education, and thus speaks of his early preceptor, in later years his counsellor, Escoiquiz, an important actor in the drama.

Don Juan Escoiquiz was the son of a general officer, and a native of Navarre. He was educated among the king's pages, but, preferring the tranquillity of the peaceful cloister to the din of arms, he obtained a canonry in the cathedral of Zaragoza, whence he was called to be tutor to the Prince of Asturias. In this honourable office, in lieu of studying to form the tender heart of his august pupil, instilling into him maxims of virtue and toleration, enriching and adorning his mind with useful and appropriate knowledge, he chiefly occupied himself with court plots and cabals, alien to his profession, and yet more to his preceptorship. His attempts to overthrow Godoy produced his own disgrace; he was removed from the Prince, and appointed to the archdeaconry of Alcaraz in the church of Toledo. Here he continued his intrigues, till, in consequence of the Escurial affair, he was secluded in the monastery of Tardon. Addicted to writing, both in verse and prose, he no more excelled in literature than in politics. With little of inspiration, he translated Milton's Paradise Lost; and of his prose works, especial mention should be made of his Defence of the Inquisition; the deformed offspring of a far from happy genius. He was always a blind admirer of Buonaparte; and having, by the excess of his delusion, entangled his princely disciple, he plunged the kingdom into an abyss of calamity. Presumptuous and ambitious, superficial in his learning, practically unacquainted with the human heart, and yet more so with courts and with foreign governments, he fancied that, a second Ximenes de Cisneros, he should issue from his Toledo nook to rule the monarchy, and subject the vast intellect of the French Emperor to the narrow sphere of his own.

But we hasten to matters related by Toreno from personal knowledge or observation, and we think one of the best of these is his account of the events of the 2nd of May, which have been so variously represented. His narrative is vivid and probable; and his narrative style less ambitious and better than that of the preceding extract. We shall begin with the growing dissatisfaction of the Spaniards, who, according to our historian, had originally shared the illusion of Escoiquiz, and expected nothing but good from Napoleon and the entrance of French

troops into Spain. These pleasing dreams were first disturbed by Murat's conduct towards Ferdinand upon his accession, which proceeded from ambiguity to positive rudeness. He says:

The Spanish people, meanwhile, began to look more and more unkindly upon the foreigners, whose arrogance increased with the prolongation of their stay. Fierce quarrels were daily provoked between the Madrileños (people of Madrid) and the French soldiers; and on the 27th of March, one more violent than usual had nearly produced such a tumult on the Plazuela de la Cebada, (the Barley Market,) as might have led to much bloodshed. The distressed court sought to quiet the public mind, now by proclamations, now by announcing the immediate arrival of Napoleon, which would put an end to all uncertainties and dangers. Such was the delusion of government in this respect, that, on the 24th of March, it had been officially announced to the public that his Majesty had information of the certain arrival of the Emperor of the French within two or three days.

More completely to mislead and ruin the government, Escoiquiz [recalled by Ferdinand], arrived on the 28th, still seeing in Napoleon only the enlightened, powerful, and heroic defender of King Ferdinand and his partisans. Blinded by self-conceit, he fancied that it was reserved for him alone to hit upon the means of extricating his august pupil, gallantly and triumphantly, from his embarrassed position; and, closing his ears to the general voice, he voluntarily incurred a fearful responsibility.

To Escoiquiz Toreno imputes Ferdinand's journey to meet Napoleon. Then followed the delivering up of Godoy to the French, who carried him to Bayonne; Murat's constant intercourse with the abdicated monarch; and the discovery of Charles's protest against his abdication, which Murat had promised to keep secret. Toreno thus relates this last provocation of popular

resentment.

On the 20th of April, Eusebio Alvarez de la Torre, a printer, appeared before the council to give notice that two French agents had applied to him to print a proclamation of Charles the Fourth's. This was rumoured abroad; and in the evening there would have been a great tumult, had not the council preventively sent the Alcalde, Don Andres Romero, to seize the Frenchmen with the copies of the proclamation. The judge would have arrested them, but they refused either to accompany him, or to reveal any thing without orders from their principal, General Grouchy, French Governor of Madrid. The impatient Madrileños crowded round the printing-office, and the Alcalde, fearing that, should he remove the Frenchmen, they would fall victims to the popular fury, left them there in custody, to await the decision of the council. The council, shrinking from responsibility, appealed to the Junta, which body, equally timid, ordered their release, merely requiring from Murat a new promise that such attempts should not be repeated.... . . The removal of Godoy, and this seemingly unimportant affair at the printing-office, were among the incidents that most indisposed the public mind towards the French..

Murat, on his part, omitted no opportunity of displaying his force, and endeavouring to strike terror to the soul of the disturbed multitude. Every Sunday, after hearing mass in the monastery of barefooted Carmelites, in the Calle de Alcalà, he reviewed his troops in the Prado. This show of religion, accompanied by the noisy review, far from conciliating or intimidating the people, irritated and angered them. The sincerity of the first being disbelieved, it was reprobated as impious dissimulation; and in the second was seen a deliberate purpose of insulting and terrifying the pacific

though offended inhabitants, by a studied exhibition. . . . . . On Sunday, the 1st of May, as Murat, returning from the usual review, passed the Puerta del Sol, (gate of the sun,) he was scoffed at and hissed by the crowd there assembled. Such a state of things was too violent to last without producing an open rupture. An occasion only was wanting, and that, unfortunately, soon offered.

On the 30th of April, Murat had presented a letter from Charles IV., requiring the presence of the Queen of Etruria, and the Infante, Don Francisco, at Bayonne. The Junta opposed the Infante's departure, leaving the Queen to do as she pleased. On the 1st of May, Murat reiterated his demand as to the Infante, undertaking to exonerate the Junta from all annoyance and responsibility. The matter was copiously debated, and opinions much divided. In the end, the journey of the Queen of Etruria, by her own free will, and of Don Francisco by consent of the Junta, was appointed for the following morning.

The 2nd of May dawned. . . ., The rumour of the intended departure of the Infantes, and the excessive anxiety excited by the non-arrival of two mails from Bayonne, had early collected a crowd of the lower orders, and of both sexes, in front of the palace. As nine o'clock struck, the Queen of Etruria stepped into a carriage with her children. She was considered more as a foreign than a Spanish princess, and much disliked for her constant and secret intercourse with Murat; her departure was unopposed. Two carriages remained, destined, as the crowd asserted, to take away the two Infantes, Don Antonio (brother of Charles IV.), and Don Francisco. The general anger was on the increase, when the palace servants reported that the boyish Don Francisco was in tears and unwilling to go; all hearts melted, and the women sobbed aloud. At this crisis, Murat's aide-de-camp, M. Auguste Lagrange, sent to see whether the popular agitation threatened any serious disorders, reached the palace. The appearance of an aide-de-camp's uniform persuaded the mob that he was sent to force away the Infantes. Murmurs arose; a woman screamed: "Will they tear him from us!" and M. Lagrange, assailed on all sides, must have perished, had not Don Miguel Desmaisieres y Florez, an officer of the Walloon guards, shielded him with his own person: but both would have been trampled to death by the frantic populace, yelling and blind with rage, had not the seasonable arrival of a French patrol rescued them. Murat, promptly informed of what was passing, despatched a battalion with two guns: the proximity of his quarters to the palace rendering the execution of his orders immediate. The French troops, upon reaching the scene of popular excitement, without any previous effort to check the incipient disturbance, without warning, fired upon the defenceless crowd, thus causing a general dispersion, and a consequent general insurrection throughout the capital. The fugitives from the palace, scattering rapidly through the most remote quarters, spread terror every where; and, in an instant, as though by enchantment, the whole population was on foot.

The first step was to arm; and those who could not procure good weapons made a shift with the most crazy and the most rusty. The French were impetuously attacked wherever they were met with. In general, those who remained within doors, or were found unarmed, were respected; and the chief fury was directed against such as either were seeking to join their corps or fired. Some, who threw away their arms, and implored mercy, were spared, and placed in safe custody.

The foreigners, forewarned, and from their dread of the public agitation of a populons city, ever on the watch, immediately rushed along the streets of Alcalà and San Geronimo, sweeping them with artillery, whilst the cavalry of the imperial guard routed the multitude. The Polish lancers and the MaInelukes signalized themselves by their cruelty.

The Junta ordered the Spanish troops, who were eager to

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