SECTION VI: CHAPTER II

CREATION OF THE ‘JUNTA GENERAL’

On August 1, Madrid had seen the last of the French: yet it was not till the thirteenth that the Spanish troops appeared before the gates of the capital. Even then it was not the victorious army of Andalusia which presented itself, but only the Valencian corps of Llamas, a mere division of 8,000 men, which would not have dared to push forward, had it not known that Joseph Bonaparte and all his train were now far on their way towards the Ebro. During the thirteen days which elapsed between his departure and the arrival of the Valencians there was a curious interregnum in Madrid. It took some time to convince the populace and the local authorities that the hated invaders were really gone, and that they were once more their own masters. Nothing reflects the state of public opinion better than the Madrid Gazette: down to August 1, it shows the hand of a French editor; ‘His Majesty’ means King Joseph, and all the foreign intelligence is coloured with French views. On August 2 the foreign influence begins to disappear, and we note a very cautious and tentative proclamation by the old ‘Council of Castile.’ That effete body, shorn by the French of most of its prominent members, had repeatedly yielded to the orders of Murat and Savary: it had carried out many decrees of the new executive, yet it had never actually recognized the legality of King Joseph’s accession. Indeed at the last moment it had striven, by feeble methods of evasion and delay, to avoid committing itself to this final step. But we may guess that, had there been no Baylen, the Council would finally have made up its mind to ‘swallow the pill’—if we may use once more Murat’s characteristic phrase. However, the flight of Joseph had saved it from being forced to range itself on the side of the traitors, and its members were able to stay behind in Madrid without fearing for their necks. In their first manifesto there is not a word that could have offended Savary, if he had returned the next day. It preaches the necessity of calm, order, and quiet: no one must stir up mobs, compromise the public[p. 343] safety, or vex his respectable neighbours[343]. The rest of the paper on this and the two following days is filled up with essays on geography and political economy, lists of servants seeking places, and colourless foreign news many weeks old. Such piteous stuff was not likely to keep the people quiet: on August 4 a mob assembled, broke open the house of Don Luis Viguri (one of Godoy’s old confidants), murdered him, and dragged his body through the streets. Fearing that they too might be considered Afrancesados the Council published a second proclamation of the most abject kind. The ‘melancholy instance of insubordination’ of the previous day causes them ‘intolerable sorrow’ and is ‘unlikely to tend to public felicity.’ The loyal and generous citizens ought to wait for the working of the law and its ministers, and not to take the execution of justice into their own hands. The clergy, the local officials, every employer of labour, every father of a family, are begged to help to maintain peace and order. Then comes a page of notices of new books, and a short paper on the ethics of emigration! Of Ferdinand VII or Joseph I, of politics domestic or foreign, there is not a word. Two days later the Council at last makes up its mind, and, after a week of most uncomfortable sitting on the fence, suddenly bursts out into an ‘Address to the honourable and generous people of the capital of Spain,’ in the highest strain of patriotism: ‘Our loved King is in chains, but his loyal subjects have risen in his name. Our gallant armies have achieved triumphs over “the invincibles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena.” All Europe stands surprised at their rapid victories. These fellow citizens of ours, crowned with the laurels of success, will soon be with us. Meanwhile the Council must beg the patriotic citizens of Madrid to abstain from riot and murder, and to turn their energies into more useful channels. Let them prostrate themselves before the altar in grateful thanks to God, and make preparations to receive and embrace the oncoming bands of liberators.’ Domestic intelligence becomes for the future a list of French atrocities, and of (sometimes apocryphal) victories in the remoter corners of Spain[344]. Foreign intelligence is served up with an English rather[p. 344] than a French flavour. The arsenal of ‘Volovich[345]’ is shipping scores of cannon and thousands of muskets for the use of the brave Spaniards, the treasures of Great Britain are to be poured into the hands of the insurrectionary Juntas, and so forth. All this comes a little late: the good intentions of the Council would have been more clear if they had been expressed on August 2 instead of August 7, when the French were still at Buitrago, rather than when they were far away beyond Aranda de Duero[346].

It is really astonishing to find that the Council made a bid for power, and attempted to assume the pose of a senate of warm-hearted patriots, after all its base servility to Murat and Savary during the last six months. Its president, Don Arias Mon y Velarde, actually had the audacity to write a circular-note to the various provincial Juntas of Spain, proposing that, as a single central government must obviously be established, they should send representatives to Madrid to concert with the Council on means of defence, and lend it the aid of their influence and authority. That such a discredited body should attempt to assume a kind of presidential authority over the local Juntas who had raised and directed the insurrection was absurd. The replies which were returned were of the most uncompromising kind: the Galician Junta taunted the Council with having been ‘the most active instrument of the Usurper.’ Palafox, speaking for Aragon, wrote that it ‘was a corporation which had not done its duty.’ The active and ambitious Junta of Seville wished to accuse the Council before the face of the Spanish people ‘of having subverted the fundamental laws of the realm, of having given the enemy every facility for seizing the domination of Spain, of having lost all legal authority and become null and void, and of being suspected of deliberate treason of the most atrocious sort possible.’ The Valencians voted that ‘no public body of any kind ought to enter into correspondence with the Council of Castile, or[p. 345] come to any understanding with it[347].’ All these rebuffs to the Council were well deserved, and it is clear that the provincial Juntas were entirely justified in their action. But it is to be feared that there lay at the bottom of their hearts not merely honest indignation at the impudent proposal that had been laid before them, but a not unnatural desire to cling as long as possible to their existing power and authority. In many of the provinces there was shown a most unworthy and unwise reluctance to proceed at once to the construction of a single governing body for Spain, even when the proposal was put forward not by a discredited corporation like the Council, but by men of undoubted patriotism.

The credit of starting a serious agitation for the erection of a ‘Supreme Junta’ must be given to the Murcians, whose councils were guided by the old statesman Florida Blanca, a survivor from the days of Charles III. As far back as June 22 they had issued a proclamation setting forth the evils of provincial particularism, and advocating the establishment of a central government. None of the other Juntas ventured openly to oppose this laudable design, and some of them did their best to further it. But there were others who clung to power, and were determined to surrender it at as late a date as they could manage. The Junta of Seville was far the worst: that body—as we have had occasion to mention in another place—was largely in the hands of intriguers, and had put forth unjustifiable claims to domination in the whole southern part of the realm, even usurping the title of ‘Supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies[348].’ In their desire for self-aggrandizement they took most unjustifiable steps: they suppressed Florida Blanca’s Murcian proclamation, lest it might stir up an agitation in Andalusia in behalf of the establishment of a central government[349]. But this was a comparatively venial sin: their worst act was to stay the march of Casta?os on Madrid after Baylen. The pretext used was that they wished to welcome the victorious general and his army with triumphal entries and feasts of rejoicing—things entirely out of place, so long as the French were still holding the capital of the realm. To his own entire dissatisfaction Casta?os was dragged back to Seville, there to display the captured guns and flags of the French, and to be received with salvos fired by patriotic[p. 346] ladies who had learnt the drill of the artilleryman[350]. But he soon found to his disgust that the Junta was really aiming at the employment of his troops not for national purposes but for their own aggrandizement. They wished to speak with 40,000 men at their back, and were most reluctant to let the army pass the Sierra Morena, lest it should get out of their control. Their most iniquitous design was to overawe by armed force their neighbours, the Junta of Granada, who refused to recognize them as a central authority for Andalusia, and had given their assent to the Murcian proposal for the prompt formation of a national government. They were actually issuing orders for a division to march against the Granadans, when Casta?os—though a man of mild and conciliatory manners—burst out in wrath at the council board. Springing up from his chair and smiting the table a resounding blow, he exclaimed, ‘Who is the man that dares bid the troops march without my leave? Away with all provincial differences: I am the general of the Spanish nation, I am in command of an honourable army, and we are not going to allow any one to stir up civil war[351].’ Conscious that the regiments would follow the victor of Baylen, and refuse obedience to mere civilians, the Junta dropped their suicidal project. But they turned all their energy into devising pretexts for delaying the march of the army on Madrid. Their selfishness was undisguised: when Casta?os begged for leave to march on the capital without further delay[352], the Conde de Tilly (the most intriguing spirit among all the politicians of Seville) responded with the simple question, ‘And what then will become of us?’ He then moved that the Junta of Andalusia should concern itself with Andalusia and Portugal alone, and not interfere in what went on beyond the Sierra Morena. This proposal was a little too strong even for the narrow-minded particularists of the Junta: but though they let Casta?os go, they contrived excuses for delaying the march of the greater part of his army. He did not get to Madrid till August 23, more than a month after Baylen, and then brought with him only the single division of La Pe?a, about 7,000 strong. The other three[p. 347] divisions, those of Reding, Jones, and Coupigny, did not cross the Sierra Morena for many weeks after, and some of the troops had not even left Andalusia at the moment when the French resumed offensive operations in October. On various specious pretences the Junta detained many regiments at Seville and Cadiz, giving out that they were to form the nucleus of a new ‘army of reserve,’ which was still a mere skeleton three months after Baylen had been fought. If we compare the Andalusian army-list of November with that of July, we find that only seven new battalions[353] had joined the army of Casta?os in time to fight on the Ebro. It is true that a new division had been also raised in Granada, and sent to Catalonia under General Reding, but this was due to the energy of the Junta of that small kingdom, which was far more active than that of Seville. Andalusia had 40,000 men under arms in July, and no more than 50,000 at the beginning of November, though the Junta had promised to have at least thirty reserve battalions ready before the end of the autumn, and had received from England enormous stores of muskets and clothing for their equipment.

In the northern parts of Spain there was almost as much confusion, particularism, and selfishness as in the south. The main sources of trouble were the rivalry of the Juntas of Asturias and Galicia, and the extravagant claims of the aged and imbecile Cuesta, in virtue of his position as Captain-General of Castile. It will be remembered that in June insurrectionary Juntas had been established at Leon and Valladolid, the former purporting to represent the kingdom of Leon, the latter the kingdom of Old Castile. Each had been under the thumb of Cuesta, who looked upon them as nothing more than committees established under his authority for the civil government of the provinces of the Douro. But the disaster of Medina de Rio Seco destroyed both the power and the credit of the Captain-General. Flying before the French, the Juntas took refuge in Galicia, where they settled down at Ponferrada for a few days, and then moved to Lugo, whither the Junta of Galicia came out to meet them. The three bodies, joining in common session, chose as their president Don Antonio Valdes, the Bailiff of the Knights of Malta, who was one of the representatives of Castile. They claimed to be recognized as the supreme civil[p. 348] government of Northern Spain, but their position was weakened by two mischances. The Asturian Junta refused to have anything to do with them, and persisted in remaining sovereign within the borders of its own principality. Even more vexatious was the conduct of Cuesta: though he was wandering in the mountains with only three or four thousand raw levies—the wrecks of Rio Seco—he refused to recognize any authority in the three federated Juntas, and pretended to revoke by his proclamation any powers vested in those of Castile and Leon. The fact was that he knew that they would lend support to his military rival Blake, and not to himself. He feigned to regard the Captains-General and the old Audiencias, or provincial tribunals, as the sole legitimate powers left in the kingdom, and to consider the Juntas as irregular assemblies destitute of any valid authority. In what a scandalous form he translated his theories into action, we shall soon see. Meanwhile he refused to co-operate with the troops of Galicia, and made no attempt to follow the retreating French. All his efforts were directed to increasing the numbers of the mass of raw levies which he called the ‘Army of Castile.’ But from the whole of the provinces over which he claimed authority he had only succeeded in scraping together 12,000 men by the middle of September, though as far as population went they represented nearly a sixth of the people of Spain.

The want of any central executive for directing the armies of the patriots had the most disastrous results. By September 1 Casta?os and Llamas had not more than 20,000 men at Madrid. Galluzzo’s army of Estremadura, which ought to have joined them long before, was still employed in its futile siege of Elvas. Cuesta was hanging back in Castile, as jealous of Casta?os as he had been of Blake. The only armies which were in touch with the French were Palafox’s troops on the Ebro and the Valencian division of Saint March, which the Junta of Valencia (showing more patriotism than most of their colleagues) had pushed up to Saragossa to aid the Aragonese. Blake, with the powerful army of Galicia, had descended to Astorga when Bessières retreated to Burgos. But from Astorga he advanced most cautiously, always clinging to the southern slope of the Cantabrian hills, in order to avoid the plains, where the cavalry of the French would have a free hand. It was not till September 10 that he had concentrated his main body at Reynosa, near the sources of the Ebro, where he was at last near enough to the front to be able to commence operations.

[p. 349]

The whole month of August, it is not too much to say, was lost for military purposes because Spain had not succeeded in furnishing itself with a central government or a commander-in-chief. It had been wasted in constitutional debates of the most futile kind. To every one, except to certain of the more selfish members of the Juntas, it was clear that a way must be found out of the existing anarchy. Three courses seemed possible: one was to appoint a Regent, or a small Council of Regency, and to entrust to him (or to them) the conduct of affairs. The second was to summon the Cortes, the old national parliament of Spain. The third was to establish a new sort of central government, by inducing each of the existing Juntas to send deputies, with full powers of representation, to sit together as a ‘Supreme Central Junta’ for the whole realm. The project of appointing a Regent had at first many advocates: it occurred to both Casta?os and Palafox, and each (as it chanced) pitched upon the same individual as most worthy of the post[354]. This was the Archduke Charles of Austria, the sole general in Europe who had won a military reputation of the first class while contending with the French. He would have been an excellent choice—if only he could have been secured. But it did not take much reflection to see that if Austria allowed her greatest captain to accept such a post, she would involve herself in instant war with Bonaparte, and if such a war broke out the Archduke would be wanted on the Danube rather than upon the Ebro. There was no other name likely to command general confidence. Some spoke of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo[355], the last prince of the Spanish royal house who remained in the realm. But he was an insignificant and incapable person, and much discredited by his dallyings with Murat in the days before the insurrection had begun. Clearly he would be no more than a puppet, worked by some astute person behind the viceregal throne. Other names suggested were those of the young Dom Pedro of Portugal (son of the Prince-Regent John), and of Prince Leopold, the son of Ferdinand IV of Sicily. The former was a grandson, the latter a nephew of Charles IV. Both therefore were near to the throne, but both were foreigners, young, untried in matters of state, and utterly unknown to the Spaniards. Dom Pedro’s claims were not[p. 350] strongly pushed, but the Sicilian court made a strenuous attempt to forward those of Prince Leopold. Their ambassador in London tried to enlist the support of the English Government for him: but Canning and Castlereagh were anxious to avoid any appearance of dictating orders to Spain, and firmly refused to countenance the project. Before their reply came to hand, King Ferdinand (or rather that old intriguer, his spouse, and her son-in-law the Duke of Orleans) sent the prince to Gibraltar, on a man-of-war which they had obtained from Mr. Drummond, the British minister at Palermo. By lending his aid to the plan this unwise diplomat almost succeeded in compromising his government. But most fortunately our representatives in Spain nipped in the bud this intrigue, which could not have failed to embroil them with the Juntas, none of whom had the least love for the Sicilian house. When the Thunderer arrived at Gibraltar [August 9] Sir Hew Dalrymple—then just on the eve of starting for Portugal—refused to allow the prince to land, or to distribute the proclamations which he had prepared. These were the work of Leopold’s brother-in-law, Louis Philippe of Orleans, who had accompanied him from Palermo with the design of fishing in troubled waters, a craft of which he was to show himself in later days a past master. If Leopold should become regent, Orleans intended to be the ‘power behind the throne.’ Dalrymple detained the two princes at Gibraltar, and when he was gone Lord Collingwood[356] took the same attitude of hostile neutrality. Tired of detention, Louis Philippe after a few days sailed for London, in the vain hope of melting the hearts of the British Cabinet. The Sicilian prince lingered some time, protesting against the fashion in which he was treated, and holding secret colloquies with deputations which came to him from many quarters in which the Junta of Seville was detested. But there was no real party in his favour. What benefit could come to Spain from the election of a youth of nineteen, whose very name was unknown to the people, and who could help them neither with men nor with money, neither with the statesmanship that comes from experience, nor with the military capacity that must be developed on the battle-field? After remaining long enough in Spanish waters to lose all his illusions, Prince[p. 351] Leopold returned to his mother in Sicily[357]. There had never been any foundation for a persistent rumour that he was to be made co-regent along with the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo and the Conde de Montijo. Not even the least intelligent members of the Juntas would have consented to hand over the rule of Spain to this strange triumvirate—an imbecile, a boy, and a turbulent intriguer. There was about as much chance that another vain project might be carried out—an invitation to General Dumouriez to take command of all the Spanish armies. Yet this plan too was seriously brought forward: the Frenchman would not have been unwilling, but the Spanish officers, flushed with their recent successes, were not the kind of people to welcome a foreign leader, and one whose last military exploit had been to desert his own army and go over to the enemy.

Much more specious, at first sight, than any project for the establishment of a regency, was the proposal mooted in many quarters for the summoning of the Cortes—whose name recalled so many ancient memories, and was connected with the days of constitutional freedom in the Middle Ages. But not only had the Cortes been obscured by the long spell of autocracy under the Hapsburg and Bourbon kings, but it was by its very constitution unsuited to represent a nation seeking for a new and vigorous executive. It was full of mediaeval anomalies: for example the Asturias had never been represented in it, but had possessed (like Wales in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) separate governmental machinery of its own. This might have been altered without much difficulty, but it was more fatal that the distribution of seats in the lower estates represented an archaic survival. Many decayed towns in Castile sent members to the Cortes, while on the other hand the warlike and populous province of Galicia had only one single vote. To rearrange the representation on a rational basis would take so long, and cause so much provincial jealousy, that it was recognized as practically impossible.

There remained therefore only the third plan for creating a supreme government in Spain—that which proposed that the various existing Juntas should each send deputies to some convenient spot, and that the union of these representatives should constitute a central authority for the whole realm. This scheme was not so clearly constitutional as the summoning of the Cortes[p. 352] would have been, nor did it provide for real unity of direction in so complete a way as would have been secured by the appointment of a single Regent. But it had the practical advantage of conciliating the various provincial Juntas: though they sacrificed their local sovereignty, they obtained at least the power of nominating their own masters. In each of them the more active and ambitious members hoped that they might secure for themselves the places of delegates to the new supreme assembly. Accordingly the Juntas were induced, one after another, to consent to the scheme. Public opinion ran so strongly in favour of unity, and the existing administrative chaos was so clearly undesirable, that it was impossible to protest against the creation of a Supreme Central Junta. Some of the provinces—notably Murcia, Valencia, and Granada—showed a patriotic spirit of self-abnegation and favoured the project from the first. Even Galicia and Seville, where the spirit of particularism was strongest, dared not openly resist the movement. There were malcontents who suggested that a federal constitution was preferable to a centralized one, and that it would suffice for the provinces to bind themselves together by treaties of alliance, instead of handing themselves over to a newly created executive. But even in Aragon, where federal union with Castile seemed more attractive to many than complete incorporation, the obvious necessity for common military action determined the situation[358]. Every province of Spain at last adhered to the project for constructing a Supreme Central Junta. Even the narrow-minded politicians at Seville had to assume an attitude of hearty consent. But their reluctance peeped out in the suggestion which they made that the Junta should meet, not at Madrid, but at Ciudad Real or Almagro in La Mancha, places convenient to themselves, but obscure and remote in the eyes of inhabitants of Asturias or Galicia. Their aversion to Madrid was partly caused by its remoteness from their own borders, but much more by jealousy of the Council of Castile, which still hung together and exercised local authority in the capital. Other Juntas showed their aversion for the Council in the same way, and ultimately the place selected for the gathering of the new government was the royal residence of Aranjuez, which stands to Madrid much as do Versailles or Windsor to Paris and London. This choice was an[p. 353] obvious mistake: the central government of a country loses in dignity when it does not reside in the national capital. It seems to distrust its own power or its legality, when it exiles itself from its proper abode. At the best it casts a slur on the inhabitants of the capital by refusing to trust itself among them. Madrid, it is true, is not to Spain what Paris is to France, or London to England: it is a comparatively modern place, pitched upon by Philip II as the seat of his court, but destitute of ancient memories. Nevertheless, it was at least infinitely superior to Aranjuez as a meeting-place. On geographical or strategical grounds they are so close that no advantage accrues to one that does not belong to the other. But for political reasons the capital was distinctly preferable to the almost suburban palace[359]. If the existence of the Council of Castile so much disturbed the Junta, it would have been quite possible to dissolve that discredited body. No one would have made any serious effort in its favour, even in the city of its abode.