Junot completed a lacklustre performance by failing to build an alliance
with the liberal Portuguese bourgeoisie and introduce Enlightenment
reforms - a mistake so egregious that Junot has been suspected of
wanting to become King of Portugal himself.
Having dealt with Portugal in this rough-and-ready fashion, Napoleon
turned his attention to Spain. His intention to bring the entire Iberian
peninsula under the French aegis was clear enough from his actions in
January r8o8. First he rebuked Charles IV for conspiring to prevent the
marriage of Prince Ferdinand and his niece Louise, Lucien's daughter.
He then informed Charles that his son was plotting to depose him, which
caused Charles to arrest Ferdinand for treason. Having set the Bourbons
at each other's throats, Napoleon moved in for the coup de grace: on r6
February r8o8 he threw three army corps (r8o,ooo men) into Spain and
occupied all Spanish cities (including Barcelona) along a line from
Pamplona to Figueras.
What was in Napoleon's mind when he took this extraordinary step?
There can be many answers. He was always fu ndamentally contemptuous
of the Bourbons, wherever they manifested themselves; having expelled
them from France and Italy, he may have seen them as a dangerous
rallying point against his own dynasty. Some historians have seen his
decision as a mere 'bureaucratic reflex': since the Bourbons were
laggardly in supplying men and money for his cause, he wanted to put in
a Bonapartist administration that would do the job properly. He may also
have intended to emulate Louis XIV, during whose reign France had
effectively ruled Spain. He may have been trying to find more kingdoms
for his siblings. And he may have been seduced by the golden legend of
Spain, bedazzled both by the tradition of riches from the Indies and by
the history of great armadas sent against the old enemy, England.
Though all these factors doubtless played a part in his thinking, the
fu ndamental determinants of his Spanish policy were twofold.
Partly he was motivated by opportunism, for diplomats' reports
convinced him that Spain was in terminal decline and would welcome
him as a saviour. Charles IV, on the throne since 1788, was presiding over
the decline of a great mercantilist past, and in addition Spain was split
both economically and ideologically. Economically the new bourgeoisie in
ports like Cadiz and Barcelona had been the winners, at least until
Napoleon's economic blockade, while the peasantry of Andalucia and
Galicia were the losers. Ideologically, the nation was divided between
devotees of traditional, ultramontane Catholicism and supporters of the
Enlightenment. Spain looked like a fruit ripe for the plucking and,
moreover, if Napoleon controlled Spain, it seemed to him he might
marcin
(Marcin)
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