The Emperor heard with much regret of the precipitancy with which his lieutenant had occupied Madrid—­for his clear mind had foreseen ere now the imminent hazard of trampling too rudely on the jealous pride of the Spaniards; and the events of the 17th, 18th, and 19th March were well qualified to confirm his impression, that although all sense of dignity and decorum might be extinguished in the court, the ancient elements of national honour still remained, ready to be called into action, among the body of the people.  He, therefore, sent Savary, in whose practised cunning and duplicity he hoped to find a remedy for the military rashness of Murat, to assume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid; and the rumour was actively spread, that the Emperor was about to appear there in person without delay.

Madrid occupied and begirt by forty thousand armed strangers, his title unrecognised by Murat, his weak understanding and tumultuous passions worked upon incessantly by the malicious craft of Savary, Ferdinand was at length persuaded, that his best chance of securing the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in advancing to meet him on his way to the capital, and striving to gain his ear before the emissaries of Godoy should be able to fill it with their reclamations.  Savary eagerly offered to accompany him on this fatal journey, which began on the 10th of April.  The infatuated Ferdinand had been taught to believe that he should find Buonaparte at Burgos; not meeting him there, he was tempted to pursue his journey as far as Vittoria:  and from thence, in spite of the populace, who, more sagacious than their prince, cut the traces of his carriage, he was, by a repetition of the same treacherous arguments, induced to proceed stage by stage, and at length to pass the frontier and present himself at Bayonne, where the arbiter of his fate lay anxiously expecting this consummation of his almost incredible folly.  He arrived there on the 20th of April—­was received by Napoleon with courtesy, entertained at dinner at the imperial table, and the same evening informed by Savary that his doom was sealed—­that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain, and that his personal safety must depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions into the hands of Buonaparte.

He, meanwhile, as soon as he was aware that Ferdinand had actually set out from Madrid, had ordered Murat to find the means of causing the old King, the Queen, and Godoy to repair also to Bayonne; nor does it appear that his lieutenant had any difficulty in persuading these personages that such was the course of conduct most in accordance with their interests.  They reached Bayonne on the 4th of May, and Napoleon, confronting the parents and the son on the 5th, witnessed a scene in which the profligate rancour of their domestic feuds reached extremities hardly to have been contemplated by the wildest imagination.  The flagitious Queen did not, it is said and believed, hesitate to signify