was assaulted at Aranjuez, on the 19th; with great difficulty saved his
life by the intervention of the royal guards; and was placed under
arrest. Terrified by what he saw at Aranjuez, and heard from Madrid,
Charles IV. abdicated the throne; and on the 20th, Ferdinand, his son,
was proclaimed King of Madrid, amidst a tumult of popular applause.
Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, had before this assumed the chief command of
all the French troops in Spain; and hearing of the extremities to which
the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded
that capital with 30,000 men, and took possession of it in person, at
the head of 10,000 more, on the 23rd of March. Charles IV. meantime
despatched messengers both to Napoleon and Murat, asserting that his
abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their assistance against
his son. Ferdinand, entering Madrid on the 24th, found the French
general in possession of the capital, and in vain claimed his
recognition as king. Murat accepted the sword of Francis I., which,
amidst other adulations, Ferdinand offered to him; but pertinaciously
declined taking any part in the decision of the great question, which
demanded, as he said, the fiat of Napoleon.

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