on aims, and common destiny of the people.
Spain, like Italy, had a clearly marked national domain, and, in spite
of some striking differences, a fairly homogeneous population. It was
fitting and not entirely unnatural that the land of the Inquisition,
the land of ignorance, the land of intolerance, the land, in short,
which had sunk the lowest under absolutism, should begin the
counterrevolution which, checking the excesses of Napoleon and the
French Revolution in their disregard for nationality, ushered into the
world's forum the nation and national sentiment as the strongest force
of the nineteenth century.

This was exactly what happened in Spain. Napoleon's strategy had
laughed at the military formation of Frederick the Great's system; the
guerrillas of Spain laughed at the formations of regular warfare in
any shape. They rose to fight, and dispersed for safety, leaving their
smarting foe unable to strike for lack of a billet. The occasional
successes of the Spanish regulars showed, moreover, that the generals
were not entirely ignorant of Napoleon's own system. When Joseph
entered Madrid the whole land was already in open rebellion, except
where French force compelled a sullen acquiescence in French rule. The
long inactive, sluggish ecclesiastics suddenly seemed to feel the
vigor to resist and the power to lead. They joined the insurgents, and
invoked the orthodoxy of the nation so as to inflame the passions of
the masses against the persecutor of the Pope. Irregular and undefined
as were the elements of the uprising, it was nevertheless essentially
a popular movement; as Napoleon himself later admitted, it was the
people themselves who refused to ratify his new institutions, and who
declared for Ferdinand VII. The sequel furnished ample illustration of
this fact: the mountaineers of Asturias rose in united rebellion; the
inhabitants of Cartagena threw open their arsenals to the volunteers
of the neighborhood; the citizens of Saragossa beat off their
besiegers, while those of Valencia first massacred the French who took
refuge in their citadel, and then repulsed Moncey in a desperate
conflict. When the Spanish leaders ventured into an open battle-field
they were defeated; on the other hand, when they kept the hills and
fought like bandits they were victorious.

So quick and general was the Spanish rising that the various French
army divisions shut themselves up for safety in whatever towns they
could hold: prete