350

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

“ misprision of. treason,” as the lawyers call it, and advisingthe Alcalde never to confess so much, save to his confessor,kindly dismissed him.

The day following this tragical event, the brother of KingCharles , Don Antonio, determined upon repairing toBayonne, to join, as he said, “ the young king his nephewand not all the supplications or arguments of the SpanishMinistry could retain him: so on the 4th of May, off healso went, leaving the Minister of Marine, Francisco Gil,to represent him, as President of the governing Junta.

Charles IV . no sooner heard of the affair of the 2d ofMay, than from Bayonne he issued a decree, namingMurat his Lieutenant General of the kingdom of Spain ,with the entire Royal authority, so that for a time Muratwas, in fact, King of Spain. But Napoleon having receivedthe full and entire cession of his kingdom from Charles IV. ,thought fit to appoint his brother Joseph to the vacantthrone.

Numerous “ Insurrectional Juntas,” were now formedin various parts of Spain ; so that in less than a month,there was hardly a country town that had not its “ Junta.”Murat’s army consisted of eighty thousand men, dividedinto four corps, stationed in Biscay, Navarre, Catalonia , andCastile. But the far greater portion of these troops wereconscripts, who had not yet seen military service. The lastorder given by Murat in Spain was to direct GeneralDupont to march from Toledo upon Cadiz . He then fellill at Madrid , and obtained leave of absence; whereuponhe repaired to take the waters of Barege, and GeneralSavary (Duke of Rovigo ), an Aid-de-Camp to the Emperor,was appointed to replace him at Madrid .

My readers will perhaps have already suspected fromthe tenor of the long letter of the Emperor to Murat,which I have above transcribed, that expectations were