Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were received everywhere with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He would have halted at Salamanca to organise his army, which consisted mostly of young conscripts, but Napoleon's policy outmarched his General's schemes, and the troops were, in consequence of a peremptory order from Paris, poured into Portugal in the latter part of November. Godoy's contingent of Spaniards appeared there also, and placed themselves under Junot's command. Their numbers overawed the population, and they advanced, unopposed, towards the capital--Junot's most eager desire being to secure the persons of the Prince Regent and the royal family. The feeble government, meantime, having made, one by one, every degrading submission which France dictated, having expelled the British factory and the British minister, confiscated all English property, and shut the ports against all English vessels, became convinced at length that no measures of subserviency could avert the doom which Napoleon had fulminated. A _Moniteur_, proclaiming that "the House of Braganza had ceased to reign," reached Lisbon. The Prince Regent re-opened his communication with the English admiral off the Tagus (Sir Sydney Smith) and the lately expelled ambassador (Lord Strangford), and being assured of their protection, embarked on the 27th of November, and sailed for the Brazils on the 29th, only a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon. The disgust with which the Portuguese people regarded his flight, the cowardly termination, as they might not unnaturally regard it, of a long course of meanness, was eminently useful to the invader. With the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the insolent conqueror took down the Portuguese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquillity; and these were skilfully employed by the General in perfecting the discipline of his conscripts, improving the fortifications of the coast, and making such a disposal of his force as might best guard the country from any military demonstration on the part of England.
Art Review
The History of Napoleon Buonaparte — Part 210
2026-11-16 01:55:47 · Cedar Herald Index
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