Mutiny of Aranjuez
The Aranjuez Mutiny occurred between March 18 and 19, 1808 through the streets of this town in Madrid. The riot was unleashed in protest against the policies of Manuel Godoy, "favorite" of Carlos IV. The result was that Godoy was arrested and that King Carlos IV abdicated the Crown of Spain on March 19 in favor of his son, the Prince of Asturias Fernando, who would reign under the name of Fernando VII. As Rafael Sánchez Mantero has highlighted, "for the first time in the history of Spain, a king saw how his own son snatched the crown from him as a result of a popular riot." Contemporaries mythologised March 19 as the starting point of the "Spanish Revolution".
According to Emilio La Parra López, «the riot was not very spontaneous. It was meticulously prepared, although perhaps with some haste, due to Godoy's unexpected reaction in activating the retreat of the kings [towards the south]. Prince Ferdinand, effectively helped by the infant Don Antonio, hindered as much as he could and successfully the trip of the kings. The aristocrats distributed money, recruited people, controlled the army and launched pertinent rumors to stir up the spirits of the population. The French ambassador contributed effectively to such rumors and, above all, always kept alive the promise of imperial support for Godoy's opponents. The town remained in the background, playing the leading role only when it interested the previous ones. [...] He had it, and considerable, at a certain moment (assault on Godoy's house, pressure before the royal palace to force the resignation of Carlos IV), but not on his own initiative, but rather obeying a more or less declared direction. Fernandina's propaganda, however, placed special emphasis on the leadership of the people to justify their cause...". Juan Francisco Fuentes agrees with La Parra López: "At the origin of the riot, which had a popular and spontaneous appearance, there were members of the high nobility linked to the Fernandino party, such as the Count of Montijo, whom numerous sources point to as one of the instigators of the riot". Ángel Bahamonde and Jesús A. Martínez maintain the same thesis: as in the El Escorial plot, " Behind Aranjuez, Fernando's clique and army officers were once again located. The novelty resides in a new actor on the scene: the people, whose discontent is channeled and instrumentalized against Godoy". Enrique Giménez López agrees. To refer to the riot, he uses the term popular, in italics, emphasizing that it was "organized by Fernando's supporters." «An indeterminate number of rioters conveniently paid by the organizers were transferred from Madrid to the Site, among whom the Count of Teba [who also held the title of Count of Montijo] stood out again, who used the alias of for this occasion. Uncle Peter".
Background
Despite not having put an end to the government of the "favourite" Manuel Godoy through the "El Escorial plot" discovered on October 27, 1807, the Prince of Asturias Fernando and his supporters had come out strong enough to try again. new. This aristocratic or Fernandino party ―a faction or “camarilla” that in no way resembled a modern political party and that was made up of members of the high nobility and court clergymen opposed to the politics of Godoy, who was considered an upstart, had managed to have the plot considered Godoy's invention and the Prince of Asturias to become "the idol of the nation", as Napoleon's special envoy wrote in a report.
In addition, as Emilio La Parra López has pointed out, circumstances favored the Fernandino party. «By now the discontent of the population had reached very high levels. The three years of war against England and the pecuniary demands of Napoleon had exhausted the royal treasury and wreaked havoc on maritime trade... Beggars abounded in the streets of prosperous cities years before, such as Barcelona, Valencia or Alicante. The pay of the military and the king's employees arrived late or sometimes not even late, the peasantry had not recovered from the bad harvests of 1804 and 1805 and the holders of public debt titles (royal vouchers) verified their loss of value daily. To add insult to injury, the arrival of ships from America with highly prized colonial products and the essential precious metals was unpredictable. Godoy was blamed for everything."
To this was added the equivocal attitude of the French troops who had entered Spain under the Treaty of Fontainebleau to conquer the kingdom of Portugal, but who on February 16, 1808 had occupied the fortress of Pamplona and on February 5, March that of Barcelona. Napoleon's intentions were quite evident when Eugenio Izquierdo, Godoy's unofficial ambassador in Paris, brought to Madrid in early March an informal document called "Species and proponable issues >". In it Napoleon disassociated himself from the Treaty of Fontainebleau and abrogated the right to move and position his armies "without any limitation of provinces and places", demanding that "any strongholds on which their armies needed to be supported should be opened to them". He justified it by the crisis of the Spanish monarchy that he attributed to "the discord of the royal family." And he went even further when he proposed as a "guarantee" the cession of the Spanish "provinces" north of the Ebro River, which would be incorporated into France, Carlos IV receiving the kingdom of Portugal as compensation. Once this was done, Napoleon would give his consent for a princess of the House of Bonaparte to marry the Prince of Asturias Fernando, although "he would not definitively assent to such a marriage without being sure that the Prince of Asturias had deserved the indulgence of his father and sovereign, fully persevering in his obedience and respect; that being otherwise... I would show great satisfaction that S.M. separated him from his right to the Throne and thought of another of his sons for the projected marriage and to succeed him in the Crown". >» in which the annexation of the border «provinces» with France was rejected and the Treaty of Fontainebleau was maintained in force, but when Godoy's agent arrived in Paris the «riot of Aranjuez» had already been consummated ―the Prince of La Paz, Godoy, was in prison and Carlos IV had abdicated in favor of his son Fernando.
Faced with Napoleon's veiled threat, Godoy convinced Carlos IV, although he had serious doubts, that the royal family should move south and finally to America, as the regent of Portugal Don João who had left Lisbon had just done on November 29, 1807, the day before the entry of Marshal Junot's French troops, and had installed his court in Rio de Janeiro. At that time the Spanish court was in the Royal Site of Aranjuez. However, as soon as the Prince of Asturias Fernando and his supporters found out about the plan, they radically opposed it. As Emilio La Parra López has pointed out, "despite the evidence" "they persisted in the belief that Napoleon only intended to overthrow the "tyrant" [Godoy] and ensure the succession to the throne of Prince Ferdinand to consolidate the alliance with Spain." Meanwhile, Napoleon ordered his generals to occupy the strongholds in the north of the peninsula (Vitoria, Burgos, Valladolid) and for a contingent to go to Madrid, using as a pretext that they were on their way to Cádiz to seize the British colony of Gibraltar. The secretary of the Office of Grace and Justice José Antonio Caballero, from the fernandino party, believed it and on March 15 informed the governor of the Council of Castilla that "troops are going to enter Madrid French up to the number of 50,000 men, in the direction of Cádiz; but they will stop something in this villa. Give the appropriate orders so that they are treated accordingly to the alliance that H.M. has with the Emperor of the French".
The days before: from March 13 to 17
On Sunday, March 13, 1808, Godoy, who was in Madrid that day, ordered all the companies of the Corps Guards to move to Aranjuez to escort the transfer of the court to the south and as soon as he arrived at the Royal Site in the afternoon, he ordered the mayordomo of the palace to prepare the luggage of the royal family to leave on the 15th. The news leaked out and caused a deep commotion among the troops and the inhabitants of Aranjuez. Godoy tried to get Carlos IV to authorize the publication of a proclamation written by him in which the king explained the reasons for the trip ―"my obligation is to preserve my sovereign independence and retire further inland momentarily," it was said―, but the monarch refused after consult it with the full Government (all the secretaries of the Office, with Caballero at the helm, opposed it because they considered that it could be interpreted as a declaration of war on Napoleon).
On Monday, March 14, Carlos IV and his wife met with the Prince of Asturias Fernando and, in the presence of Godoy, the king offered him to accompany them on their trip to the south and also He ordered him to put an end to "that faction that is credited with your name and that without him could not do anything." The prince initially accepted - according to Godoy, "he left his father's room determined to leave" - but after consulting with his supporters he changed his mind and disagreed. That same day, the 14th, Godoy met the Council of State, which gave its approval of the royal trip, but the secretary of the Caballero Office refused to formalize it with his signature, which caused an altercation between him and Godoy in the corridors of the Royal Palace. "Forms have been lost in the presence of the king and the authority of the Prince of Peace is almost nil," said Emilio La Parra López. At that time "the Fernandinos had already organized the act of force against Godoy," he warned this same historian. On Sunday the 13th, the Count of Montijo had arrived incognito in Madrid who, following the orders of the Duke of Infantado (exiled in Écija by order of the king at the request of Godoy) and after meeting with various prominent figures such as the Duke of Osuna and the brothers Luis and José de Palafox, communicated to the Council of Castilla that a coup against Godoy was being prepared ―the next day, Monday the 14th, he would meet with nineteen other Grandees of Spain who promised him to prevent the departure of the kings of Aranjuez and to put an end to Godoy―.
On Tuesday, March 15 the secretary of the Caballero Office sent, without authorization, a circular to the neighboring towns of Aranjuez urging their inhabitants to prevent the trip of the king and queen. At night the bodyguards surrounded the Royal Palace to prevent Prince Ferdinand from leaving.
On Wednesday, March 16 a rumor spread through Aranjuez that the departure of the kings was imminent. Godoy's head to earth". The spirits only calmed down when a proclamation drafted by the Secretary of the Office José Antonio Caballero was disseminated in which King Carlos IV denied that he was going to abandon Aranjuez. The proclamation went in the opposite direction to what Godoy had proposed, "which came to ratify his loss of influence over the king" ―Godoy in his Memoirs considered the proclamation as "the first triumph" of supporters of Prince Ferdinand―. When the formal walk of the royal family took place in the afternoon, Carlos IV was cheered, although the Prince of Asturias was much more. Godoy tried that same afternoon to get the Council of Castilla to pronounce itself against in favor of the trip, but not only did he not succeed, but the Council agreed to propose to the king «before taking a decisive resolution on this point or another that changes the current political and military system, to consult many of the learned vassals who love V.M. and of the Homeland". When at dusk and during the early morning more troops arrived from Madrid, the spirits rose again and more and more people from neighboring towns were gathering ready "to defend the Prince of Asturias". According to the accounts of contemporaries, the servants of the Infante Antonio Pascual de Borbón, the Duke of Infantado and other grandees distributed a lot of money among the people, invited people to drink in taverns and recruited volunteers in neighboring towns to go to Aranjuez to defend the Prince of Asturias and remove Godoy.
On Thursday, March 17, the rumor intensified that the royal family was about to abandon the Royal Site. The streets were full of people and their attention was focused on the Royal Palace, Godoy's residence and the exit to Ocaña, the route that the kings were supposed to follow to head south. Archbishop Félix Amat had delivered a note to Carlos IV that morning in which he told him that he would commit a mortal sin if he undertook the journey and even "the sin will be more horrendous" if he forced Prince Ferdinand and his brothers to accompany him. According to Emilio La Parra, "it is evident that an ecclesiastical admonition of this caliber made a dent in the king, always scrupulous in matters of religious conscience." Throughout the day Godoy tried to convince him but was unsuccessful. In the afternoon Carlos IV went hunting and made his daily walk. At dusk, billboards appeared through the streets of Aranjuez reading: "Long live the King, long live the Prince of Asturias, die Godoy's dog".
The “riot”: the fall of Godoy and the abdication of Carlos IV
The riot began in the early morning of Friday, March 18. Shortly after midnight a light signal was made from the room of the Prince of Asturias ―or from another undetermined place― and shortly after a shot rang out. According to the "official" version that would be released later, the shot was a fortuitous event produced by the encounter between the carabineros of Godoy's personal guard and dozens of bodyguards. But the truth was that it served as a trigger for the soldiers to leave the barracks and for a crowd to surround the Royal Palace of Aranjuez to prevent anyone from leaving it. Next, a very large group headed by "El Manchego" or by "Uncle Pedro" (who was actually the Count of Montijo in disguise) went to Godoy's residence and looted it. They did not find Godoy because he managed to hide in an interior room with the help of a servant ―and later he would move to an attic―. Emilio La Parra has highlighted that Godoy's papers and some objects were taken to the Royal Palace, which, according to him, "indicates the existence of some control, despite the violence and the high number of assailants".
Godoy's brother Diego, who offered resistance, was arrested, while Godoy's wife and daughter, who were also in the house, were taken to the Royal Palace with great respect shouting "Long live the innocent", in reference to Godoy's lover Josefina Tudó, whom they also searched for but could not find because in anticipation of what might happen Godoy had already taken her out of Aranjuez. The looting of Godoy's residence lasted several hours without the army acting. The mutineers, failing to capture Godoy, then went to assault the house of Minister of Finance Soler, the only member of the Government who at that time obeyed Godoy's orders, whom they did not find either. The situation calmed down at seven o'clock and a half in the morning when the kings came out to the palace window, accompanied by the Prince of Asturias and the rest of the royal family, all of them being cheered by the crowd. A few hours later Carlos IV promulgated a decree that deprived "a Don Manuel Godoy, Prince of Peace, from the posts of generalissimo and admiral, granting him the retirement that best suits him", with which the initial objective of the mutineers -the dismissal of Godoy- had been achieved. But the revolt did not stop.
On Saturday March 19 morning, the commanders of the corps assigned to the protection of the royal family (Walloon Guard, Corps Guard and Halberdiers) met at the Royal Palace with Charles IV. who assured the king that "the night of that day would be worse than last", when the looting of the Godoy mansion took place, and that "only the Prince of Asturias could fix everything". Carlos IV ordered them to speak with the Prince who reminded them of his obligation to defend the people of the kings. At that time, the news of Godoy's arrest was released. Indeed, between nine and ten in the morning he had come out of hiding driven by thirst and had been arrested by one of the soldiers guarding his house. The crowd, between insults, tried to assassinate him - the wounds and injuries he suffered would last for weeks - and his life was saved because the bodyguards managed to take him to their barracks where he was taken prisoner. Prince Ferdinand appeared there on foot at mid-morning and calmed down the mutineers gathered in front of the barracks by assuring them that he would receive the deserved punishment ― «Gentlemen, I vouch for this man; a case will be filed against him and he will be punished according to the seriousness of his crimes», he told them. Early in the afternoon the prince, "authorized by my august father", decreed that he be taken prisoner to the Alhambra in Granada, but when it became known that Godoy was going to be transferred, the crowd destroyed the car that was waiting at the door of the barracks. to supposedly take the detainee and killed a mule. Again the prince had to go, this time on horseback, but the spirits only calmed down completely when a Corps guard gave the news that Carlos IV had renounced the Crown. Then everyone went to the palace. Prince Ferdinand appeared alone on the balcony, without the rest of the royal family, being applauded and cheered as the new king, Ferdinand VII. "As Carlos IV maintained his trust in his friend and favorite [Godoy] until the last moment, [the conspirators] extended their attack on the king, not expressly, but by deeds, doing everything possible to provoke his resignation from the throne. In Aranjuez this point was made clear: tranquility did not come with the arrest of Godoy, on the morning of the 19th, but a few hours later, when the news of the change in the throne was produced", stressed Emilio La Parra López.
The anger of the mutineers had also been directed against Carlos IV and his wife, believing that they had hidden Godoy and that was why no one could find him. "At this point, only the Prince of Asturias could restore calm, as it was. The next step could not be other than the abdication of Carlos IV", Emilio La Parra López stated. He later presented his resignation to the throne before the full Government. The decree he presented to them said that he abdicated "freely and spontaneously", which, as Emilio La Parra has warned, was not true ―"for the first time in history of Spain a king had forced abdicated»―. The same affirms Enrique Giménez López: «It was an unusual fact that a monarch was forced to abdicate by an important part of the aristocracy and by the crown prince».
Since the ashes I adole do not allow me to bear for longer the serious weight of the Government of my kingdoms, and it is necessary for me to repair my health to enjoy in a more temperate climate of the tranquility of private life, I have determined, after the most serious deliberation to abdicate my crown in my heir and very expensive son the Prince of Asturias. Therefore, it is my real will to be recognized and obeyed as king and natural lord of all my kingdoms and dominions. And in order for this my royal decree of free and spontaneous abdication to have its exact and due fulfillment, you will notify the Council and others to whom it belongs.
Then Carlos IV ordered his secretaries of the Office and the military commanders of the Palace to go and kiss the hand of the new monarch. When the news broke in Aranjuez, the crowd gathered in the Plaza del Palacio Real and began to cheer Fernando VII, who was not yet twenty-three years old. The French ambassador François de Beauharnais wrote: "The Prince of Asturias, astonished by his state, confused by his situation, flattered and affected by the love that the people show him, floats in uncertainty."
Emilio La Parra has commented: «Fernando counted on the fervor of his subjects. This was his strong point, actually the only one. In the eyes of his father, Napoleon and the other European sovereigns, he was still a conspiring prince, who had come to the throne irregularly. Actually, through a coup, perpetrated by a group of individuals with power within the system: a member of the royal family (the infant Antonio Pascual de Borbón), almost all the ministers, dominated by Caballero, and prominent aristocrats. All of them had the collaboration of the Army and the French ambassador. Which corresponds to the dynamics of the triumphant coup d'état, the transfer of power was carried out suddenly, unexpectedly, without observing the formalities established in the Spanish monarchy.
As Ferdinand VII himself and his supporters feared, Carlos IV did not take long to make it clear that his abdication had not been free and spontaneous. Only two days after his resignation from the throne, he had given General Monthion, sent by Murat to Aranjuez, a note in which he stated that he had been forced to do so, "to avoid greater evils and the shedding of the blood of my beloved vassals». And on March 27, he had written a letter to Napoleon in which he asked for his protection ―"I have made the decision to refer myself in everything to whatever you want to dispose of us, of my fate, that of the Queen and that of the Prince of Peace"—and explained that he had abdicated "by force of circumstances and when the noise of weapons and the clamor of a mutinous guard made me quite aware that it was necessary to choose between life and death, which would have been followed by that of the Queen". The historian Emilio La Parra López comments: "With the language of the Old Regime, the former king came to describe what happened as a coup d'état". was in Bayonne, declared to the newspaper Le Moniteur universel: «I was forced to abdicate the crown to save my life and that of the queen, because without this act we would have been assassinated that night, and the conduct of the Prince of Asturias is even more reprehensible since he well knew my desire to give him the crown when he had married a princess of France, a wedding that I had ardently desired».
The involvement of the Prince of Asturias in the "riot of Aranjuez"
Did the Prince of Asturias have a direct participation in the mutiny? “It is denied by what we could describe as the official version of the facts and by those who maintain that everything was the result of a spontaneous movement of the population of the real site. In both cases, an attempt has been made to safeguard the prince from all responsibility, highlighting the protagonism of the population", affirmed the historian Emilio La Parra López. Manuel Godoy, for his part, held Prince Fernando responsible for everything in a narration of what event that sent Napoleon two years later:
[The prince of Asturias] was the same one who gave the order, the one who made the sign for the fuss at the time agreed with his seductives; he himself brought a light to the balconies of his room so that the guards of corps, disguised, shook the semblants, accompanied by the servants of the infant [don Antonio] with other manchegos that already had this to his salary prepared [...] I was picking up the one and the fourth when the shooting of a gun announced to me the ruin of my homeland. I called my people, sent three assistants to know the novelty, and all three were imprisoned by the uprisings around my house. My guard was arrested at the barracks for an order of the King according to the context, but it was no longer Charles IV, but Fernando was the one who was talking about the conspirators...
The King and Queen, Carlos IV and his wife, did not doubt Prince Ferdinand's involvement either. On March 26, Queen Maria Luisa of Parma wrote to Marshal Joachim Murat: «My son Fernando was at the head of the conspiracy; the troops were won by him; he had a light taken out of his window as a signal for the riot to begin… He has made this conspiracy to dethrone the King, his father ».
According to Emilio La Parra, although he acknowledges that "we do not have documentation that allows us to identify Prince Fernando as the author of the signal to start the riots", "it is difficult to admit that someone was committed to organizing a serious disturbance of order in Aranjuez, the royal family being there, without counting on the complicity of some very relevant person and this could not be other than the Prince of Asturias». According to this historian, what happened in Aranjuez was the application of the plans foreseen in the El Escorial conspiracy and which could not be put into practice because it was discovered. "In substance, this is our hypothesis," he stated. A similar position is held by Juan Francisco Fuentes, who considers the Aranjuez riot as the "definitive assault" to end the power of Godoy and ultimately Carlos IV after the failed El Escorial Trial. Ángel Bahamonde and Jesús A. Martínez agree: «The El Escorial trial and the Aranjuez riot [are] two episodes of the same plot. [...] The origin, objectives and main characters were the same, to which is now added popular discontent... And this time, the success is conclusive: in addition to the dismissal of the valid, on March 19 Carlos IV resigned from the Crown in favor of Prince Fernando". Enrique Giménez López affirms the same thing: "The crown prince's party had a new opportunity to force that second alternative [to end Godoy and force the abdication of his supporters, the kings], this time not wasted... It was an extension of the events of El Escorial, with the same protagonists and the same purpose, although better and more conscientiously prepared...".
Consequences: the first reign of Ferdinand VII
Ferdinand VII acceded to the throne without the mandatory consultation with the Council of Castile and without taking an oath before the Cortes, although the meeting would then have been impossible. His supporters spread the idea that his legitimacy as king came from the fact that he had been acclaimed by the people and that idea would be symbolically endorsed by the Cortes of Cádiz when they promulgated the Constitution that they had approved on March 19, 1812, the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the reign of Fernando VII, whose rights they defended against "the intruding king" José I Bonaparte. In fact, the news of the fall of Godoy and the accession to the throne of Fernando VII was received with great enthusiasm by the entire country. «Satirical writings proclaiming joy at the disappearance of the favorite and pieces that glorified King Ferdinand were disseminated. Compared Godoy with Nero, Amán and Luzbel, and branded as a miser, thief, tyrant, traitor and lecherous, Fernando VII was exalted as a liberator and messiah. Spain has already risen / with its new King Ferdinand».
On the same day, March 19, 1808, Ferdinand VII ratified the government appointed by his father, although a few days later he introduced three important changes: he replaced Miguel Cayetano Soler with Miguel José de Azanza as head of the Secretary of State and Office of Treasury; Antonio Olaguer Feliú for Gonzalo O'Farrill in Guerra; and José Antonio Caballero for Sebastián Piñuela Alonso in Gracia y Justicia. He also brought back from exile, for being involved in the El Escorial plot, the canon Juan Escóiquiz, the Duke of Infantado and the Duke of San Carlos and appointed them to important positions: the Duke of Infantado, the presidency of the Council of Castilla; the Duke of San Carlos, mayordomo of the palace; and Escoiquiz, Councilor of State. The three would form a kind of private cabinet that was the body where important decisions were made, above the Government. According to Emilio La Parra López, "the influence of the three members of the private cabinet is explained by their status as heads of the faction that had made possible the premature ascent of Ferdinand VII to the throne... They represented "fernandismo" against "godoyismo"».
Ferdinand VII entered Madrid on March 24, being acclaimed by the crowd. It took the royal entourage more than six hours to go from the Puerta de Alcalá to the Royal Palace.A witness, the young Ramón Mesonero Romanos, related years later what he experienced:
...he came, yes, mounted on a white corcel... men and women, children and the elders swooped at him, kissing his hands, his clothes, his saddles; others threw their hats into the air, or stripping their caps and blankets at the foot of the horse... Meanwhile, of the balconies, attic and roofs of the houses, no less crowded of people, rained flowers and doves, shook the scarves, or climbing many to the towers of the churches, flew with frenzy the bells or fired rockets and arks.
The measures taken by Ferdinand VII during the scarce month and a half that his "first reign" lasted (from March 19 to May 6, 1808, when he abdicated the Crown in Bayonne) were fundamentally aimed at undoing Godoy's policies, such as the annulment of the confiscation that bears his name or the lifting of the exiles of Jovellanos, Cabarrús, Mariano Luis de Urquijo and Meléndez Valdés as well as those involved in the El Escorial plot. He also ordered the confiscation of all Godoy's assets, those of his relatives and those of the charges closest to him ―some of whom were also imprisoned―. As for the person of Godoy, whose arrest was celebrated with satires and mockery throughout the Spanish geography ―his house in Madrid was also assaulted on the morning of March 19 to the cry of "Death to the Prince of Peace, that tyrant, thief, swindler...", as well as those of his relatives and friends―, he was initially confined in the tower of Pinto and later in the castle of Villaviciosa de Odón. From there he would be secretly released by French officers following the orders of Marshal Joachim Murat -and this one of Napoleon- on April 21 to be taken to Bayonne where he arrived on the 25th. What Napoleon wanted was for him to influence Carlos IV and his wife María Luisa de Parma, who arrived in Bayonne five days later, so that they ceded their rights to the Crown of Spain. According to Emilio La Parra López, the outcome of the mutiny in Aranjuez is what finally decided Napoleon to replace the Bourbons by a member of his family. «The annexation of a part of the kingdom was already meaningless, because the emperor could not trust Fernando after his reprehensible maneuvers to dethrone his father and the cruelty shown with Godoy. He could only dispense with the House of Bourbon and apply in Spain the system followed elsewhere, that is, place a member of Napoleon's family on the throne ».
On the other hand, Ferdinand VII was “aware that the maintenance of his crown depended on the recognition of the French emperor. Obtaining it was consequently his »his» obsession. As soon as Fernando VII acceded to the throne, he sent the Duke of Parque to meet Marshal Joachim Murat, lieutenant general of the French troops deployed in Spain and who was at the gates of Madrid - he would arrive on March 23 -. But Murat did not have the same gesture when Ferdinand VII made his triumphant entry into Madrid, nor did the French ambassador François de Beauharnais go to the Royal Palace. Nor did Napoleon send him any note. In fact, no French military or civil authority was treating him as "Your Majesty" but rather as "Your Royal Highness", the same formula they had used to address him when he was Prince of Asturias, which, according to Emilio La Parra, "It was very revealing about the attitude of France".
On April 3, Ferdinand VII informed Murat that he was going to meet Napoleon, who the day before he had announced would soon be in Spain. A week later Ferdinand VII left Madrid accompanied by a large entourage, having appointed a Governing Board chaired by his uncle, the Infante Antonio Pascual de Borbón, in charge of dispatching "serious and urgent business that may occur, first hearing my Secretaries of State and Office". Bayonne and on May 6, he abdicated his rights to the Spanish Crown in favor of Napoleon, who in turn would cede them a month later to his brother José Bonaparte, who would reign in Spain with the title of José Napoleón I and who would be known as "the intruder king".