DON MANUEL GODOY OF BADAJOZ,

"EL PRINCIPE DE LA PAZ”"

This remarkable man was born at Badajoz in the province of Estremadura, Spain, in 1767, of a noble family of the inferior nobility.

Amid the dazzling halo of glory surrounding the name of Napoleon, and the bewildering succession of great deeds he wrought, with all Europe as the stage, the world has almost overlooked a character and a career which, at any other period, would have attracted wide attention.

It is intended here to show, not merely the manner of man Don Manuel Godoy was, and the extraordinary means of his sudden elevation to, and continuance in, the supreme power in Spain, through the criminal favor of its queen-but, also, to direct attention to the strong influence exerted by the actions, or, rather, the intrigues of this singular character, upon the causes leading up to the overthrow of the French Empire, as well as upon the destinies of all Europe-though nothing was further from the scope of the intentions of that guilty pair than such great ends.

Born to little wealth, but with the advantages of a noble lineage, a handsome, erect frame, and, as appeared afterwards, a marvellously strong physical constitution, in the semi-tropical climate of Estremadura-he early evinced that strong predilection for intrigue and conquest among the opposite sex, which was afterwards to be carried by him to a pitch of attainment which has

distinguished him in that regard, beyond the rivalry of almost any character in history, unless it be, perhaps, the equally renowned Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, and Elector of Saxony, reputed to have been the father of several hundred children, legitimate and otherwise among them, the celebrated Marshal Maurice de Saxe, of the French Army.

His education was of the narrow, limited character customary among the poorer nobility and gentry of the country at that period, and, in fact, his training was provincial in every sense of the word, as, at that time, the various divisions of the kingdom still continued to regard their own internal concerns as something quite apart from the rest of the monarchy, and gave little attention to anything outside their own limits.

Many of the provinces, having been independent kingdoms, like those of Aragon, Valencia, and others, before their incorporation into the greater kingdom of Spain, had reserved important rights and privileges which were jealously guarded. Amongst these reserved rights was the power of imposing heavy import duties upon all commerce from the other provinces, which had the mischievous effect of isolating, in a great degree, each province from the others by restricting all intercourse to the narrowest possible limits.

Another most oppressive burden was the Alcavala, a royal tax, levied throughout Spain, on all transfers of property, of 10 to 14 per cent. on the selling price of all commodities, including all agricultural products, whether in the raw or the manufactured state, which was chargeable as often as they were sold or exchanged, thus subjecting every farmer, manufacturer and merchant to constant visitations from the tax gatherers.

Aragon and Catalonia only were exempt from the Alcavala, having purchased their exemption from Philip V. at a heavy cost, and so were in a more flourishing condition than the other parts of the kingdom.

And one of the first pacific acts of Napoleon, after his iron grasp had been laid upon Spain, was the formal decree of December 4, 1808, abolishing the Alcavala, and all the barriers between province and province, which had so long impeded the internal commerce of the kingdom.

The Spanish people themselves recognized the wisdom of this act by incorporating it in their first popular constitution in 1812, where it has since remained unchanged.

But in Godoy's time the old isolated conditions prevailed in Estremadura as everywhere else, and he grew to manhood in a horizon little wider than its limits; Madrid, with the court and its splendors, seemed at a vast distance, in those days of travel by coach and horseback, from the small provincial capital of Estremadura and its obscure gentry.

Full of the fire and energy of youth, he spent much of his time, mounted upon the swiftest Andalusian horses, coursing after the foxes and hares that abounded then as now, on the wide, rolling plains stretching away to the north and south from the yellow sands of the Guadiana river, with never a thought of that Queen of Spain (save as he might have looked upon some bright star, in its infinite distance above himself) who seemed so far, and was yet so near, to him-to Manuel Godoy, the unknown young caballero, who had never stirred beyond the confines of his native province!, In such

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sports he, at least, became a fine horseman, and, so, fitted to enter the royal guards when the time came.

He possessed a fine voice and touched the lute with much skill. The handsomest man in Badajoz, he beguiled the fair sex, not less by his personal appearance and appealing glances, than by his serenades and burning songs of love, beneath their latticed windows. Many a tradition of his prowess in that line survives to this day, in that staid old walled city, with its narrow, crooked streets, and fortress-like convents, churches and monasteries of gray stone. It is related that these conquests became so numerous as to lead to jealous rivalries among his female adorers, causing tears and bitter enmities, that also meant serious personal danger to himself.

At last, in 1788, at the age of 21 years, his family secured his admission into the royal bodyguard at Madrid, and thus, while removing him to a distance from his social entanglements at Badajoz, launched him upon a career of advancement, power and riches, not surpassed, in sudden caprice of royal favor, by any transition from barber to grand vizier, at the nod of any sultan or caliph in Eastern tales.

Charles IV., of the Spanish Bourbons, then occupied the throne of Spain. His queen, Louisa Maria, of the Tuscan-Neapolitan branch of the Bourbons, was a woman of spirit and capacity, but was an open, shameless profligate, who exercised absolute domination and influence over the mind of the jaded, indolent old king, whose greatest desire was to be spared all the labors and responsibilities of his position, while left free to enjoy such pleasures as he chose.

"Every day," said Charles IV. to Napoleon, "winter as well as summer, I go out to shoot from the morning.