FERDINAND VII. 



169 



him to the Poles, in June, 1812, as their future king. 

 The peace of Paris (May 30, 1814) restored him the 

 grand duchy of Tuscany, according to the terms of 

 an agreement between the commissioners of Joachim 

 Murat and the grand duke, concluded April 20; and 

 the congress or Vienna added to Tuscany the Stalo 

 dei Presidj, the part of Elba which had hitherto been 

 in the possession of the king of Naples, the princi- 

 pality of Piombino, and some other districts. On the 

 second occupation of Paris, the masterpieces of art 

 which had been carried off from the Florentine gallery 

 were restored. The grand duke was once more 

 obliged to leave his capital, in 1815, when Joachim 

 Murat, with the design of effecting the independence 

 of Italy, took the field against Austria. Ferdinand 

 retired to Pisa and Leghorn, but returned to Florence 

 April 20, 1815, after the defeat of the Neapolitans 

 by the Austrian general count Nugent, at Pistoia 

 (April 10). By the treaty of Paris, of 1817, it was 

 provided, that, on the death of Maria Louisa, arch- 

 duchess of Parma, Lucca should also be added to 

 Tuscany, on condition that the archduke should cede 

 to the duke of Reichstadt his Bohemian states. Fer- 

 dinand lost his first wife, a Neapolitan princess, in 

 1802, and married, in 1821, Mary of Saxony, the eld- 

 est sister of his daughter-in-law. He died June 17, 

 1824. He was succeeded by his only son, Leopold 

 II., born Oct. 3, 1797, married to Maria Anna, 

 daughter of prince Maximilian of Saxony. 



FERDINAND VII. It is very difficult to attain 

 an accurate idea of the character of individuals in 

 high stations. Few men have been portrayed of- 

 tener than the late king of Spain, and fewer have 

 been so imperfectly understood. Ferdinand VII., 

 king of Spain (and of the Indies, as he styled him- 

 self), was the son of Charles IV. and of Maria Louisa 

 de Bourbon, daughter of the Infant of Spain, don 

 Philip, grand duke of Parma and Placentia, son of 

 Philip V. of Spain ; consequently Maria Louisa was 

 cousin and wife of Charles IV., and mother and se- 

 cond cousin of Ferdinand, who was born Oct. 14, 

 1784. The heir to the crown of Spain has the title 

 of prince of Asturias, in which capacity he was re- 

 cognised in December 1789, by the cortes of the 

 kingdom. Ferdinand VII. was born with a very 

 weak and sickly constitution, and suffered a variety 

 of maladies during his infancy. The preceptors of 

 his youth were all men of great merit. The cele- 

 brated canon Escoiquiz was his teacher in ethics, 

 moral philosophy, and history. The celebrated father 

 Miguel Scio, the author of an excellent translation of 

 the Bible, elected bishop of Segovia, and a man of 

 much learning, superintended his religious and bibli- 

 cal studies. He received lessons in military tactics 

 from colonel Maturana, an officer of artillery, and a 

 highly meritorious character. Scarcely had Ferdi- 

 nand passed through the dangers of infancy, when he 

 began to experience the hatred of his mother. This 

 hatred was inspired by the prince of peace (Godoy), 

 who saw an unsurmountable obstacle to his ambition 

 in the heir-apparent of the crown. Ferdinand was 

 constantly persecuted, and his youth may be said to 

 have been passed in the midst of tribulations. He 

 was, for several years, deprived of all communication 

 and correspondence, except with the few imbecile 

 courtiers who were appointed to watch his person. 

 Oct. 6, 1801, he was married to Maria Antonia 

 Theresa of Bourbon, a princess of Naples, his cousin. 

 This princess was highly accomplished. Possessing 

 an elevated mind, and great independence of charac- 

 ter, she soon opened the eyes of her husband to the 

 scandalous proceedings of the court. Ferdinand, 

 under the influence of the dukes of San Carlos and 

 Infantado, became jealous of his wife, and even of- 

 fered her some gross insults. After a most difficult 



labour and long sickness, during which she was bar- 

 barously separated from her husband, she fell a victim 

 to a violent medicine, May 21, 1806. An apothe- 

 cary of the court shot himself some months after, 

 leaving a written paper, in which he confessed the 

 part he had taken in the death of the princess. 

 Ferdinand was married a second time, Sept. 29, 1816, 

 to Maria Isabel, of Braganza, princess of Portugal, 

 who died in December, 1818, in a fit. An operation 

 was performed to extract the foetus from the womb 

 of the unfortunate queen. He married a third time, 

 on the 2d of October, 1819, Maria Joseph Amelia, a 

 princess of Saxony, who died in 1829. His fourth 

 wife, Maria Christina (born 1806), the present queen- 

 regent, is the daughter of the king of Naples, Fran- 

 cis I. 



A short time after the conspiracy against the life 

 of Charles IV. took place, Ferdinand was arrested, 

 and a process was instituted to discover the authors 

 of the plot ; but, after a great deal of scandal, the 

 natural goodness of Charles induced him to pardon 

 Ferdinand. Several persons of rank were exiled ; 

 among them, the dukes of San Carlos and Infantado. 

 Napoleon was consulted by Ferdinand in the year 

 1807. Count Beauharnais, the ambassador of Napo- 

 leon, promised Ferdinand the support of his master. 

 The project being discovered, it was frustrated. The 

 people, who hated Godoy, thinking that all the harsh 

 treatment which Ferdinand experienced was the effect 

 of the machinations of the prince of peace, and the 

 queen, began to talk publicly of the misfortunes of 

 Ferdinand ; and neither the decrees of Charles IV., 

 of the 30th of October, 1807, in which he announced 

 to the nation the conduct of his son, nor the step 

 taken by his majesty, of making Napoleon the arbi- 

 trator between his son and himself, could induce the 

 nation to believe that his son was in the wrong. 

 From this time, the prince of Asturias was the peo- 

 ple's idol ; and, on the 19th of March, 1808, Charles 

 was forced to abdicate the crown in favour of his son. 

 Immediately after the abdication, the ex-king, with 

 his queen, departed for France. Soon after, Ferdi- 

 nand VII. received an invitation to go to Burgos to 

 meet Napoleon. The new king departed from Madrid 

 in the beginning of April. When he arrived at Bur- 

 gos, it was intimated to him that he should go as far 

 as Vittoria, and thence to Bayonne, in France. At 

 Bayonne, he abdicated, not, as is commonly believed, 

 in consequence of force being used, but after mature 

 reflection, and having previously taken the advice of 

 several of the grandees and other persons of rank 

 there ; after which the crown was conferred by Na- 

 poleon on his brother Joseph, then king of Naples. 

 The grandees, tribunals, and the deputies of the old 

 cortes of the kingdom, swore obedience to the new 

 king. Charles IV. and his wife went from Bayonne 

 to Bourdeaux, thence to Marseilles, and afterwards to 

 Rome. Ferdinand was sent to Valengay, where he 

 remained till after the disastrous campaign of 1813, 

 when, in consequence of a treaty with Napoleon, in 

 the month of December, he returned to Spain. 



Thus released from a captivity of six years, the 

 young monarch, in company with his uncle, the In- 

 fant don Antonio, and his brother, don Carlos, a 

 confessor, and several of his attendants, reached 

 the Catalonian frontier, March 24, 1814. Marslial 

 Suchet was charged with the safe conduct of the king 

 to the frontiers ; and, on the latter's arrival at the 

 limits of the Spanish territory, the decree of the cortes 

 and of the regency was immediately communicated 

 to him. During his journey, nothing could exceed 

 the kind and paternal tone of Ferdinand. He gave 

 the most unequivocal assurances that, as the common 

 father of his people, he had determined to collect the 

 members of every party under the iwal mantle, and 



