urse of our work now brings us down to recent times. After the death
of Philip II., in 1598, Spain had little history worth considering. Ruled
by a succession of painfully weak kings, who were devoid of anything
approaching political wisdom, the fortunes of the realm ran steadily
downward. From being the strongest, it became in time one of the weakest
and least considered of European kingdoms; and from taking the lead in the
politics and wars of Europe, it came to be a plaything of the neighboring
nations,--a catspaw which they used for the advancement of their own ends.

It was in this way that Napoleon treated Spain. He played with it as a cat
plays with a mouse, and when the proper time came pounced upon it and
gathered it in. Charles IV., the Spanish king of Napoleon's time, was one
of the feeblest of his weak line,--an imbecile whom the emperor of France
counted no more than a feather in his path. He sought to deal with him as
he had done with the equally effeminate king of Portugal. When a French
army invaded Portugal in 1807, its weak monarch cut the knot of the
difficulty by taking ship and crossing the ocean to Brazil, abandoning his
old kingdom and setting up a new one in the New World. When Spain was in
its turn invaded, its king proposed to do the same thing,--to carry the
royal court of Spain to America, and leave a kingdom without a head to
Napoleon. Such an act would have exactly suited the purposes of the astute
conqueror, but the people rose in riot, and Charles IV. remained at home.

The real ruler of Spain at that time was a licentious and insolent
favorite of the king and queen, Emanuel Godoy by name, who began life as a
soldier, was made Duke of Alcudia by his royal patrons, and was appointed
prime minister in 1792. In 1795, having made peace with France after a
disastrous war, he received the title of "Prince of the Peace." His
administration was very corrupt, and he won the hatred of the nobles, the
people, and the heir to the throne. But his influence over the imbecile
king and the licentious queen was unbounded, and he could afford to laugh
in the face of his foes. But favorites are apt to have a short period of
power, and, though Godoy remained long in office, his downfall at length
came.

Napoleon had marched his armies through Spain to the conquest of Portugal,
no one in Spain having the courage to object. It was stipulated that a
second French army should not cross the Pyrenees, but in defia