vils which would ultimately result, even as
he had cautioned Napoleon against the same thing. He told the chamber
that although the proposed invasion would be probably successful, it
would be a great mistake.

M. Mole, afterward so eminent as an orator, took the side of Talleyrand.
"Where are we going?" said he. "We are going to Madrid. Alas, we have
been there already! Will a revolution cease when the independence of
the people who are suffering from it is threatened? Have we not the
example of the French Revolution, which was invincible when its cause
became identical with that of our independence?" "This man," exclaimed
the king, "confirms me in the system of M. de Villele,--to temporize,
and avoid the war if it be possible."

Chateaubriand replied in an elaborate speech in favor of the war. From
his standpoint, his speech was masterly and unanswerable. It was a grand
consecutive argument, solid logic without sentimentalism. While he
admitted that, according to the principles laid down by the great
writers on international war, intervention could not generally be
defended, he yet maintained that there were exceptions to the rule, and
this was one of them; that the national safety was jeopardized by the
Spanish revolution; that England herself had intervened in the French
Revolution; that all the interests of France were compromised by the
successes of the Spanish revolutionists; that a moral contagion was
spreading even among the troops themselves; in fact, that there was no
security for the throne, or for the cause of religion and of public
order, unless the armies of France should restore Ferdinand, then a
virtual prisoner in his own palace, to the government he had inherited.

The war was decided upon, and the Duke of Angouleme, nephew of the king,
was sent across the Pyrenees with one hundred thousand troops to put
down the innumerable factions, and reseat Ferdinand. The Duke was
assisted, of course, by all the royalists of Spain, by all the clergy,
and by all conservative parties; and the conquest of the kingdom was
comparatively easy. The republican chiefs were taken and hanged,
including Diego, the ablest of them all. Ferdinand, delivered by foreign
armies, remounted his throne, forgot all his pledges, and reigned on the
most despotic principles, committing the most atrocious cruelties. The
successful general returned to France with great _eclat_, while the
government was pushed every day by the triumphant R