INTRIGUES AT OPORTO: THE CONSPIRACY OF ARGENTON

It will have occurred to every student of the operations of the army of Portugal during the month of April, that it was strange that Marshal Soult should have remained quiescent at Oporto, while the fate of his entire campaign was at stake during the fighting on the Tamega. His head quarters were only thirty miles from Amarante—but one day’s ride for himself and his staff—yet he never paid a single flying visit to the scene of operations, even after he had come to the conclusion that Loison was mismanaging the whole business. He sent his lieutenant many letters of reproach, forwarded to him guns of position, and ample reinforcements, but never came himself to the spot to urge on the advance, even when ten and twelve days had elapsed since the first unsuccessful attempts to force the passage of the Tamega.

The explanation of this persistent refusal of the Marshal to quit Oporto is to be found in the political not the military state of affairs. At Chaves he had proclaimed himself Viceroy of Portugal: his viceroyalty at that moment embraced only just so much soil as was covered by the encampments of his battalions. But after the capture of Oporto and the occupation of the neighbouring towns of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho, his position assumed an air of reality, and he himself allowed the duties of the viceroy to trespass on those of the commander of the Second Corps d’Armée. Nay more, there is good reason to believe that he was not merely dreaming of setting up a stable government in northern Portugal, but of something else. The evidence as to his intentions is hard to weigh, for most of it comes from the letters and diaries of men who disliked him, but there are certain facts which cannot be disguised, and the inference from them is irresistible.

[p. 274]

With the example of Murat’s exaltation before them, the more ambitious and capable of Napoleon’s marshals could not refrain from dreaming of crowns and sceptres. Nothing seemed impossible in those astounding days, when the Emperor was creating sovereigns and realms by a stroke of the pen, whenever the notion seized him. The line between an appanaged duke and a vassal prince was a very thin one—as the case of Berthier shows. Junot had dreamed of royalty at Lisbon in 1808, and there seems little doubt that the same mirage of a crown floated before Soult’s eyes at Oporto in 1809. The city itself suggested the idea: in the Treaty of Fontainebleau Napoleon had put on paper the project for creating a ‘king of Northern Lusitania,’ with Oporto as his capital and the Entre-Douro-e-Minho as his realm. Soult was cautious and wary, but he was also greedy and ambitious. If, on the one hand, he had a wholesome fear of his master, he had on the other good reasons for believing that it might be possible to force his hand by presenting him with a fait accompli.

There was in the city the nucleus of a party which was not wholly indisposed to submit to the French domination. It was mainly composed of those enemies of the Bishop of Oporto who had been suffering from his anarchical rule of the last two months. They were the friends and relatives of those who had perished by the dagger or the rope, during the mob-law which had prevailed ever since Dom Antonio returned from Lisbon. To these may be added some men of purely material interests, who saw that the insurrection was ruining them, and a remnant of the old corrupt bureaucracy which had submitted once before to Junot—whose only thought was to keep or gain profitable posts under the government of the day, whatever that government might be. The whole body of dissidents from the cause of patriotism and independence was so small and weak, that it is impossible to believe that they would have taken any overt action if they had not received encouragement from Soult.

This much is certain—that when the disorders which accompanied the capture of Oporto were ended, Soult showed himself most anxious to conciliate the Portuguese, not only by introducing a regular and orderly government, but by going out of his way to soothe and flatter any notable who lingered in the city. In[p. 275] his anxiety to win over the clergy he caused new silver vessels and candelabra to be made to replace those which had been stolen from the churches in the sack[320]. He filled up all civil appointments, whose holders had fled, from the small number of persons who were ready to adhere to the French. He again, as already at Chaves, endeavoured to enlist a native military force, by putting tempting offers before those officers of the regular army who had been made prisoners. All this might have had no other cause than the wish to build up a party of Afrancesados, such as already existed in Spain, and Soult openly declared that such was his object[321]. This was the only purpose that he avowed in his dispatches to the Emperor, and in his communications with his colleagues.

But if the Marshal had no ulterior object in view, it is singular that all his native partisans concurred in setting on foot a movement for getting him saluted as king of northern Portugal. The new municipal authorities, whom he had established in the half-deserted towns occupied by his troops, sent in petitions begging him to assume the position of sovereign. Documents of this kind came in from Braga, Barcelos, Guimaraens, Feira, Oliveira and Villa de Conde. In Oporto proclamations were posted on the walls declaring that ‘the Prince Regent by his departure to Brazil had formally resigned his crown, and that the only salvation for Portugal would be that the Duke of Dalmatia, the most distinguished of the pupils of the great Napoleon, should ascend the vacant throne[322].’ A priest named Veloso and other persons went about in the street delivering harangues in favour of the creation of the ‘kingdom of Northern Lusitania.’ A register was opened in the municipal buildings[p. 276] to be signed by all persons who wished to join in the petition to the Marshal to assume the regal title, and a certain number of signatures were collected. A newspaper, called the Diario do Porto, was started, to support the movement, and ran for about a month. It is said that Soult’s partisans even succeeded in gathering small crowds together, before the mansion where his head quarters were established, to shout Viva o Rei Nicolao! and that the acclamations were acknowledged by showers of copper coins thrown from the windows[323]. The latter part of this story is no doubt an invention of Soult’s enemies, but it was believed at the time by the majority of the French officers, and ‘Le Roi Nicolas’ was for the future his nickname in the army of Portugal[324]. On April 19 the Marshal ordered his chief of the staff, General Ricard, to issue a circular letter to the generals of divisions and brigades[325], inviting their co-operation in the movement, and assuring them that no disloyalty to the Emperor would be involved even if the Marshal assumed regal powers[326]. This document is the most convincing piece of evidence that exists as to Soult’s intentions. In it there is no attempt made to conceal the movement that had been set on foot: the writer’s only preoccupation is to show that it was not directed against Napoleon. When, five months later, Ricard’s circular came under the Emperor’s eye, it roused his wrath to such a pitch that he wrote in the most stinging and sarcastic terms to Soult. ‘He is astounded,’ he says, ‘to find the chief of the staff suggesting to the generals that the Marshal should be requested to take up the reins of government, and assume the attributes of supreme authority. If he had assumed[p. 277] sovereign power on his own responsibility, it would have been a crime, clear lèse-majesté, an attack on the imperial authority. How could a man of sense, like Soult, suppose that his master would permit him to exercise any power that had not been delegated to him? No wonder that the army grew discontented, and that rumours got about that the Marshal was working for himself, not for the Emperor or France. After receiving this circular, it is doubtful whether any French officer would not have been fully justified in refusing to obey any further orders issued from Oporto[327].’

This was written from Vienna, before the Emperor had received any full and exact account of the details of Soult’s intrigues. Had he but known them all, it is doubtful if he would have granted his lieutenant the complete pardon and restoration to favour with which his dispatch concludes[328].

There can be no doubt that the Duke of Dalmatia might have put a stop to all the activity of his Portuguese friends by merely raising his hand. It would have sufficed for him to assure the deputations which visited him that his duty as the lieutenant of the Emperor forbade him to listen to their proposals. He[p. 278] could have caused the proclamations to be torn down, and have silenced the street orators. ‘They could not have made him king against his own will,’ as one of his officers remarked[329]. But no action of the kind was taken; and the movement was openly encouraged. The Marshal’s explanation, that he was only taking the best means in his power to build up a French party in Oporto, will not stand examination. Why should the scheme involve his own promotion to the throne, if his views were disinterested, and his actions merely intended to serve his master’s ends? Is it conceivable that the Portuguese should, of their own accord, and without any suggestion from without, have hit upon the idea of crowning a conqueror whose very name was strange to them three weeks before, and whose hands were red with the blood of thousands of their fellow countrymen? Clever and cautious though the Marshal was, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he had for once allowed his ambition to take the bit between its teeth, and to whirl him off into an enterprise that was worthy of the most hair-brained of adventurers.

Meanwhile the consequences of his intrigue were strange and various. The army received the news of what was going on at Oporto with puzzled surprise. Of those who were not present at the centre of affairs, some refused to believe the stories that reached them, and merely observed that the Marshal was not such a fool as to take in hand a plan that was both treasonable to his master and preposterous in itself[330]. Others, particularly his personal enemies, not only credited the information but began to concert measures for resisting him if he should try to carry out his scheme. This party was very strong among the officers of Junot’s old army of Portugal, who had been transferred in large numbers to the 2nd Corps. They disliked the expedition, had been prophesying disaster from the first, and had criticized every move of the Marshal. Now they found in the news of his intrigue another excuse[p. 279] for running counter to his orders. There is good reason for believing that Loison and Delaborde had actually conferred on the necessity for seizing and imprisoning the Marshal if he should take the final step and allow ............