by Carlos Rojas
THE MONSTERS
The Prince of Peace
Manuel Godoy Álvarez de Faria was born in Badajoz on May 12, 1767. According to his own statements, his family was of middling nobility and lesser wealth. The ancestral home of the Godoy family was in Castuera, populated by his paternal forebears. In his old age, Godoy said it had been ruined by time.
The Godoy sons were drawn to the military, riding, and weapons. They did not pass through university classrooms but were educated in mathematics, humane letters, and philosophy by private tutors, chosen by their father. Godoy described his teachers as illuminated by the light of the age, though “without blemishes or illusions.” Luis, a brother of Manuel Godoy, joined the Corps of Guards to the Royal Person, in the days of Carlos III. He was rumored to be the lover of María Luisa, the princess of Asturias and wife of the future Carlos IV. He probably had been confused with another officer in the same corps, named Diego. In any event, and with the help of Luis Godoy, Manuel entered the Corps of Guards at the age of twenty-one. In September 1788, when riding in the military cortege of the prince and princess, between La Granja and Segovia, he fell from his horse but controlled the animal, remounted, and continued to ride. The prince and princess took a personal interest in his status, and he soon became María Luisa’s lover. According to Cándido Pardo, Godoy was slightly taller than average, with gray eyes and excellent teeth. His most attractive features were his “thick, golden hair and splendid white and pink coloring.”
A year later the Revolution erupted in France, and Carlos IV ascended the Spanish throne when his father died. A secret pact between the king and the prime minister, the ancient count of Floridablanca, stipulated that the queen would freely determine offices and distinctions. Godoy was promoted to lieutenant in the Flemish Guard. On February 28, 1792, Floridablanca was suspended and exiled by the king. At the time, the queen was pregnant with Prince Francisco de Paula, whose resemblance to Godoy would later be called “simply scandalous” by Lady Holland. The Ministry of State was passed to another aged aristocrat, the count of Aranda, who immediately visited Godoy to pay him public homage.
In April, when María Luisa went out to Mass for the first time since giving birth, Godoy received the titles of duke of Alcudia, making him a grandee, and marquis of Álvarez. On July 14, the anniversary of the Revolution in France, he joined the Council of State. That summer he was named lieutenant colonel in the Corps of Guards, admiral of Castilla, and captain general. On the day of Saint Louis he received the Order of Toisón. A dog appeared on the streets of Madrid wearing a sign that read: “I belong to Godoy. I fear nothing.” The dog was sent to military prison. On November 16, Aranda was unexpectedly dismissed, as Floridablanca had been earlier, though he was allowed to remain on the Council. At the age of twenty-five, the duke of Alcudia was prime minister. Obliged by the people and the crown, Godoy declared war on revolutionary France to honor the Family Pact, signed with the old regime, and to avenge the execution of Louis XVI. The campaign began well for his army, and the Catalan soldiers robbed, raped, and burned in Roussillon in the name of Christian charity. They reached the gates of Perpignan, took Collioure, and in Banyuls they deported the residents, all suspected of republicanism. A year later the French took the offensive. They occupied Irún, San Marcial, San Sebastián, Bilbao, and Vitoria. They reached Figueras in Cataluña and took the Castle of San Fernando. Godoy found himself obliged to sign the Peace of Basel on July 22, 1795. There it was agreed that France would return all the sites she occupied in Spain in exchange for the Island of Santo Domingo, and the delivery of cattle from Andalucía at no cost for six years. The king gave Godoy the title of Prince of Peace, with the privilege of having a herald to announce and precede him, holding aloft a head of Janus, symbol of prudence and wisdom.
In August 1796, Godoy signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso with the Directory and placed the Spanish navy at France’s disposal in her war against England. Two months later, Nelson defeated the king’s fleet at Cape Saint Vincent and lay siege to Cádiz and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. On many mornings Carlos IV appeared in the bedroom of the Prince of Peace to help him dress. Then they strolled together through the gardens of Aranjuez. At one o’clock Godoy returned to the palace to be present at the queen’s luncheon, as a gentleman-in-waiting. Afterward María Luisa met with him in his own rooms by means of a secret staircase that communicated with the queen’s chambers. There, according to the German ambassador, they decided on policy. At eight, after meeting with the king, Godoy held his audiences. Men came to these, for it was a well-known scandal that their daughters, wives, and sisters were more apt to obtain the favor of the Prince of Peace. If they were young and attractive, they tended to come out of his study weeping or laughing, many half-dressed, with their hair in disarray. Godoy pawed at all of them and enjoyed many on the rugs in the sitting room.
On September 16, 1797, Godoy married María Teresa de Borbón, countess of Chinchón, first cousin to the king and daughter of a former cardinal-prince. Yet it was well known that the Prince of Peace had an official mistress, much to the distress of the queen. Her name was Pepa Tudó, the orphaned daughter of an artilleryman. It was also said that Godoy had committed bigamy, for many believed he had already married the Tudó woman right in the palace chapel. After his marriage to María Teresa (Goya painted the countess of Chinchón wrapped in lengths of sheer tulle and with a strange expression of childish sadness on her face) Godoy took Pepita Tudó to live in her own house and even granted her the title of countess of Castillofiel. A year later, when María Luisa made the political power of the Prince of Peace conditional on his breaking with the artilleryman’s daughter, Godoy refused to leave her and resigned the post of prime minister. The king’s distress was infinite.
He replaced Godoy with Saavedra, a former minister of finance, and Saavedra with Urquijo. It was said that both had also been María Luisa’s lovers. In any case, in December 1800, Pedro Cevallos, cousin-in-law and straw man to the Prince of Peace, succeeded Urquijo in the ministry. Godoy returned to power. Two months earlier he reconciled with the queen, without abandoning Pepita Tudó, when the Princess of Peace and countess of Chinchón gave birth to a girl. The joy of the sovereigns was so great it spread from El Escorial to Madrid, and they attended the baptism accompanied by the palace musicians, the first gentleman-in-waiting, the intendant superior, the queen’s ladies, and His Majesty’s hunting equipment. The grand inquisitor baptized the infant in the Royal Palace and in the king’s own chamber, an unprecedented event, even for a prince or an infante.
A year earlier, in Paris, Bonaparte delivered the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, proclaiming himself first consul. On December 2, 1804, he was crowned emperor of the French. “The name of King has lost its prestige and would make me an heir; I do not wish to descend from or depend on anyone.” In the spring of 1801, the first consul obliged Carlos IV to invade Portugal, where his daughter Carlota was married to the prince regent. Godoy placed himself at the head of the troops, entered Portugal on May 16, and two days later the regent sent him his prime minister with full powers to negotiate the peace. Godoy’s soldiers offered him branches from the orange groves of Ribatejo, which would give that piece of buffoonery its name: “the oranges.” During the campaign he received anguished letters from María Luisa: “Here only sadness reigns, and inactivity, uncertainty, watching to see if the mail arrives and constantly thinking: this will be the hour of our glory. But oh! I tremble at the risk, Manuel, and do not live. This dryness and harshness will lodge in my throat with a feverish heat that consumes me.”
On December 12, 1804, a few days after the crowning of Bonaparte, Carlos IV found himself obliged to declare war on Great Britain when the English attacked and captured Spanish frigates carrying gold near Cádiz. On October 12 of the following year, Nelson defeated the allied fleet at Trafalgar. Admiral Gravina, who had vainly opposed a battle lost before it was fought, died, as did Nelson, as a consequence of wounds received in the battle. The French adm
iral, Villeneuve, committed suicide. The Spanish fleet was sacrificed. Meanwhile Godoy received the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor. In his immense vanity, he was still sufficiently lucid to see that power had converted him, very unwillingly, into a mere puppet of the emperor.
On October 12, 1807, the Prince of Peace signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau with France for the invasion of Portugal. Half the country would be for Godoy, who had acquired the hereditary title of prince of the Algarve. Napoleon guaranteed to Carlos IV his European possessions and his American empire. A secret clause granted Marshal Junot the combined command of French and Spanish troops during the campaign. On the same day (which in another century would be called the Day of the Race), the prince of Asturias hatched a plot in El Escorial to overthrow Godoy. When he was discovered, he denounced all his co-conspirators and threw himself at the feet of Godoy and his parents.
On March 16, 1808, with the forces of Murat, grand duke of Berg and the emperor’s brother-in-law, at the gates of Madrid, there was not the slightest doubt that Napoleon intended to annex the entire Peninsula. At a meeting of the Council of State, before the king and the prince of Asturias, Godoy proposed that the monarchs flee to America by way of Sevilla and leave their firstborn in Madrid as supreme commander of the troops. Fernando embraced him, kissed him, and said to him: “Manuel, I see clearly that you are my friend!” Later, behind Godoy’s back, he confided to his loyal followers in the Corps of Guards: “The Prince of Peace is a traitor. He wants to take my father away. Stop him from leaving.”
The next day a crowd inflamed by Fernando’s agents filled the streets of Aranjuez. Godoy seemed unaware that his hours in power, and for that matter in history, were numbered. In the afternoon he visited the king and queen in the palace. María Luisa seemed uneasy, but Carlos IV joked and recounted a hunter’s tall tales. At 10:30 the Prince of Peace withdrew to his country manor. He dined alone with his brother Diego and went to bed with one of his mistresses. Soon the shouting mob attacked the doors, while the Corps of Guards fraternized with the crowd. Diego Godoy was cudgeled by his own troops when he attempted to help his brother. The pavilion was opened and the servants arranged for a woman, covered in heavy veils, to flee. Then the looting began, while the multitude shouted for Godoy’s head. In a bedroom they discovered the Princess of Peace, terrified and embracing her daughter. Protected by the rabble and the guards, they took her to the Royal Palace. Until her death she would live with her brother, the cardinal de Borbón, forbidden to see her daughter because she was also Godoy’s child, or to pronounce her husband’s name.
The Prince of Peace was not taken that night. Hidden in an attic, not wrapped in a straw mat as would subsequently be repeated so often, he eluded the eyes of the pack. Thirty-six hours later, consumed by thirst, he slipped downstairs while on the ground floor one could hear jugs, glasses, and card games. On a landing he ran into an artilleryman smoking his pipe alone, sitting on the stairs. “Listen, wait, I’ll know how to be grateful . . .” The artilleryman betrayed him, shouting his name. Captured by the mob, he asked to be taken into the presence of the king and queen. In his own plundered house, the soldiers treated him correctly. At his urging they gave him a cape and a three-cornered hat and prepared to escort him to the palace. On the street the crowd recognized him immediately. To the shouts of “Death to the chorizo-maker!” they stoned him, beat him, and stabbed him. He fell among the horses’ hooves and the animals trod on his legs. A knife cut open his cheek, another his thigh. At times clutching the forebow of a saddle, at times dragged along by his neck, always more dead than alive, he was taken to the Royal Palace. There they threw him into a stable. The crowd had invaded the rooms, calling for the prince of Asturias. In the presence of the rabble that pressed into the salons and crowded the staircases, Fernando looked at the fallen man, who refused to be humbled. “I grant you your life.” “Your Highness, are you already king?” asked Godoy. “Not yet, but I shall be very soon.”
The rest is the tale of a phantom. On March 19 Carlos IV abdicated the crown in favor of the prince of Asturias. On the anguished urging of María Luisa, Murat obtained the emperor’s permission to transfer Godoy to Bayonne when Napoleon called together the entire royal family there. Soon afterward Pepita Tudó, accompanied by their two children, joined the Prince of Peace. In exile a strange and profound friendship would be born between María Luisa and the countess of Castillofiel. When one of her children died, the former queen wrote to the Tudó woman: “I have no consolation for you; you know that very well, and there are no words to express my sorrow.” Godoy did not leave María Luisa. He followed the deposed monarchs from Bayonne to Compiègne, from Compiègne to Nice, from Nice to Rome, where they would hear the news about Waterloo. When María Luisa died there, it would be Godoy, not her husband, who happened to be in Naples, who watched over her until the last moment. In 1820 the Princess of Peace and countess of Chinchón died in Madrid. Then Godoy married Pepita Tudó and recognized her child. In 1833, Fernando VII died. In Paris the exiled man waited in vain for the restoration of his estate. Tired of waiting, Pepita left him and returned to Madrid with her child. Carlota, the daughter of the Prince and Princess of Peace, declared in Parliament that her father had died. Godoy barely survived on a pension of five thousand francs a year, granted him by Luis Felipe de Orleans, in a third-floor room at number 20, Rue Michaudière.
The young Mesonero Romanos visited him there in 1838. Godoy asked what opinion the younger generation had formed of him. Mesonero reminded him of the charitable, scientific, and cultural works undertaken during his government; the protection granted to the best talents of the period; the expedition to America to introduce vaccination there; the reform of teaching according to the Pestalozzian system. The old man seemed pleased and stated that his greatest desire was to return to Spain and take a stroll through the Salon del Prado. He spoke French and even Castilian badly, with Italianate turns of phrase and an Italian accent. In the Tuileries Garden he would take the sun and enjoy playing with the children. He would collect their hoops and toys, lend them his cane so they could ride it around the ponds, sit them on his knee. He also had a group of old retired performers there who took him for a Spanish actor. The deception pleased him and he never revealed his true identity to them. Two days before he died, he sent a letter, still unpublished, to his learned defenders in Madrid. “At times I believe I have lived someone else’s dream,” he told them. “The dream of reason.” He died in Paris on October 8, 1851.
October 25, 1975
“Since 8:30 yesterday, His Excellency the chief of state has experienced the following crises in the evolution of his illness:
At 22:00 hours he suffered an episode of abdominal distention because of intestinal parexia, which was resolved with the usual medication. Consequently the advice of Professor Marina Fiol was requested, and the procedure was approved.
Likewise, Professor Obrador Alcalde was consulted regarding the possible influence of his anti-Parkinsonian medication on the digestive episode. During the night and early morning he was calm. At 8:30 on the 25th the signs of cardiac failure increased and a pulmonary edema developed that responded to the appropriate treatment.
At the time of this report, at 11:00 in the morning, the intensified signs of congestive heart failure persist.”
He turned off the television and swept away the books that covered the table. Library of Spanish Authors. 202. Works of Mesonero Romanos, Library of Spanish Authors. 203 Works of Mesonero Romanos, Malraux. Saturn: An Essay on Goya, Hugh Thomas, Goya: The Third of May 1808, Library of Spanish Authors. 88–99. Memoirs of the Prince of Peace, J. Gudiol, Goya III, Editions Weber, Hans Roger Madol, Godoy, Jean-François Chabrun, Goya, Saint-Paulien, Goya. Son Temps, ses Personnages. Hanging from the carriage of the Royal portable was a typed sheet of foolscap corrected in the margin: “We must see ourselves with Goya’s eyes in his goblins and his Monarchs, in the two antechambers of our destiny. Goya’s ethical precept opens each day with the doors
to the Museum. It is the first principle of an indispensable, even incomprehensible dialectic in which he attempts to anticipate the ultimate redemption of mankind: You shall love your neighbor, the monster, as yourself.” Surrounded by the Royal, Gudiol’s catalogue, and The Third of May, he poured himself a beer and drank it down in one swallow. It was the fourth or fifth he’d had that morning, before eleven, while Franco’s intensified signs of congestive heart failure persisted. He had tried to count them and stopped immediately with a shake of his shoulders. When he poured the beer he had spilled some on the table and the keyboard. His hands were trembling.
“Yesterday at two in the afternoon, they said the signs of Franco’s heart failure were decreasing,” he exclaimed. “The evolution of his illness was taking its course without incident. The Ministry of Tourism declared that it would not withhold any truthful information from the Spanish public, ‘as an armor against rumors.’ These were their exact words. On Tuesday they declared that abroad they no longer knew what to invent to alarm us. That was, I suppose, the eternal Judeo-Masonic-Protestant conspiracy against our organic democracy.” He paused, and in too loud a tone he concluded: “This isn’t a country. Spain has never existed. It’s one of Goya’s Absurdities, created ages ago.”
“I don’t know why you’re shouting like that,” the woman replied in a whisper. “You’re talking almost like a deaf man.”
He didn’t hear her, because he didn’t listen to her either. “This isn’t a country. Spain has never existed. It’s one of Goya’s Absurdities, created ages ago.” Only when he repeated the words to himself did he know they were his. Before, in an abrupt shock to his consciousness, he’d had the incredible sensation that another man was saying them with his lips. “It was like knowing you were asleep and having a nightmare and at the same time being convinced that the dream belonged to a stranger.” He shook his head to free himself from that error. “Je suis un autre, sic. To hell with Rimbaud and his arms-smuggling in Abyssinia! I don’t want to end up in the hospital with an amputated leg while gangrene finishes me off! I’d rather drink myself to death, as conspirators and those on military bases say so elegantly, because that was always my thing. I’ll drink down judgment as soon as I finish this book. You drink too much.”