Two hundred years ago now, on April 7, 1823, a French army crossed the Spanish border. The One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis – a name coined by the poetic desire of the romantic writer and minister of Louis XVIII François de Chateaubriand – invaded Spain to restore the absolute power of Ferdinand VII and liquidate the revolutionary experience of the Liberal Triennium (1820-1823).
Five days before entering Spain, the Duke of Angoulême addressed a solemn proclamation to the Spaniards: "I am going to cross the Pyrenees at the head of one hundred thousand Frenchmen, but it is to join the Spanish friends of order and Law, to help them to rescue their captive King, to restore the Altar and the Throne, to free the priests from banishment, the owners from the dispossession, the people from the dominance of some ambitious people who, proclaiming freedom, only prepare slavery and destruction. destruction of Spain.
The French prince appointed by Louis XVIII for such a mission came to force the change of the political regime of a sovereign nation that was governed by the principles of the Constitution of 1812: national sovereignty, division of powers and recognition of individual liberties.
Since the failed coup d'état and the royalist plots hatched between May and July 1822, Ferdinand VII's only hope of regaining absolute power was foreign military intervention. In seeking his help, the monarch frequently communicated, behind the constitutional government's back, with the representatives of the Holy Alliance (Austria, Prussia, and Russia). He demanded money for the royalist guerrillas and the direct intervention of a European army to help him overthrow the constitutional regime.
The international context played in his favor. The Liberal Triennium had eradicated the grayness of Fernandino absolutism, but, in addition, it had become a threat to the thrones of Restoration Europe. The political system forged in Spain had been exported to Naples and Portugal. The ghost of the revolution once again haunted Europe.
But not only the European monarchies wanted to abolish the Spanish liberal regime. A large group of moderates did not look badly at limiting national sovereignty and reforming the Constitution. Thus they thought to resolve the impossible coexistence of an absolutist king with some Cortes and a constitutional government. However, Fernando VII rejected all the proposals made by some ministers and heads of the moderate liberals. He decided to follow the side of his own, what the French ambassador La Garde called "the servile, blind absolutists."
It was evident that the regime could not function with a Constitution that granted executive power to the king and his government, because Ferdinand VII continually torpedoed legislative or governmental decisions. The king, the bitterest enemy of the constitutional system, was also a born conspirator, eager for foreign intervention to restore his absolute power.
Faced with this attitude, liberal governments could do little. The law mandated that the royal person be respected as sacred and inviolable and that Fernando VII be dispatched as constitutional king, despite his propensity for arrogance, felony, and the insults with which he treated them.
The apocryphal Treaty of Verona, which entrusted France with military intervention in Spain, was possibly falsified after the invasion. But, during the meeting of the European powers in the Congress of Verona, on November 19, 1822, Austria, Russia and Prussia did promise to help France if she attacked Spain to eliminate the constitutional regime.
The harassment of the legitimist powers had managed to isolate the government of the Liberal Triennium. Given the lack of external support, the financial problems and the independence proposals of the American colonies, it found itself in a dead end. However, the last government of the constitutional system, whose strong man was José María Calatrava, decided not to give in to pressure and to maintain a Numantine resistance.
War became imminent when, on March 21, 1823, the English government notified the French that it would remain neutral on the condition that France not intervene in Portugal and refrain from any attempt to help Ferdinand VII to recover the colonial empire in America.
After their entry on April 7, in little more than a month, the One Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis had arrived in Madrid, although the government, the Cortes and the king had left weeks before for Seville. The French army, financially well-oiled and better organized than the constitutional one, had the collaboration of the royalist troops and parties that joined it. The French contest did not strip the military conflict of the character of a civil war, as were the clashes between Spaniards during the War of Independence.
In addition to the lack of resources and organization, the Spanish military chiefs were not always up to their task. Surrenders and desertions were watered by the rain of francs that the French government allocated to "secret missions", a euphemistic name for the money used to corrupt and bribe the military and liberal politicians.
The investment in "secret missions" became so important that it did not take long to arouse the reaction of the Spanish royalists. Minister Chateaubriand warned the head of the French government: “I think that the Duke of Angoulême should be written today to be careful in spending a lot of money in favor of the Spanish constitutionalists. After all, the royalists are the factors of our success, and if their generals, their soldiers, the priests, the clergy in general believe that all the blows and danger are for them and for the generals of the Cortes all the thanks, we will be abandoned in the middle of Spain”.
Upon arriving in Madrid, the first measure adopted by the Duke of Angoulême was to create, on May 25, 1823, a regency made up of notorious absolutists who ruled in the name of the "captive king" and who was immediately recognized as a legitimate government by the powers of the Holy Alliance.
Knowing that the French would arrive in Seville at any moment, the Calatrava government decided to transfer all the institutions to Cádiz, a place in better defense conditions. As Ferdinand VII flatly refused to leave Seville, the Cortes applied article 178 of the Constitution, which allowed the king to be declared temporarily incapable and appointed a regency to govern in his name.
From July to October 1823, Cádiz was again, as in the War of Independence, the political and military center of the desperate resistance against the French army. But the situation was very different due to the lack of the once decisive British military support. By now, the myth of the innocent prince, the Desired, had faded.
However, despite the fact that Fernando VII had given ample evidence of not wanting to abide by the Constitution, the constitutionalists needed him and were obliged to protect him. In 1823, any project contrary to the person of the king was doomed to failure.
The monarch, who did not usually walk the streets of Cádiz due to the rejection that his person aroused, had had a wooden tower built in the Customs building, where he lived, from which he dedicated himself to flying kites. According to some, it was a hobby with which to distract from his isolation; according to others, a form of communication with the enemy through agreed signals. Be that as it may, the monarch acted as a traitor to the country and hindered with a thousand tricks any bilateral negotiations with the French army.
The Duke of Angoulême refused to deal with the government and the Cortes while the King remained “captive”. Ferdinand VII, aware of the plans of the absolutists and the advances of the French troops, ordered his supporters to prepare a return to absolutism and urged the military to violate the Constitution and go over to the enemy.
The Duke of Angoulême, exalted by Louis XVIII to the Olympus of heroes, did not have to fight great battles. Chateaubriand, however, described the action of His Royal Highness the Duke of Angoulême as a historic feat: "He manifested on that occasion a courage that delivered, so to speak, to his army that entire Spain that resisted the glory and genius of Napoleon ”.
In the absence of great acts of arms, the capture of the Trocadero fort in the Bay of Cádiz, on August 31, 1823, was considered a feat and achieved unusual popularity among the French as a symbol of honor and glory of the Bourbon monarchy. . The Trocadero Square still remains today, whose metro station gives access to the Eiffel Tower.
Unlike in 1808, the French army encountered little opposition when it invaded Spain in 1823. Had the Spanish lost their patriotic fervor? Did they reject the Constitution and wanted a return to absolutism? Was the religious factor decisive?
The Duke of Angoulême came to restore the altar and the throne. The irreligious were now the constitutional ones, and, with few exceptions, the clergy were fully employed in the fight against the liberals. However, regardless of the fans of either sign, the people were tired of so many conflicts while everything was getting worse. The disaffection towards politics and the disconnection between the elites and the majority of the population was evident.
Be that as it may, on September 27 the Liberal government surrendered unconditionally. As soon as the king began to rule, he broke his promise of amnesty: "The complete and absolute general oblivion of everything that happened, without exception." There was no mercy for anyone. The repression and fear described by Pérez Galdós in El terror de 1824 prevailed.
