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By Root 2543 0

unconcerned, with his slightly olive complexion and his stern scowl, whom I had met for the first time striding through the Tuileries . . . Even outwardly everything had altered, He had grown very burly in waist and shoulders, his little legs were thick and fleshy, his complexion sallow, his forehead quite bald, and his features strongly put one in mind of a Roman emperor as we see them on their coins. I will not say, like the servant at the inn, that in all he did he seemed to have the crown on his head and the sceptre in his hand, but, standing there like other lookers-on, crowding round to watch him go in and out, it struck me that everything in him had the air of an emperor, but of an emperor of the worst period.17

Whatever the reason, Lisbon’s fate was already settled. On 19 July 1807 the emperor sent orders to Talleyrand to instruct Portugal to close her ports to Britain’s shipping, arrest all British subjects, confiscate all British merchandise, and declare war. Within a few days, meanwhile, word had also gone out to concentrate a large force at Bayonne preparatory to a march on Lisbon. Such a march, of course, could only be made across Spain, but this presented few difficulties. Having, as we shall see, for years been trying to get Napoleon to intervene in Portugal, the Spanish royal favourite, Manuel de Godoy, was delighted with the news. Unsettled by rumours that Ferdinand IV of Naples was to be persuaded to surrender Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte in exchange for the Balearic islands, he may also have seen cooperation as a means of propitiating Napoleon. Occupation forces were therefore soon being mobilized in Galicia, León and Extremadura, the Spanish ambassador in Lisbon also being ordered at all times to second his French counterpart. As for the unfortunate Prince Regent of Portugal, the choice facing him was made very clear. In the words of Napoleon himself:

I conceive the peace that reigns on the Continent, in respect of which I have received with great pleasure the congratulations of Your Royal Highness, as but a step towards the peace that should reign on the sea. All the measures that I have taken have been directed at this goal, and they have been adopted by every power that, like Portugal, has a direct interest in making England respect its independence and its rights. No half-measure can have the same success or demonstrate the same attachment to the common cause.18

Threatened by France and Spain alike, Portugal now found herself in a terrible situation. Often wrongly stigmatized as a decayed despotism in which obscurantism vied with inefficiency, Portugal had under the leadership of the Marquês de Pombal, the chief minister of José I (1750-77), in fact become the very model of enlightened absolutism. Key reforms included the complete reorganization of the government of empire and metropolis, a great reduction in the power of the Church and nobility, the establishment of a modern army, and the creation of a modern system of education. The arts and sciences had been encouraged, and everything possible done to stimulate economic development. Pombal had long since vanished from the scene - indeed, he had ended his life in disgrace - but his influence had survived and allowed textiles and the wine trade to thrive. Nor had the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars been much of a setback. There had been war with France from 1793 to 1797 and a brief Spanish invasion in 1801, but hostilities had been nominal and trade buoyant, while the definitive treaty of peace had cost Portugal no more than the cession of a small part of the Alentejo and the payment of indemnities to Madrid and Paris. Napoleon’s sudden ultimatum spelled disaster, however. As the eighteenth century had progressed, the Brazilian gold, sugar and tobacco that had hitherto been the bedrock of Portugal’s well-being had begun either to run out or fall in value. Some relief was obtained by the discovery of diamonds and an increase in the cultivation of cotton, but even so the emphasis had increasingly begun to shift to the metropolis’s own