Abdications of Bayonne — 5-6 mai 1808

Lured to Bayonne, Charles IV and his son Ferdinand VII each renounced the Spanish crown in favour of Napoleon, who passed it to his brother Joseph. Murat moved from Madrid to the throne of Naples. This dynastic coup, carried out without a single soldier, would be paid for with six years of war and guerrilla.

A dynasty tearing itself apart

Spain had been France's ally since 1796, but an exhausted one: Trafalgar had destroyed her fleet, and the favourite Godoy governed against a popular heir. In March 1808 the riot of Aranjuez brought Godoy down and forced Charles IV to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand VII.

Charles IV at once retracted and appealed to Napoleon, who thus found himself arbiter of a family quarrel — and who had already moved tens of thousands of men into the peninsula on the pretext of an expedition against Portugal. Father and son were summoned to Bayonne.

The fifth and sixth of May

On 5 May 1808 Charles IV ceded his rights to the Spanish crown to Napoleon. The next day Ferdinand VII, isolated and threatened, renounced his in turn. Not a soldier had been engaged: the Spanish monarchy had changed hands in a drawing room.

Ferdinand was sent to the château of Valençay, Talleyrand's house, where he would remain interned until the end of 1813. Joseph Bonaparte, king of Naples, was proclaimed king of Spain in June; Murat received the throne of Naples in compensation.

The price of the coup

An assembly of notables convened at Bayonne received in July a granted constitution — abolition of torture, of seigneurial privileges, of the Inquisition. The text was liberal, the origin illegitimate: no one in Spain would take it for anything but a document of occupation.

For the news from Bayonne arrived after 2 May. The provincial juntas were already governing in the name of Ferdinand, 'el Deseado', all the more popular for being a prisoner. The dynastic coup, carried out without a shot, would be paid for with six years of war.