The Troubled Trinity

Book excerpt: The world of Manuel Godoy was the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, of Goethe and Beethoven; a world of changing ideas and reevaluations, of early industrialization, scientific experimentation, and radical political thought. Above all, it was a time of military, social, and economic movement. Spain of the late 18th century was still a major power whose possessions reached from Italy to the two continents of the New World, and as far as the Philippines. Under the rule of the Bourbons, the country had benefited from an economic and military resurgence. Godoy, a twenty-five-year-old guardsman from the provinces, began a meteoric rise to a position of great political influence under the sponsorship of Carlos IV. Eventually, he became the de facto ruler of Spain from 1792 to 1808 and Napoleon’s main adversary south of the Pyrenees. With the accumulation of power and influence came great wealth and a dominance over Carlos IV and his queen, Maria Luisa, Godoy’s paramour. Spurned by his natural allies, Godoy was forces to depend on the discredited royal couple for his entire support. When their fragile authority crumbled before Napoleon’s duplicity, Godoy’s political power and influence also ended.