With the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the insolent conqueror took down the Portuguese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquillity; and these were skilfully employed by the General in perfecting the discipline of his conscripts, improving the fortifications of the coast, and making such a disposal of his force as might best guard the country from any military demonstration on the part of England.
Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp: but that he had all along considered as a point of minor importance, and he had accordingly availed himself of the utmost concessions of the treaty of Fontainebleau, without waiting for any insurrection of the Portuguese, or English debarkation on their territory.

His army of reserve, in number far exceeding the 40,000 men named in the treaty, had already passed the Pyrenees, in two bodies, under Dupont and Moncey, and were advancing slowly, but steadily, into the heart of Spain.

Nay, without even the pretext of being mentioned in the treaty, another French army of 12,000, under Duhesme, had penetrated through the eastern Pyrenees, and being received as friends among the unsuspecting garrisons, obtained possession of Barcelona, Pampeluna, and St.Sebastian, and the other fortified places in the north of Spain, by a succession of treacherous artifices, to which the history of civilised nations presents no parallel.

The armies then pushed forwards, and the chief roads leading from the French frontiers to Madrid were entirely in their possession.
It seems impossible that such daring movements should not have awakened the darkest suspicions at Madrid; yet the royal family, overlooking the common danger about to overwhelm them and their country, continued, during three eventful months, to waste what energies they possessed in petty conspiracies, domestic broils, and, incredible as the tale will hereafter appear, in the meanest diplomatic intrigues with the court of France.

The Prince of Asturias solicited the honour of a wife from the House of Napoleon.