But Spain was not conquered.

Scattered her armies were in the open, and even brave Saragossa fell in glorious ruins under Lannes' persistent attacks.

But the patriots fiercely rallied in the mountains, and Napoleon was to find out the truth of the Roman historian's saying: "In no land does the character of the people and the nature of the country help to repair disasters more readily than in Spain." There was another reason for Napoleon's sudden return.

Rumours had reached him as to the _rapprochement_ of those usually envious rivals, Talleyrand and Fouche, who now walked arm in arm, held secret conclaves, and seemed to have some understanding with Murat.

Were they plotting to bring this ambitious man and his still more ambitious and vindictive consort from the despised throne at Naples to seize on power at Paris while the Emperor was engulfed in the Spanish quagmire?
A story ran that Fouche had relays of horses ready between Naples and Paris for this enterprise.[206] But where Fouche and Talleyrand are concerned, truth lurks at the bottom of an unfathomable well.
All that we know for certain is that Napoleon flew back to Paris in a towering rage, and that, after sharply rebuking Fouche, he subjected the Prince of Benevento to a violent tirade: just as he (Talleyrand) had first advised the death of the Duc d'Enghien and then turned that event to his sovereign's discredit, so now, after counselling the overthrow of the Spanish dynasty, he was making the same underhand use of the miscarriage of that enterprise.