Napoleon Prepares to Host the Ministers of Spain for the Secret Treaty of Fontainebleau

We have never seen such a handwritten accounting by Napoleon

The Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1807 was a secret agreement between Spain and France for the partition of Portugal. In that Treaty, Spanish King Charles IV and Napoleon I outlined a proposed conquest and partition of Portugal by Spain and France as part of Napoleon’s ongoing attempt to isolate England. Consisting of twenty-one articles, seven of which were secret, the treaty divided Portugal into three parts. The north would go to the King of Etruria, the grandson of Charles IV; the central provinces would be awarded to Napoleon, until a general peace could be concluded; and the south, the Algarve, would go to Manuel de Godoy, Charles’s first minister. At the conclusion of the peace, Charles IV would be recognized as emperor of Spanish America. The treaty also allowed a French army of 25,000 men and 3,000 cavalry to cross Spain into Lisbon with a 40,000-troop reserve just north of the Spanish-French border at Bayonne, in case of English intervention. The treaty was signed October 27, 1807, nine days after a French army crossed into Spain and began its march on Lisbon.

Although this treaty permitted French soldiers on Spanish soil legally, it was never published, and the terms of the division of Portugal remained unfulfilled. The Treaty of Fontainebleau ultimately led to the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, the capture of Charles IV, and the designation of Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte as ruler of Spain.

Autograph manuscript, undated but from early October 1807, headed “”For Fontainbleau,” the rest entirely in Napoleon’s hand, clipped, perhaps by Napoleon, from a larger accounting document. All numbers likely represent French livres tournois.

1° small appartments. 50.000
2° bedding 20.000
3° kitchens 400.000 (to make all the kitchens)
4° court of ministers des ministres 300.000 (to house all the ministers)
Total of 770.000″

This was sent at the time of another note of Napoleon on October 4, 1807 to General Duroc, the Grand Marshall of the Royal Palace. In that note, he writes he wants to stay in Fontainebleau and that he wants it restored to its former state. He wants the kitchens restored and the project completed in two years.