Un juego de tronos castizo

María Luisa de Parma baptized the singular triangle that she formed with Carlos IV and Manuel Godoy as "the trinity". Triangle between whose vertices the dynamics of power, betrayals and, above all, excessive ambitions and miscalculations that would end up handing over the country to an opportune fourth in contention: Napoleon Bonaparte. With impeccable rigor and relying on the meticulous study of direct sources, Antonio Elorza recomposes in this essay the frantic sequence of strategic rapprochements, disaffection and stabbing between the four of them, but especially between Godoy and Napoleón, with whom the former tried to win to yes, the legitimacy of a power that he already exercised de facto, and the second sought to expand his empire. And he shows that, thanks to Godoy's ambition, Napoleon was able to peacefully carry out the military occupation of Spain. The catastrophic consequences of this traditional game of thrones include the defeat at Trafalgar, which already makes the loss of the American empire inevitable, and the subsequent War of Independence, the tragic destruction of a country that Goya reflected in his Disasters. On the other hand, it also meant the ruin of Napoleon, who ended up acknowledging that "the Spanish en masse behaved like a man of honor" and that, after all, "they deserved better".