Godoy
MANUEL DE (gō-doi'), a Spanish statesman; born in Badajoz, Feb. 12, 1767. He went to Madrid at an 12. 12, 1767. He went to Madrid at an early age; in 1787 entered the company of bodyguards; was called to the council of state; in 1792 succeeded Aranda as first minister, and immediately declared war on France. At the peace in 1795 he was made a grandee of Spain of the first class, and received the title of Prince of the Peace. Signing, in opposition to the general desire of the nation, the treaty of St. Ildefonso, an offensive and defensive alliance with France, in 1796, he found all parties and classes in the state his enemies and was forced to resign office in March, 1798. Soon reinstated, he married, from political motives, Donna Maria Thereza de Bourbon, though he was already secretly married to Donna Josefa Tudo. In 1800 he commanded an expedition against Portugal. He attached himself to Napoleon; the insurrection of Aranjuez, in March, 1808, prevented his escape as purposed with the royal family, and on the abdication of Charles he was imprisoned. He was present at Bayonne on the signature of the new abdication, and he accompanied the royal family to Marseilles and Rome.
On his wife's death he avowed his marriage with Josefa Tudo; settled at Paris in 1835, and died there Oct. 7, 1851.