THE BAYONNE CONSTITUTION OF 1808 AND HISPANIC CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

Abstract

Th e Bayonne Constitution of 1808 has been more important for understanding Spanish constitutional history than historiography has admitted. It is an ambivalent model of a Constitution, being both a political and a legal act, and lends itself to two possible interpretations (the French and the Spanish), each as valid as the other. Although opponents of the regime of Joseph Bonaparte denied him any legitimacy, they could not ignore the existence of this formal and reformative constitution, which fed the debate on an appropriate Constitution for the Catholic monarchy.