El Duque de Duras y el fin del Ministerio Ensenada (1752-1754)

Abstract

The activities of the French ambassador in Spain, recorded in the correspondence kept in Paris, allow us to know some of the most important facts of the Spanish politics at the middle of eighteenth century among them the fall and exile of the marquis of La Ensenada. This paper analyses the causes of the largest political crisis between France and Spain since the expulsion of the princess of Los Ursinos; it also deals with the pre-war international situation and Spanish neutrality. As a conclusion, the author sketches some ideas about the nature of Spanish despotism and about the role of a minister of the administrative state, such as Ensenada, and his difficult relations with the higher nobility of the domus regia.