That date holds some particular meaning, as falls in the middle of the Pennisular War, when the French, led by Napoleon, ruled over Spain. Goya, a Spanish court painter for Charles III and IV, would later vehemently deny that he cooperated with or assisted the French during the war from 1808-1814. Almost as a protest – though much later – Goya painted his famous Third of May, 1808, which shows French soldiers slaughtering unarmed civilians.

Six months after the crackdown on Madrid, Napoleon offered the following to the newly-approved Mayor of Madrid, “I have hastened to adopt measures calculated to tranquillize all ranks of the citizens, knowing how painful the state of uncertainty is to all men collectively and individually. I have preserved the spiritual orders, but with a limitation of the number of monks. There is not a single intelligent person who is not of the opinion that they were too numerous.” Napoleon continues, “Priests may guide the minds of men, but must exercise no temporal or corporeal jurisdiction over the citizens.”

The painting, ironically, demonstrates that French soldiers have no problem exercising that power.