Saragossa
_When the other events of the Spanish war shall be lost in the
obscurity of time, or only traced by disconnected fragments, the story
of Zaragoza, like some ancient triumphal pillar standing amidst ruins,
will tell a tale of past glory, and already men point to the heroic
city and call her Spain._
NAPIER'S "_Peninsular War_"
SARAGOSSA
A Story of Spanish Valor
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE ORIGINAL
OF
B. PÉREZ GALDÓS
BY
MINNA CAROLINE SMITH
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1899
_Copyright, 1899_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
University Press
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
"Saragossa" is the sixth volume in the brilliant series of historical
novels by B. Pérez Galdós, which begins with "Trafalgar" and closes
with "The Battle of the Arapiles," embracing "The Court of Carlos IV,"
"Gerona," and "Napoleon in Chamartin."
B. Pérez Galdós, possibly known best in the United States as the author
of "Doña Perfecta," may be called the Walter Scott of Spain. He is,
however, truer to history than Scott, and the characters he creates
move in an atmosphere of reality rather than romance. "Saragossa"
is one of the most powerful, impressive, and popular of the twenty
novels wherein he tells the gallant story of his native land. This
tale of the second siege of the ancient Aragon city by the generals of
Napoleon is a work of art, one that stirs the blood with admiration
of the indomitable valor of the Spaniards; yet is it not also a
document of special pleading for the world's peace? "Saragossa" ranks
with Tolstoi's "War and Peace," and Zola's "La Débâcle," among great
dramatic war novels. Herein also are at least three of the best drawn
characters in international literature,--the masterly miser Candiola,
his beautiful daughter Mariquilla, and that valiant and lovable
citizen, Don José de Montoria. Manuela Sancho appears as a minor
character, the "Maid of Saragossa" whose bravery is honored in a street
named for her in her native city. She is a type of the daughters of
Saragossa, for more than one of them, in the exaltation of the terrific
struggle against the French, extended their patriotic services beyond
those gentle ones usual to women in besieged cities, rallying soldiers
and serving guns.
The events leading up to the siege of Saragossa are a part of the
history of Spain in her struggle for continued national existence
against the encroachments of Napoleon. Although it was national
warfare, each province and strong provincial city made its own
individual stand. Therefore words like those quoted on a preceding
page from Napier's "Peninsular War" have an especial significance.
The English general's words are doubly striking when read in
connection with these of Galdós, "Men of little sense--without any
on occasion--the Spanish to-day, as ever, make a thousand blunders,
stumbling and rising in the struggle of their inborn vices with the
eminent qualities which they still preserve. Providence holds in store
for this people great advancings and abasements, great terrors and
surprises, apparent deaths and mighty resurrections."
The threatened loss of her nationality was the terror which hung above
Spain in the dark days of 1808. Her court was rent with factions;
her royal house was divided against itself. Three parties had made
dissension in the palace and among the people. One was the party of
the King Carlos IV; one was that of his son, Prince Ferdinand; the
third, of a most insidious power, was that of Don Manuel Godoy, whose
ambitions and pretensions were supported by the queen. A corrupt court
and an intriguing priesthood had promoted the troubles of Spain,
causing king, prince, and favorite, each and separately, to make
application to Napoleon for protection, and for the support of their
various plans. The imbecility of the Spanish Bourbons at such an hour
in European history was inevitable in its influence upon the Emperor of
the French. His ambition grew with this new opportunity. Under the mask
of operating with Spain against Portugal, Napoleon filled the Peninsula
with French troops under generals like Junot and Moncey and Lannes.
The Spanish king and prince were already in France, and practically
in durance there, before the people realized the danger which was
close upon their very existence as a nation. Popular insurrections at
Toledo and Madrid followed immediately upon the appointment of Murat
to a place in the government. The abdication at Bayonne of Carlos IV
in favor of Napoleon, and the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte as king
of Spain, with the consent of ninety-one Spanish nobles, roused the
Peninsula into a spontaneous and determined revolt. War against the
French invaders was already raging in every province when King Joseph
was crowned at Madrid on July 24. Thus in the virtue of her people
began the long struggle of Spain for independence as a nation,--a
struggle which was destined not to end until England came to her aid,
and the Duke of Wellington delivered her from the power of France.
Saragossa, although situated in an admirably strong strategic position
between the French border and the Spanish capital, was not occupied by
the French in force at first, because the character of the Saragossans
made it unwise to attempt to place a small body of foreign troops
among them, and Saragossa--Zaragoza in Spanish--had no citadel.
Napoleon himself could not foresee what a tremendous defence would
be made, nor that fifty thousand dead would yet speak from this city
of Aragon to arouse the courage of Spain. The first siege lasted from
mid-June to mid-August, and was raised not only because the defence
was fierce, desperate, and unflinchingly prolonged, and because the
besieging army under Verdier was greatly weakened, but also because
disasters to the French arms elsewhere made its abandonment imperative.
After the invaders had been victorious at Tudela, Aragon was open to
them. Forty thousand French troops--General Napier says thirty-five
thousand--besieged the capital of the province whither a large part
of the army of Castaños and many other fugitives had fled after their
defeat.
The second and successful siege, with whose events this novel is
occupied, continued for two long and fatal months, from the twentieth
of December of that same dark year until the twenty-first of the
following February. During this time of horror and of bravery, there
were also laughter and song, dancing and love-making in Saragossa, and
such an idyl of tenderness and passion as this story of Augustine and
Mariquilla which is now offered to readers of English.
M. C. S.
SARAGOSSA
A STORY OF SPANISH VALOR
CHAPTER I
It was, I believe, the evening of the eighteenth when we saw Saragossa
in the distance. As we entered by the Puerta de Sancho we heard the
clock in the Torre Nueva strike ten. We were in an extremely pitiful
condition as to food and clothing. The long journey we had made from
Lerma through Salas de los Infantes, Cervera, Agreda, Tarazona, and
Borja, climbing mountains, fording rivers, making short cuts until we
arrived at the high road of Gallur and Alagon, had left us quite used
up, worn out, and ill with fatigue. In spite of all, the joy of being
free sweetened our pain.
We were four who had succeeded in escaping between Lerma and Cogollos
by freeing our innocent hands from the rope that bound together so many
patriots. On the day of the escape, we could count among the four of
us a total capital of eleven reales; but after three days of marching,
when we entered the metropolis of Aragon and balanced our mutual cash,
our common wealth was found to be a sum total of thirty-one cuartos. We
bought some bread at a little place next the Orphanage, and divided it
among us.
Don Roque, who was one of the members of our expedition, had good
connections in Saragossa, but this was not an hour to present ourselves
to any one. We postponed until the next day this matter of looking
up friends; and as we could not go to an inn, we wandered about the
city, looking for a shelter where we could pass the night. The market
scarcely seemed to offer exactly the comfort and quiet which our
tired bodies needed. We visited the leaning tower, and although one
of my companions suggested that we should take refuge in the plaza, I
thought that we should be quite the same as if altogether in the open
country. The place served us, none the less, for temporary refuge and
rest, and also as a refectory, where we despatched happily our supper
of dry bread, glancing now and then at the great upright mass of the
tower, whose inclination made it seem like a giant leaning to see
who was running about his feet. By the light of the moon that brick
sentinel projected against the sky its huddled and shapeless form,
unable to hold itself erect. The clouds were drifting across its top,
and the spectator looking from below trembled with dread, imagining
that the clouds were quiet and that the tower was moving down upon him.
This grotesque structure, under whose feet the overburdened soil has
settled, seems to be forever falling, yet never falls.
We passed through the avenue of the Coso again from this house of
giants as far as the Seminary. We went through two streets, the Calle
Quemada and the Calle del Rincon, both in ruins, as far as the little
plaza of San Miguel. From here, passing from alley to alley, and
blindly crossing narrow and irregular streets, we found ourselves
beside the ruins of the monastery of Santa Engracia, which was blown
up by the French at the raising of the first siege. The four of us
exclaimed at once in a way to show that we all thought the same thing.
Here we had found a shelter, and in some cosy corner under this roof we
would pass the night!
The front wall was still standing with its arch of marble, decorated
with innumerable figures of saints which seemed undisturbed and
tranquil as if they knew nothing of the catastrophe. In the interior
we saw broken arches and enormous columns struggling erect from the
debris, presenting themselves, darkling and deformed, against the
clear light flooding the enclosure, looking like fantastic creatures
generated by a delirious imagination. We could see decorations,
cornices, spaces, labyrinths, caverns, and a thousand other fanciful
architectural designs produced by the ruins in their falling. There
were even small rooms opened in the spaces of the walls with an
art like that of Nature in forming grottos. The fragments of the
altar-piece that had rotted because of the humidity showed through the
remains of the vaulting where still hung the chains which had suspended
the lamps. Early grasses grew between the cracks of the wood and stone.
Among all this destruction there were certain things wholly intact, as
some of the pipes of the organ and the grating of the confessional. The
roof was one with the floor, and the tower mingled its fragments with
those of the tombs below. When we looked upon such a conglomeration
of tombs, such a myriad of fragments that had fallen without losing
entirely their original form, and such masses of bricks and plaster
crumbled like things made of sugar, we could almost believe that the
ruins of the building had not yet settled into their final position.
The shapeless structure appeared to be palpitating yet from the shock
of the explosion.
Don Roque told us that beneath this church there was another one where
they worshipped the relics of the holy martyrs of Saragossa; but the
entrance to this subterranean sanctuary was closed up. Profound silence
reigned, but, penetrating further, we heard human voices proceeding
from those mysterious deeps. The first impression produced upon us by
hearing these voices was as if the spirits of the famous chroniclers
who wrote of the Christian martyrs, and of the patriots sleeping in
dust below, were crying out upon us for disturbing their slumbers.
On the instant, in the glare of a flame which illuminated part of the
scene, we distinguished a group of persons sheltering themselves,
huddling together in a space between two of the fallen columns. They
were Saragossa beggars, who had made a palatial shelter for themselves
in that place, seeking protection from the rain with beams of wood and
with their rags. We also made ourselves as comfortable as might be
in another place, and covering ourselves with a blanket and a half,
prepared to go to sleep.
Don Roque said to me, "I know Don José de Montoria, one of the richest
citizens of Saragossa. We were both born in Mequinenza. We went to
school together, and we played our games together on the hills of
Corregidor. It is thirty years since I have seen him, but I believe
that he will receive us well. Like every good Aragonese, he is all
heart. We will find him, fellows; we will see Don José de Montoria. I
am of his blood on the maternal side. We will present ourselves to him.
We will say--"
But Don Roque was asleep, and I also slept.