I slept from three o'clock until daybreak, and in the morning we heard
mass in the Coso. In the large balcony of a house called Las Monas at
the entrance of the Calle de las Escuelas Pias all the priests had set
up an altar and celebrated there the divine office. By the situation of
the building, it was possible to see the priests from anywhere in the
Coso. It was a profoundly moving sight, especially at the moment of the
elevation of the host; and when all knelt in prayer, the low murmur of
the service could be heard from one end of the street to the other.
A little while after the mass was ended, I heard a large number of
people coming from the direction of the market,--an angry and noisy
crowd. In the mob, and striving to quell its violence, were several
friars; but it was a mob of men deaf to the voice of reason. They
were yelling themselves hoarse, and as they came, they dragged along
a victim who was powerless to free himself from their grasp. The
maddened people took him to the place near the entrance of the Trenque
where the gallows was; and in a few moments the convulsed body of a
man was hanging from one of its ropes, and was jerked about in the air
until it was lifeless. On the wood of the gallows an inscription soon
appeared, which read,--
_An assassin
of human kind,
who
kept back twenty thousand beds._
The wretch was one Fernando Estello, watchman of a storehouse of
furniture. When the sick and wounded were breathing their last in the
gutters and on the cold tiles of the churches, there was found a great
collection of beds whose hiding the watchman Estello could not account
for. The wrath of the populace was not to be restrained. I have heard
that he was innocent. Many lamented his death; but when the firing in
the trenches began again, no one remembered him more.
Palafox published that day a proclamation in which he tried to raise
the spirits of the soldiers, promising the rank of captain to the man
who should bring him a hundred recruits, threatening with the penalty
of death and confiscation of property the man who should fail to hasten
to the defence, or should leave the lines. All this showed great
distress on the part of the commanding officers. That day was memorable
for the attack on Santa Monica, which the volunteers of Huesca were
defending. During the greater part of the night the French had been
bombarding the building. The batteries of the orchard were no longer
serviceable, and it was necessary to take away the cannon, an operation
performed by our valiant men, exposed without protection to the hostile
fire. This opened a breach at last; and, penetrating into the orchard,
they tried to gain possession of that also, forgetting that they had
twice been repulsed on previous days. But Lannes, exasperated by the
extraordinary and unprecedented tenacity of the Saragossans, had given
orders to reduce the convent to powder,--a thing which was easier to
accomplish with the cannon and howitzer than to take it by storm. At
all events, after six hours of artillery fire, a large part of the
eastern wall fell, and then the French showed their exultation, and,
without loss of time, rushed forward to seize the position, aided
by the cross-fire from the Molino in the city. Seeing them coming,
Villacampa, commander of the Huesca men, and Palafox, who had hurried
to the point of danger, tried to close up the breach with sacks of wool
and some empty musket-boxes. The French, reaching the spot, made a mad,
furious assault, but, after a brief hand-to-hand struggle, they were
repulsed. During the night they went on cannonading the convent.
The next day they decided to make another attack, certain that no
mortal could defend that skeleton of stone and brick which every
moment was crumbling to the earth. They assailed it at the door of
the reception-room; but during all the morning they did not conquer a
hand's breadth of earth in the cloister.
The wall of the eastern side of the convent fell flat to the earth
during the afternoon. The third floor, which was very much weakened,
could not hold the weight, and fell upon the second. The latter, which
was even weaker, could not help letting itself go upon the first; and
the first, incapable of sustaining by itself the weight of the whole
structure above, fairly poured itself out over the cloister, burying
hundreds of men. It would have been but natural had the rest been
intimidated by such a catastrophe, but they were not. The French gained
possession of one part of the convent, but not of all; and, in order
to gain the rest, they were obliged to clear a road through the ruins.
While they were doing this, the men of Huesca who still survived,
placed themselves in the stairway, and made holes through the floor, in
order to throw hand-grenades against the besiegers.
Fresh French troops were, however, able to reach the church. They
passed over the roof of the convent, and spread themselves in the
interior; they descended to the cloisters and attacked the brave
volunteers. Hearing the noise of this encounter, those below plucked
up heart, redoubled their energy, and, with the loss of a great number
of men, succeeded in reaching the stairway. The volunteers found
themselves between two fires, and although it was still possible for
them to get out by one of the two openings in the cloister, almost all
of them swore that they would die before they would surrender. They all
ran, seeking for a strategic point which would permit them to defend
themselves to some advantage; but they were driven the length of the
cloisters, and when the last gun-shot was heard, it was the signal that
the last man had fallen. A few inside the building were able to get out
by an underground door. Don Pedro Villacampa, commander of the Huesca
volunteers, came out into the city that way, and when he found himself
in the street, he turned, looking about mechanically for his boys.
During this fight we were in the houses about the Calle de Palomar,
firing upon the French detachment sent to assault the convent. Before
the battle was over, we learned that defence was no longer possible in
Las Monicas. Don José de Montoria himself, who was with us, confessed
it.
"The volunteers of Huesca have not borne themselves badly," he said.
"They are known to be good fellows. Now we must busy ourselves
defending these houses on the right. I do not suppose that one is left.
There goes Villacampa alone. Then are not those Mendieta, and Paul,
Benedicto, and Oliva? Let us go. I see that indeed none are left in
that place."
In this way the convent of Las Monicas passed into the hands of the
French.