SECOND SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.
♦1808. DECEMBER.♦
The Central Junta perfectly understood and truly represented the
spirit of the nation, partaking in some things its blindness and its
obstinacy, but also its exalted feeling, its true heroism, and its
incomparable devotion to the cause of national independence. Its
information concerning the real state of affairs was as imperfect as
its other arrangements. In the correspondence concerning Cadiz, Garay
assured the British Ambassador that Zaragoza was still holding out, not
considering that by little less than miracle that glorious city could
have held out so long, and not knowing that the enemy had then been
eight days in possession of its ruins.
♦CASTAÑOS ACCUSED AT ZARAGOZA AS A TRAITOR.♦
Palafox was not present at the battle of Tudela. He had embarked on
the river just before the action began, little apprehending that it
was so near, and believing that his presence was required at Zaragoza.
This was one cause among the many which led to the misfortunes of that
day; for Castaños, who would otherwise have been with his own troops,
remained with ♦REPRESENTACIONES, &C. DEL G. CASTAÑOS, P. 195.♦ the
Aragonese to supply his place, and each army was thus deprived of
the General who knew the troops, and in whom they trusted. During
the short time that these Generals had acted together, there had
been no want of confidence and frankness between them: but after
their separation, and the refusal of Castaños to throw his troops
into Zaragoza instead of retreating toward Madrid, in obedience
to the orders of the Central Junta, the disasters which had been
sustained were imputed by Palafox to his errors. He had been far from
apprehending, he said, that he should have to prepare for a second
siege; and never could any combination of his own have placed him under
such a necessity. The charge of incapacity against Castaños was more
broadly made in an official account of the action by General O’Neille,
and he was publicly accused of having sold the army and betrayed his
country.
♦STATE OF PUBLIC FEELING IN THAT CITY.♦
Castaños himself did Palafox the justice to believe that he had been
deceived by malicious representations. The other charges proceeded
from men who sought to shelter their own misconduct by appearing as
accusers, or from private malice, which in such times never loses the
opportunity of exerting itself with sure effect. Zaragoza was in a
state of tremendous agitation; the same spirit was still prevailing
there which had so wonderfully repulsed the French, but that spirit had
broken the bonds of order; and Palafox, who was so well able to direct
the popular feeling in the hour of danger, found it necessary at other
times in many things to yield to it. His power was absolute while he
held it; but though it had been confirmed to him by the Supreme Junta,
it was in fact held only by the tenure of popular opinion, which among
large masses of men, and more especially in perilous circumstances,
is always influenced less by the considerate and the wise, than by
the headstrong, the audacious, and the profligate. Victims whom
♦CAVALLERO, P. 67.♦ he dared not interfere to save were sacrificed,
and the utmost he could do in behalf of any accused persons, was to
secure them in prison, and ♦MEASURES OF PRECAUTION.♦ thus respite them
from immediate death. During the former siege the French who resided
in the city had been put under arrest; and there had been the twofold
anxiety of guarding against any correspondence between them and the
besiegers, and protecting them against the fatal effects of popular
suspicion, which at any moment might have produced a massacre of these
unfortunate persons. To prevent both the inconvenience and the danger,
Palafox sent them away to distant places of confinement; but it was
necessary to prepare the people for this by a proclamation, appealing
to their honour, and courage, and humanity, and cautioning them against
the enemy’s emissaries, who were seeking to bring a stain upon their
cause by exciting them to acts of murder. The prisoners and deserters
were also removed. The nuns were permitted to remove to other convents
not within the scene of immediate danger, where they might occupy
themselves without interruption in their holy exercises. Aware that
in so large a city there must be persons whom their own wealth would
have bribed to betray their country, and who would fain have submitted
for the sake of preserving their property, Palafox decreed that the
inhabitants of Zaragoza, of whatever rank or condition, should consider
themselves bound to devote their persons, their property, and their
lives to its defence; that the rich should foster, and assist, and
clothe the poor, enable them to maintain their respective posts, and
remunerate them for the zeal with which they defended their lives,
their estates, and their common country. If any man were unnatural
enough to disregard this sacred duty, which he owed both to his
native land and his religion, he should be fined in proportion to the
magnitude of his offence, and the amount of the fine appropriated to
the subsistence of the army. All persons who served the cause of the
enemy, by pasquinades, by endeavouring to excite a want of confidence
in the chiefs, the people, or the army, or by raising disturbances
and riots, should be carried before the newly-appointed judge of the
police, who would pass judgment according to their crimes, and suitable
to the danger of the country; but before he imposed the punishment of
death, he should consult the captain-general. Every house was ordered
to be well supplied with vessels of water, in order to extinguish
fires; and the officers of the ward were charged to superintend this
important measure of preparation. Persons entering or leaving the city
were to be watched with care, because the enemy assumed the dress of
the Spaniards, and, greatly superior as they were, resorted to every
artifice. “All these measures,” said Palafox, “should be obeyed with
religious respect, because they are all directed to the good of our
country, which, in happier times, will recompense all the sacrifices
we make, ... sacrifices so acceptable in the sight of God, and of the
Virgin Mother of God, who is our celestial protectress.”
♦NONE OF THE INHABITANTS LEAVE THE CITY.♦
Three days were allowed for all women, all men above threescore, and
all boys under fourteen, to leave the city; a general order being
issued, that whithersoever they might go, they should be welcomed,
and provided for. But not one of the inhabitants left the place. The
sentiment of patriotism was as ardent in the women as in the men;
they thought it a worse evil to seek bread and protection apart from
their husbands and fathers than to abide the siege with them, and
triumph or perish together: and even if this sentiment had not been
so general and so strong, whither were they to betake themselves for
security in a land which was every where overrun or threatened by the
enemy’s armies? In no place would they have imagined themselves so
secure as in Zaragoza itself, which had been so wonderfully defended
and delivered, and which they believed to be invincible through the
protection of Our Lady of the Pillar, who had chosen it for the seat
of her peculiar worship. During the former siege prints of that idol
had been distributed by women in the heat of action, and worn by the
men in their hats both as a badge and an amulet. The many remarkable
escapes and deliverances which had occurred ♦SUPPOSED MIRACLES.♦ were
ascribed not to all-ruling and omnipresent Providence, but to the
immediate interference ♦MEMORIA DE LO MAS INTERESANTE, &C. 121.♦ of
the _Magna Mater_ of Zaragoza. Palafox himself had been trained up
with more than common care in the superstition of the place; he and
his brethren in their childhood had been taken every day to attend
mass in the Holy Chapel where the image was enshrined, dressed at such
times in the proper costume of the Infantes, as a mark of greater
honour to the present Goddess. An appearance in the sky, which at other
times might have passed unremembered and perhaps unnoticed, had given
strong confirmation to the popular faith. About a month before the
commencement of the first siege a white cloud appeared at noon, and
gradually assumed the form of a palm tree; the sky being in all other
parts clear, except that a few specks of fleecy cloud hovered about
the larger one. It was first observed over the church of N. Señora del
Portillo, and moving from thence till it seemed to be immediately above
that of the Pillar, continued in the same form about half an hour, and
then dispersed. The inhabitants were in a state of such excitement,
that crowds joined in the acclamation of the first beholder, who cried
out, A miracle! and after the ♦1808.♦ defeat of the besiegers had
confirmed the omen, a miracle it was universally pronounced to have
been, the people proclaiming with exultation that ♦DO. 11.♦ the Virgin
had by this token prefigured the victory she had given them, and
promised Zaragoza her protection as long as the world should endure.
♦WORKS OF DEFENCE.♦
In many recorded instances superstition such as this has deluded men
to their destruction. But the Zaragozans knew that to obtain the
divine support, wherein they trusted, they must deserve it by works
as well as faith, and that the manner in which heavenly aid would be
manifested would be by blessing their human exertions. Palafox himself,
confidently as he had expected that the army which he commanded would
be successful in the field, had not been negligent in preparing to
withstand a second siege. Works of considerable extent and importance
had been designed, and executed as far as time and means permitted.
It was impossible to convert so large a city into a good fortified
place, accessible as it was on all sides, and every where commanded
within reach of cannon; but with a population so resolute in defending
themselves, every thing became of consequence which could impede the
enemy. The houses within 700 _toises_ of the place were demolished,
and their materials employed in the fortifications; and the numerous
and valuable plantations of olive trees within the same distance
were cut down: there was reason to regret that this precaution had
not been carried farther. During the autumn the works had not been
prosecuted with vigour, because all men of a certain age were required
for military service, and those who might have been disposable for
such employment were busied in the vintage, or in gathering hemp.
Moreover volunteers did not offer themselves for this labour, while the
danger appeared remote; and when there were so many demands upon the
treasury, the expense of wages could ill be defrayed. It so happened
that no mischief resulted from this dangerous economy: after the battle
of Tudela there were hands enough at the General’s disposal; and the
French allowed time for completing all that had been intended, while
they were collecting means and materials for a siege, the difficulties
of which they had been taught how to estimate. The works were directed
by the Commander of the Engineers, Colonel San Genis; and what was
defective in them was imputable not to any want of science, but to
the difficulty of fortifying the whole circuit of a great city. The
Aljafaria, which had been the palace of the Moorish kings, then of the
kings of Aragon, and was now called the Castle of the Inquisition,
because it contained the prisons of that accursed tribunal, had been
converted into a fortress by Philip V., and was now repaired and
strengthened. It was a square, with four tower-bastions, surrounded by
a good ditch, and communicating with the city by a double caponiere.
From thence to the bridge over the Guerva the place was protected by a
long line of wall and batteries; two Capuchin convents which came into
the line were fortified, and served to flank it. A ditch was carried
from one of these to the bridge, and the bridge itself secured by a
_tête-de-pont_. A double retrenchment extended from thence to the
memorable Convent of St. Engracia, which was made a sort of citadel;
and from that Convent to the Ebro the old wall had been strengthened;
this part of the city being covered also by the bed of the Guerva, and
by the Convent of St. Joseph on the farther bank of that river, which
had been well fortified, and was the most salient point of the whole
circle, serving as a strong _tête-de-pont_ to protect the besieged when
they sallied in the direction of Valencia. The suburb beyond the Ebro
was defended by redoubts and fleches, with batteries and traverses at
the entrance of the streets. The artillery amounted to 160 pieces,
the greater part being four, eight, and twelve pounders: what pieces
there were of larger calibre had mostly been recovered from the canal
into which the French had thrown them on their retreat. Great part of
the cannon balls also were what the French had fired or left behind
them. To prevent all danger from the explosion of their magazines,
it was determined not to prepare a stock of gunpowder, but to make
it day by day as it should be wanted; and this could easily be done,
because Zaragoza was the place where all the saltpetre of Aragon was
refined. There was no want of musquets, either for the inhabitants or
the troops and peasantry with whom the city was crowded. The stores
contained corn, wine, brandy, oil, salt-fish, and pulse, sufficient for
six months’ ♦CAVALLERO, 74–80. ROGNIAT, 4–6.♦ consumption for 15,000
men; this ought to have been the amount of the garrison; but fatal
circumstances, and the more fatal error of supposing that the means of
defence would be in proportion to the number of the defenders, had ♦THE
CITY CROWDED WITH SOLDIERS.♦ doubled it. Palafox would have had the
central army, as well as his own troops, take refuge there after the
battle of Tudela. Castaños indeed led away the wreck of that army in
a different direction; but there were other persons in authority who,
not having the same foresight, thought the best means of succouring
Zaragoza was by increasing its garrison. The Central Junta fell into
this error, and ordered the Valencian government to send thither all
the force it could raise, which was not absolutely required for its own
safety. A Walloon battalion, which had served during the former siege,
was sent from Tarragona. A proclamation was issued from Zaragoza,
inviting the dispersed soldiers to repair thither, and fill up the
places of their brethren who had fallen in that holy cause, and were
already in glory, enjoying their reward. By these means not less than
30,000 regular troops were collected there; as many as 15,000 peasants
entered the city to share in the dangers and merit of its defence; and
the hospitals were ♦CAVALLERO, 82.♦ filled with the sick and wounded
from Tudela, who had all been removed hither as the place to which they
could most easily be conveyed.
♦PREPARATIONS WITHIN THE CITY.♦
Except in the great and fatal error of thus crowding the city with
men, the means of defence were wisely provided. That the enemy would
effect an entrance was not doubted; traverses therefore were made in
the streets which were near the wall, the doors and the windows of
the ground-floor were walled up, communications opened within from
house to house, and the house-tops parapeted to secure the defendants.
Every householder, providing for life as well as death, laid in ample
supplies. The convents were well stored. In the general fervour of
national feeling men were as liberal of their means as of their lives.
Nor was this feeling confined to those who could gratify it by taking
an active part in military service, and by the expectation or the
enjoyment of vengeance: among instances of a rarer heroism that of
a physician may be noticed, Miguel Guillen by name, who came from
Valencia, and, refusing all pay, devoted himself to the service of the
hospitals.
♦M. MONCEY RECONNOITRES THE TORRERO.♦
Marshal Moncey, on whom the odious service of besieging Zaragoza had
been imposed, fixed his head-quarters at Alagon, while he waited for
reinforcements, and preparations were making to commence it. At the
end of November he reconnoitred the Torrero, a point which it was
♦1808. DECEMBER.♦ necessary to occupy before he could begin the siege;
some warm skirmishes ensued, which tended to encourage the Spaniards,
because the enemy, when they had well examined the ground, returned
to Alagon. The importance of the Torrero seems not to have been duly
appreciated by the Zaragozans; they contented themselves with throwing
up some slight works there, faced with unburnt bricks. Moncey had with
him 17,000 men, and was joined by Mortier with 14,000 in the middle of
December. Meantime a battering train of sixty pieces was brought from
Pamplona; projectiles also were supplied from the same arsenal; the
country was compelled to furnish means of transport as far as Tudela,
and there they were embarked upon the canal. ♦THE FRENCH APPEAR BEFORE
THE CITY.♦ All being ready, they appeared before Zaragoza on the 20th.
Gazan’s division crossing the Ebro at Tauste marched to Zuera and Villa
Nueva; Suchet’s took a position upon the right bank of the river,
within a league of the city; and Moncey, following the right bank of
the canal, placed one of his divisions on the left of the ♦ROGNIAT, 3.♦
Guerva, opposite the great sluice, the two others on the right.
♦THEY TAKE THE TORRERO.♦
Buonaparte had declared that bombs and mines should bring Zaragoza to
reason; and in the spirit of that declaration had prepared the fullest
means for overpowering moral resistance by military force. Skilled as
he was in the art of war, he did not, like a Mahommedan conqueror,
reckon upon numbers for success: to have employed a larger army (even
if the Austrian war had not occurred) would have been wasting men here
who might be more serviceably employed in other quarters; there was the
difficulty of feeding them, and no danger could be apprehended from
any efforts which might be made to raise the siege; but the number of
engineers was unusually large, and the means of destruction were in
proportion. General Lacoste commanded this department; he was perfect
master of his profession, and having served with Buonaparte in Egypt,
had acquired at the siege of Cairo some knowledge of the kind of
difficulties with which he had now to contend. During the night the
enemy erected a battery which commanded the Torrero, and was opened
upon it at daybreak: a false attack was made upon that post in front,
where the canal covered it; meantime another brigade, which under cover
of the olive-yard of St. Joseph had got possession of an aqueduct the
preceding evening, passed the canal under that aqueduct, and moved
rapidly up the left bank with the intention of interposing between the
city and the point of attack. The Spaniards were thrown into confusion
by the explosion of an ammunition-cart; and the exertions of a very
able officer, and the example of a few steady corps, were not able
to restore order or confidence. But, considering the distance of the
Torrero from the city, they had expected to lose it, and prepared
accordingly; so that by blowing up the Puente de America they
prevented the cavalry from pursuit, and retreated in good order. The
officer who had drawn off his men from this position during the former
siege had been put to ♦SEE VOL. II. P. 12.♦ death with circumstances
of great cruelty. It ♦SEBASTIAN HERNANDEZ, 3–5.♦ was fortunate for San
Marc, the general of the Valencian troops, who now commanded there,
♦ROGNIAT, 6. CAVALLERO, 89.♦ that Palafox knew how to appreciate his
excellent talents and distinguished worth. For being a Frenchman, he
was peculiarly obnoxious to suspicion; and if he had fallen a victim to
popular jealousy, the Zaragozans would have lost the ablest military
man employed in their defence.
♦UNSUCCESSFUL ATTACK UPON THE SUBURBS.♦
Meantime Gazan’s division moved from Zuera and Villa Nueva, drove
back a corps of Swiss, who were posted on the road to Villa Mayor,
dislodged them with the loss of some 300 from the Torre del Arzobispo,
and attempted to enter the suburbs by a coup-de-main. This was in
conformity to Lacoste’s opinion. Its success would materially have
facilitated the progress of the besiegers, who might then have
established breaching batteries upon the left bank of the Ebro, and
opened a way into the city by demolishing the line of houses on the
quay. D. Josef Manso, of the royal guards, commanded on that side; and
after a severe action, repulsed the enemy: they renewed the attack with
their reserve, and the Spaniards gave way. Palafox, who saw from a
window what was passing, hurried across the bridge, cut down some of
the runaways, and by his voice and example changed the fate of the day.
Time had been gained for San Marc to arrive there with the troops who
had retired from the Torrero, ♦ROGNIAT, 7. CAVALLERO, 90, 1.♦ and the
enemy were repelled with a loss which they stated at 400 men, and the
Spaniards at 4000.
♦MONCEY SUMMONS PALAFOX TO SURRENDER.♦
On the following day Moncey, who had fixed his head-quarters at the
Torrero, addressed a letter to Palafox and the magistrates of Zaragoza,
warning them that the city was now besieged on all sides, and all
its communications cut off, and that he might now employ against it
every means of destruction which the laws of war allowed. Madrid, he
said, had capitulated, and thereby saved itself from the miseries
which a longer resistance must have drawn on. Zaragoza, however she
might confide in the courage of her inhabitants, could not possibly
succeed against the means which were now brought against her, and her
total destruction must be inevitable if she caused those means to be
employed. He called upon them to spare the effusion of blood, and
save so fine and so estimable a city, and to inspire the people with
peaceful sentiments, as the way to deserve their love and gratitude. On
his part, he promised them every thing compatible with his feelings,
his duty, and the power which the Emperor had given him. Marshal
Moncey was an upright and honourable man, unstained by any of the
revolutionary crimes; what his feelings were may therefore well be
supposed. Gladly would he have induced the Zaragozans to submit, that
he might have saved himself from the enormous guilt of destroying the
city and its inhabitants for resisting what he and every man in the
French army who acknowledged the difference between right and wrong,
felt in their hearts to be an insolent and iniquitous usurpation.
Palafox replied to the summons, and told him it was in vain to think
of appalling men by the horrors of a siege, who had endured one, and
who knew how to die. If Madrid had capitulated (which he could not
believe), it had been sold: and what then? Madrid was but a single
place, and there was no reason why Zaragoza should yield, when there
were 60,000 men determined to defend it. The Marshal had tried them
yesterday, and his troops had left at the gates witnesses enough of
that determination. It might be more fitting for him to assume a
lofty tone, and talk to the Marshal of capitulating, if he would not
lose his army before the town. The spirit of eleven million Spaniards
♦CAVALLERO, 92. SEBASTIAN HERNANDEZ, 6, 7.♦ was not to be extinguished
by oppression; and they who had resolved to be free, were so. As
for the blood which Marshal Moncey was desirous of sparing, it was
as glorious for the Spaniards to lose it in such a cause, as it was
ignominious for the French to be the instruments of shedding it.
♦THE INVESTMENT OF THE CITY COMPLETED.♦
During that and the ensuing day General Gazan completed the investment
of the suburb. One of his brigades extended on the right of the Zuera
road, the other on the left, with two battalions at the bridge over the
Galego on the road to Valencia. The swampy nature of the ground, upon
which the inhabitants relied in some degree for their protection on
that side, was favourable to the besiegers also, for it enabled them to
form inundations along the greater part of their line, which secured
them against any sorties. On the right bank Suchet’s division, forming
the left of the besieging army, extended from the Ebro to the valley
of the Huerba; that valley was occupied by Morlot’s; Meusnier’s was
encamped on the heights of the ♦ROGNIAT, 7.♦ Torrero; and Grandjean’s
extended from thence to the Ebro on the other end of the bow, where a
bridge of boats was laid, to establish their communication with the
troops on the side of the suburb. It was determined to make three
attacks; one upon the Castle of the Inquisition, with the view of
employing the garrison on that side, which was their strongest part;
one upon the bridge over the Huerba, where the name of that Pillar
which was regarded as the palladium of the city had been given to
the redoubt; and the third upon S. Joseph’s: this was the immediate
object of the enemy; they deemed it the weakest point, and thought to
connect their attack against it with an attempt upon the suburb, where
Lacoste still hoped that the French might establish themselves. The
weather was peculiarly favourable to their operations, being at once
mild and dry; the nights were long and dark, and every morning a thick
fog effectually covered them from the fire of the besieged, who could
never see where to point their guns till it ♦CAVALLERO, 95.♦ was near
mid-day. Meantime they were not idle; a line of counter-approaches was
commenced which compelled the enemy to prolong their works, lest they
should be enfiladed; sallies were made from S. Joseph’s to interrupt
them, and to cut down the olive-trees and destroy the buildings which
afforded them cover; and on the last day of the year the Spaniards made
a general attempt along the whole line. ♦CAVALLERO, 94. ROGNIAT, 9.♦
It was every where repulsed; but Palafox, who knew of what importance
it was to excite a spirit of emulation in the troops, ordered those
who had distinguished themselves by some partial success to wear a red
riband as a badge of honour on the breast. He addressed a proclamation
♦PROCLAMATION OF PALAFOX TO THE PEOPLE OF MADRID.♦ also to the people
of Madrid. The dogs by whom he was beset, he said, scarcely left him
time to clean his sword from their blood, but they still found their
grave at Zaragoza. The defenders of that city might be destroyed, but
compelled to surrender they could not be: and he promised that, so soon
as he was at liberty, he would hasten to the deliverance of Madrid. All
Palafox’s proclamations were in the same spirit; his language had the
high tone, and something of the inflation of Spanish romance, suiting
the character of those to whom it was directed.
♦1809. JANUARY.
JUNOT TAKES THE COMMAND OF THE FRENCH.♦
At the beginning of the year Mortier received orders to move upon
Calatayud with Suchet’s division. It was thought that they would be
more serviceably employed in keeping that part of Aragon in awe,
than in forwarding the operations of the siege. The position which
they left was filled up by extending Morlot’s division, and securing
its front by three redoubts. Moncey and Mortier, holding independent
commands, appear to have been mutually jealous of each other; and
Gazan, conceiving that his orders required him only to cover the siege,
refused to make any farther attempt upon the suburb, after the severe
repulse which he had sustained, strongly as the commandant of the
engineers advised a second attack. The arrival of Junot to take the
command did not put an end to this disunion: there were indeed plain
indications, that if Buonaparte had died at this time, his generals,
like Alexander’s, would have made some atonement to mankind by taking
vengeance upon each other. The works, however, went on, under a heavy
fire; and on the 10th eight batteries were opened against St. Joseph
and the redoubt of the Pillar. Colonel Mariano de Renovales commanded
the former post, a man who made himself conspicuous throughout the
whole course of the war by his activity and enterprising courage. An
old brick convent, ♦ST. JOSEPH’S AND THE REDOUBT OF THE PILLAR TAKEN.♦
and works faced with unburnt bricks, were soon demolished; and in the
night it was found necessary to remove the heavy artillery into the
town, as it could no longer be used. A brave sally was made at midnight
against one of the batteries; but the adventurers were taken in flank
by two guns placed at the right of the second parallel, and being
exposed to a murderous fire in front, retreated with considerable loss.
The next day, the convent being in ruins, and the breach practicable,
an assault was made in the evening; at the same time a party of the
enemy, turning the convent, effected an entrance by a bridge which
the besieged had neglected to remove, and obtained possession of the
ruins. The French employed three days in repairing the works and
connecting them with their second parallel. It had been an easy but an
important conquest; for they were now secured against the garrison on
that side by the river, and by an escarp eight feet high. On the 15th
they attacked the redoubt ... it was defended by the second regiment
of Aragonese volunteers, and it was not till the works were reduced to
ruins, and the flower of that regiment ♦ROGNIAT, 11, 14. CAVALLERO,
96.♦ had perished, that the survivors retreated into the city, and blew
up the bridge. A second parallel was then opened against the town,
which had now no longer any defence on this side but its feeble wall
and the houses themselves.
♦RUMOURS OF SUCCESS, AND REJOICINGS IN THE CITY.♦
Meantime a tremendous bombardment was kept up upon this devoted city.
The enthusiasm of the inhabitants was not abated by the loss of their
outworks: from the beginning they knew that this contest must come to
the knife’s point, and the event of the former siege made them look
with full hope for a similar deliverance. They were encouraged also by
false rumours which arrived announcing a victory over Buonaparte by
the combined armies of Romana and Sir John Moore. Palafox immediately
announced it in an extraordinary gazette; it was just as night closed;
the people crowded into the streets and squares, the bands of all
the regiments were collected, bells were rung, salutes fired, and
the multitude with shouts and acclamations of joy went in tumultuous
procession to the Church of the Pillar, to return thanksgiving, and
join in the hymn of _Salve Regina_. The besiegers heard the music and
the uproar, and ascribed to the artifices of Palafox and the other
leaders what was in fact the genuine impulse ♦ROGNIAT, 15. SEB.
HERNANDEZ, 13.♦ of public feeling. By good fortune the bombardment was
suspended at the time, but in the course of the night more than six
hundred shells were thrown into the city.
♦AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE APPEARS IN THE CITY.♦
The worst evil arising from the bombardment was one which had not been
anticipated from that cause, and against which, had it been foreseen,
it would hardly have been possible to provide. A great number of the
inhabitants retired into cellars, the women especially retreated there
with their children, for security from the shells. In these long low
vaults, where wine and oil had formerly been kept, they were crowded
together day and night, where it was necessary to burn lamps during
the day, and where fresh air entered as scantily as daylight. Such
places soon became hot-beds of infection, and other causes contributed
to extend the calamity. On the first day of the siege, when the attack
was made upon the suburbs, part of the troops, exhausted by the
previous exertions, were under arms for some hours in the Cozo, exposed
first to a heavy snow, and then to a severe frost: this produced a
catarrh, which proved infectious, and was soon followed by all the
dreadful symptoms of camp contagion. The number of soldiers and of
countrymen would at any time have crowded the city, but more especially
now, when the inhabitants of all those houses which were prepared
and blockaded for street warfare were compelled to seek quarters in
the inner parts of the town. The Murcian and Valencian troops came
from a country where great part of their food consisted in fresh or
preserved fruits; the mere change of diet from such aliment to garrison
stores was sufficient to produce disease. They had also been used to
drink well water: change of water is a cause of illness as frequent
as it is unsuspected; and that of the Ebro, though it is preferred
by the Aragonese to any other, is thought unwholesome for those who
are not accustomed to it. To these causes must be added scantiness of
food (an evil consequent upon the fatal error of crowding the place
with men), unusual exertions, and the impossibility of recruiting
exhausted strength by needful sleep in a city which was now bombarded
without intermission; and among that part of the population who were
not immediately engaged in the defence, fear, anxiety, and perpetual
agitation of mind, predisposing the body for endemic disease.
♦ATTEMPTS OF LAZAN AND FRANCISCO PALAFOX TO SUCCOUR THE CITY.♦
Every rumour of success, however preposterous in its circumstances,
and incredible in itself, was readily believed by the Zaragozans; they
were too ill-informed to judge of probabilities, or to understand the
real condition of their country; but this they knew, that if in other
parts the Spaniards did their duty as devoutly as they themselves were
discharging it, the deliverance of Zaragoza and the triumph of Spain
were certain. They were always in hope that some vigorous effort would
be made for their relief; and, to accelerate this, D. Francisco Palafox
left the city, embarked at night in a little boat, and descending the
Ebro and getting to Alcañiz, began to organize the peasantry, who lost
no opportunity of harassing the enemy’s communications. His situation,
like that of the Marquez de Lazan, was truly pitiable; not only their
brother, but their wives and families, were in Zaragoza, ... to them
more than to any other individuals the inhabitants looked for succour,
from the same hereditary feeling which had made them at the beginning
of their troubles turn as it were naturally to the house of Palafox
for a leader. But both were ordinary men, unequal to the emergency in
every thing except in good-will. General Doyle was in Catalonia; he
had passed through Zaragoza on his way to that province, had commanded
the Spanish cavalry in a spirited and successful affair at Olite a
few days before the battle of Tudela, and as a complimentary memorial
of that service, Palafox had formed a legion, and named it after him.
From him also, as an Englishman, the Zaragozans expected aid, and if
zeal and activity could have supplied the place of adequate means,
their expectations would not have been disappointed. He had been
indefatigable in his exertions for storing the city before the French
encamped around it: he succeeded by repeated representations to the
local and provincial Juntas in making them put Mequinenza in a state of
defence, ... an old town with a castle which commanded the navigation
of the Ebro, about half way between Zaragoza and its mouth; and he
was now endeavouring to make Reding attempt something in aid of the
besieged city.
♦CONDITION OF THE ARMY IN CATALONIA.♦
St. Cyr had not known how to improve a victory so well as the Spaniards
did how to remedy a defeat. As soon as the fugitives from Molins de Rey
brought the first tidings of their rout to Tarragona, the populace,
supposing themselves to be betrayed, rose tumultuously, and took the
power into their own hands. They blocked up the gates, unpaved the
streets, and removed the stones to the windows and varandas, that
they might be ready for a civic defence. They got possession of the
arsenal, and distributed the arms and ammunition; they moved the
artillery from one place to another, at the will of any one who fancied
himself qualified to give orders; and they called out for the head of
Vives, as the traitor who had been the cause of all their misfortunes.
In this imminent danger Vives made a formal resignation of the ♦REDING
TAKES THE COMMAND.♦ command, and Reding, upon whom it devolved, was
enabled to save his life by letting him be put in confinement. The
superior Junta, apprehensive alike of the populace and of a siege or
an immediate assault, got out of the city as soon as they could (for
the people had forbidden any person to leave it), and fixed themselves
at Tortosa, leaving, however, two of their members to represent them
in the Junta of that district. If while this insubordination prevailed
the French had attempted to carry the place by a coup-de-main, they
might probably have succeeded; but St. Cyr was not so well acquainted
with the inability of the Spaniards as with the difficulties of his own
position. A few days after the battle a strong detachment of French
appeared before the city; the generale was beaten, the somaten was
sounded from the Cathedral, one of the forts fired, and the place was
in the utmost confusion, when a flag of truce arrived, with a request
that an aid-de-camp of M. St. Cyr might be allowed to confer with
General Vives. Reding, to whom the letter was delivered, suspected
that the real intent must be to discover the state of the place;
he communicated it to the Junta, and two of their members, with two
officers, were sent out to know the purport of the mission. It was
not without difficulty that these persons could get out of the gate,
so fearful were the people of being betrayed; the general opinion
was, that the French had sent to summon the town, and the universal
cry was, that they would not capitulate, they would listen to no such
proposals, they would die for their king, their religion, and their
country. It proved, however, that the aid-de-camp came only to propose
an exchange of prisoners. The impolicy of agreeing to this was obvious;
but Reding knew how ill the prisoners on both sides were treated, and
thought it due to humanity to exchange them. The advantage was wholly
on the enemy’s side; they received disciplined soldiers, who had now
been many months in the country, and had had opportunities since their
capture of observing the state of the Spaniards, and even learning
their intentions, for every thing like secrecy seemed to be despised;
and they gave in return ♦CABAÑES, P. III. C. 13.♦ only men of the new
levies, not exchanging a single dragoon or artilleryman, nor one of the
Swiss troops.
♦THE ARMY RE-FORMED IN TARRAGONA.♦
Reding was fully sensible how injurious it was that the enemy should
thus be enabled to fill up their ranks; he suffered it, however, for
the sake of mitigating the evils of a war in which he considered
success absolutely hopeless. From the same hopelessness he committed
the greater error of suffering himself to be surrounded by persons,
some of whom were suspected by the superior Junta, and others by
himself: but with this there was a generous feeling mingled; he would
not, because they were unpopular, cease to employ men of whom he had
a good opinion, nor would he upon a strong suspicion of guilt dismiss
others as if they were guilty. His despondency was rooted in the
constitution of his mind, but it did not make him omit any efforts
for enabling the army again to take the field; and it was one happy
part of the Spanish character, that no defeat, however complete and
disgraceful, produced any effect in dispiriting the nation. The very
men who, taking panic in battle, threw down their arms and fled,
believed they had done their country good service by saving themselves
for an opportunity of better fortune; and as soon as they found
themselves in safety, were ready to be enrolled and take their chance
again. Such of the runaways as had reached the Ebro, when they could
get no farther, turned back, and came in troops to Tarragona. They came
in pitiable condition, and without arms: ... Reding knew not where to
look but to the English for money and muskets, and a failure of powder
also was apprehended, the materials having hitherto been supplied from
Zaragoza. It would have been madness to have attempted punishing any
of these fugitives; the better mode of impressing upon them a sense
of military duty was to let them see that their superiors could not
behave ill with impunity: Reding therefore degraded one colonel and
several inferior officers for their conduct at Molins de Rey, and made
them serve in the ranks; but by posting them in advanced parties gave
them an opportunity of retrieving their character and their rank. The
government never acted with so much energy as when it was refitting an
army after a defeat: its efforts were then such as the danger required.
Two regiments arrived from Granada, a Swiss one from Majorca; supplies
were sent from Valencia; men came in from all quarters as the hopes of
the people rose, and by the middle of January the force in Tarragona
was not inferior to that which had been so shamefully dispersed at
Granollers. The men recovered heart, and acquired confidence from
frequent success in the desultory warfare wherein Reding practised
them. But he himself continued[3] to despond; ♦CABAÑES, P. III. C. 13.♦
and, in sad anticipation of defeat, deferred acting, when activity and
enterprise might have found or made opportunities for success.
♦CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH UNDER ST. CYR.♦
It was their victories which made the French most sensible of the
difference between this and the other wars wherein they had been
engaged; ... the spoils of the field were the only fruits of success.
These indeed had been of signal consequence in Catalonia; they had
enabled St. Cyr to relieve Barcelona, to refit his troops, and to
strengthen himself with a park of field-pieces. He had profited by
the first panic to dislodge the Spaniards from the pass of Bruch,
which they had twice so gloriously defended; his troops had entered
Igualada after the success, and the dangerous impression which his
ostentation of justice and his observance of the humanities of war were
likely to produce upon the wealthier classes, was seen by the conduct
of the inhabitants, who seemed to think it a matter of indifference
whether their houses were occupied by the national troops or by the
French. But the system upon which Buonaparte carried on this wicked
war rendered it impossible for any general to persist in a course
of honourable conduct. The army which he had ordered into Catalonia
was left to provide for itself, in a province which had now been
many months the seat of war, and which never even in peace produced
half its own consumption of corn. It had also to store the places
of Rosas, Figueras, and Barcelona; for no attempt was made to bring
provisions from France by land ... (the pass indeed between Bellegarde
and Figueras was so dangerous to the French, that they called it the
Straits of Gibraltar); and it was seldom that a vessel could escape
the vigilance of the British cruisers. Eleven victuallers intended for
Barcelona were lying in the port of Caldaques under convoy of a cutter
and a lugger, when Lord Cochrane landed his men, drove the French
from the town, took their batteries, and captured the whole. St. Cyr,
however humane by nature, however honourable by principle, was engaged
in a service with which humanity and honour were incompatible: he could
support his army by no other means than by plundering the inhabitants,
and the Catalans were not a people who would endure patiently to be
plundered. The difficulty was increased by the Moorish custom still
retained in that part of Spain of preserving corn, not in barns or
granaries, but in mattamores. In the towns these subterranean magazines
were emptied before the French could enter; in the country they were
so easily concealed, that, after long and wearying search, it was a
rare fortune to discover one. And the Miquelets and Somatenes were
so constantly on the alert, that frequently when the marauders had
seized their booty they were deprived of it. In this sort of warfare
their loss was generally greater than that of the natives, who on such
occasions had them at vantage. How considerable ♦ST. CYR, 92–99.♦ it
must have been may be in some degree estimated from the fact, that in
the course of seven weeks St. Cyr’s foraging parties fired away not
less than two million cartridges.
♦ORDERS TO ATTEMPT THE RELIEF OF ZARAGOZA.♦
But plainly as it would have been the policy of the Spaniards to
confine themselves to the slow and sure method of weeding out their
invaders, till they could bring their regular troops into a fit state
for taking the field, the pressing danger of Zaragoza called for
immediate efforts. Francisco Palafox, looking every where for that aid
which was nowhere to be found, had gone to Cuenca, and proposing that
Infantado should march the central army to his brother’s relief, had
been present at a council where the proposal was discussed, and had
seen with his own eyes how utterly incapable that army was of engaging
in such an attempt, or even of attempting ♦INFANTADO, MANIFIESTO,
87.♦ such a march. Orders to undertake something for its relief had
been dispatched from the Central Junta to the provinces of Valencia
and Catalonia. The Valencians were offended with Palafox for having
detained General St. Marc with a division of their army; no man
contributed more by his military talents to the defence of the city
than that general, but he and his men were now cooped up to die of
pestilence, when they might have effectually served the Zaragozans in
the field. Want of will therefore made the Valencians take only half
measures, and these so tardily as to be of no avail. Neither did Reding
manifest the feeling which he ought to have partaken upon this subject,
partly because the sense of his own difficulties possessed him, and
partly perhaps from a personal dislike to the Palafox family. One
natural consequence of thus delaying succour in quarters where there
was most ability was to produce premature and rash attempts on the
part of those who felt more generously. Palafox ♦TARDINESS IN OBEYING
THEM.♦ had written to say, that as long as provisions lasted, and there
were ruins to shelter them, Zaragoza would not surrender. The place
chosen for a depot was Mequinenza, and there, chiefly by the exertions
of General Doyle, stores in considerable quantity were collected; but
impatient of waiting, when time was so precious, till a well-concerted
attempt to introduce supplies could be made, a Colonel who had ♦DEFEAT
OF THE PEASANTRY.♦ several thousand peasants under his command moved
to Belchite, within five leagues of Zaragoza, with a convoy under
protection of this force, which was as unmanageable in a body, as it
might have been efficient in its proper mode of warfare. The enemy, at
the beginning of the siege, had stationed General Vathier at Fuentes
with 600 cavalry and 1200 foot to command the country and collect
provisions. This movement of the peasants was too near him to be
concealed; he fell upon them, routed them with some slaughter, and got
possession of all their stores. ♦ALCAÑIZ OCCUPIED BY THE FRENCH.♦ The
pursuit led him as far as Ixar, and from thence he proceeded against
Alcañiz. The peasantry whom Francisco Palafox had collected there drew
up on the heights before the town, and withstood the attack with more
firmness ♦ROGNIAT, 17.♦ than might have been expected from such a
force; but they were not equal to contend with disciplined troops; and
Vathier occupied the towns of Alcañiz and Cuspe as long as the siege
endured.
♦MOVEMENT IN NAVARRE AND ARAGON.♦
These misfortunes did not discourage the Spaniards, and the movements
of the inhabitants both in Navarre and Aragon were formidable enough
to excite some uneasiness in the besiegers. While the Navarrese bands
interrupted their communication with Pamplona, the mountaineers of
Soria threatened Tudela, and those of the Sierra de Muela endangered
their hospitals and establishments at Alagon Lazan, meantime, with
his brother Francisco, occupied the country from Villa Franca de Ebro
to Licineña and Zuera, and sending detachments as far as Capavrosa
to intercept the enemy’s convoys, straitened Gazan’s division in
their camp. More than once the French were without meat, and upon
half rations of bread; and they might have been foiled a second time
before Zaragoza, more shamefully than the first, if the heroism of the
inhabitants had been in any degree seconded from without, and if the
want of capacity in the Spanish leaders had not been as glaring as
the want of order in the field and of reason in their councils. The
besiegers had felt some ill effects from the latter cause; but an end
was put to jarring pretensions and contrarient views when ♦M. LASNES
TAKES THE COMMAND.♦ Marshal Lasnes arrived on the 22d of January to
take the command. He had previously ordered Mortier to leave Calatayud,
and act with Suchet’s division on the left of the Ebro; having
dispersed the force which Francisco Palafox had collected there, they
took possession of Zuera, and scouring the country as far as Pina,
Sarineña, ♦ROGNIAT, 18, 20.♦ and Huesca, secured the besiegers from
interruption on that side. The French Marshal hoped that this might
abate the spirit of the Zaragozans as much as it had cheered them ♦HE
SUMMONS PALAFOX TO SURRENDER. JAN. 25.♦ when they saw the force of
their countrymen upon the surrounding heights; and he addressed a
letter to Palafox, telling him that the force upon which he had relied
for relief had been destroyed, that the English had fled to Coruña and
embarked there, leaving 7000 prisoners, and that Romana had escaped
with them, his army with their officers having yielded to the Emperor:
that Infantado had been defeated at Ucles with the loss of 18,000 men;
and that if after this true statement he persisted in withstanding a
force more than sufficient for effecting its purpose, the destruction
of the city and of its inhabitants must rest upon his head. Palafox
♦CAVALLERO, 107. SEB. HERMANDEZ, 14, 15.♦ replied, that M. Lasnes
would cover himself with glory if he were to win the city by force of
manly courage with the sword, and not by bombarding it; but that the
Zaragozans knew their duty, and would not surrender.
♦THE FRENCH ENTER THE CITY, BUT WITH GREAT LOSS.
JAN. 26.♦
All the outworks had now been taken except the Castle of the
Inquisition, which had never been seriously attacked, because its
possession was of no importance to the enemy. The batteries against
the city itself were completed, and on the day after the summons fifty
pieces opened their fire upon the wall, and on the morrow three
practicable breaches were made. One was by an oil-mill, a building
standing alone, without the walls, and close to them; the enemy had
established themselves in it during the night. The second was to the
left of this, immediately opposite S. Joseph’s; the third in the
monastery of S. Engracia. All these were attacked. A column issuing
from the oil-mill presently reached the first, and the explosion of
two fougades at the foot of the breach scarcely appeared to impede
their progress. But they found an inner intrenchment, well constructed
and mounted with two guns; and when they attempted to carry this the
bell of the Torre Nueva rang, the inhabitants manned the adjacent
houses, and a fire was opened from roofs and windows which it was
neither possible to return nor to withstand. Profiting, however, by
the cover which the exploded fougades afforded them, they succeeded
in lodging themselves upon the breach. On the left they were more
successful; after gaining the ramparts, they made their way into the
opposite house, which the artillery had breached, and into the two
adjoining ones; their progress was then stopped, but they established
themselves within the walls, and repaired and lengthened for their own
use a double caponier, by which the besieged used to communicate with
S. Joseph’s. The attack upon the third breach was more formidable.
After a severe struggle the enemy entered the convent of S. Engracia,
obtained possession of its ruins and of the nunnery of S. Joseph, which
stood near, and of which little more than the mere shell was remaining.
Piercing the walls of this, they enfiladed the curtain from S. Engracia
to the bridge of the Huerba, and taking the _tête-de-pont_ in reverse,
became masters of the bridge, over which fresh troops joined them to
follow up their success. They pushed on to the Capuchin convent of La
Trinidad, which made part of the line; forty artillerymen, who were
stationed there without support, as a place not in danger of attack,
were cut to pieces at their guns, and the convent was taken. It was
recovered by the Spaniards; but two battalions came to support the
assailants, who took it a second time, and maintained their conquest,
though at a dear price. The greater part of the French who occupied
the curtain fell under the fire from the houses. They suffered also
considerably in a vain attempt to possess themselves of a single house
which defended an imperfect breach to the right of all their other
attacks. Their whole loss was stated by themselves at 600, that of
the besiegers at eight. The Spaniards, with better reason, believed
that a much greater proportion of the enemy had fallen; and the French
had in fact received so severe a lesson, that they determined not to
♦ROGNIAT, 22, 26. CAVALLERO, 102–105.♦ risk any more direct attacks,
but proceed always as much as possible under cover: there was danger
otherwise that the troops would become impatient of so fatal a
service, and even that all their efforts might be unavailing.
♦THE ENEMY ESTABLISH THEMSELVES IN THE TRINIDAD CONVENT.♦
As it was now no longer necessary to carry on the false attack upon
the Aljafaria, the engineers were called from thence to fortify the
Trinidad convent, and establish a communication with it and with a
house by the bridge; commanding in this manner the whole intermediate
space. During the night the Spaniards endeavoured to recover the
ruins of S. Engracia and the adjoining houses, but without success.
They attempted twice also to regain the Trinidad, and once succeeded
so far as to force open the church door: the enemy had formed an
epaulement within of bags of earth, and fought to advantage behind that
protection. A friar was at the head of the assailants, with a sword
in one hand and the crucifix in the other; one of his brethren was
killed in the act of administering extreme unction to a Spaniard who
was mortally wounded; another took the holy oil from the slain, and
continued to perform the same office to his dying countrymen. Women
also mingled with the combatants, distributing cartridges to them, and
bearing refreshments to their sons, ♦ROGNIAT, 25, 28. CAVALLERO, 105.♦
their husbands, and fathers, and sometimes rushing upon the enemy when
these dear relatives fell, to revenge their deaths, and to die with
them.
♦CONVENTS OF S. AUGUSTIN AND S. MONICA WON.♦
The French had in vain attempted to get possession of the convents
of S. Augustin and ♦FEB. 1.♦ S. Monica. Having been repelled in
assaulting ♦1809. FEBRUARY.♦ the breaches, they sprung a mine under
the partition wall, and by that means effected an entrance, turning all
the works which the Spaniards had constructed for their defence. They
forced their way into the church. Every column, every chapel, every
altar, became a point of defence, which was repeatedly attacked, taken,
and retaken, and attacked again; the pavement was covered with blood,
and the aisles and nave of the church strewed with the dead, who were
trampled under foot by the combatants. In the midst of this conflict
the roof, which had been shattered by bombs, fell in; the few who were
not crushed, after a short pause which this tremendous shock and the
sense of their own escape occasioned, renewed the fight with increased
desperation: fresh parties of the enemy poured in: monks, and citizens,
and soldiers came to the defence, and the contest was continued upon
the ruins and the bodies of the dead and the dying. It ended in favour
of the invaders, who succeeded in keeping the disputed position. Taking
advantage of the opportunity afforded while the attention of the
Spaniards was directed to this point, they entered the Rua Quemada,
where no attack was at that time apprehended, and got possession of one
side of the street to the angle which it makes with the Cozo: their
sappers were beginning to pierce the walls of the houses, barricade
the doors and windows, and establish traverses in the street, when the
Zaragozans charged them with redoubled spirit, drove them out with
considerable loss, and recovered four houses which had been taken on a
preceding day. At the same time an attack was made on the side of S.
Engracia, when, after exploding two mines, the Poles got possession of
some ruined houses; but in obtaining this success, General Lacoste, the
♦ROGNIAT, 27, 30. CAVALLERO, 106.♦ French commandant of engineers, was
killed. His opponent, Colonel San Genis, had fallen the preceding day:
he was succeeded by Colonel Zappino, Lacoste by Colonel Rogniat.
♦THE ENEMY PROCEED BY MINING.♦
Now that the city was open to the invaders, the contest was to be
carried on once more in the streets and houses. But the French had
been taught by experience that in such domestic warfare the Zaragozans
derived a superiority from the feeling and principle which inspired
them, and the cause wherein they were engaged. They had learned that
the only means of conquering it was to destroy it house by house, and
street by street; and upon this system of destruction they proceeded.
Three companies of miners and eight of sappers carried on this
subterranean war. The Spaniards had officers who could have opposed
them with not inferior skill; but men were wanting, and the art of
sapping and mining is not one which can be learned on the spot where it
is wanted; their attempts therefore were frequently discovered, and the
men suffocated in their own works. Nor indeed had they been more expert
could powder have been supplied for their consumption. The stock with
which the Zaragozans began had been exhausted; they had none but what
they manufactured day by day, and no other cannon-balls than those
which had been fired against them, and which they collected and fired
back upon the enemy.
♦PROGRESS OF THE PESTILENCE.♦
The Zaragozans expected miracles for their deliverance; and they
exerted themselves so excellently well, that the French, with all their
advantages, would have found themselves unequal to the enterprise in
which they were engaged, and other armies must have been brought up to
supply more thousands for the slaughter, if the defenders had not been
suffering under an evil which in their circumstances it was equally
impossible to prevent or to alleviate. The consequences of that evil,
when it had once appeared, were but too surely to be apprehended; and
in bitter anticipation, yet while a hope ♦MIRALLES, ELOGIO DE ZARAGOZA,
P. 42.♦ remained, an Aragoneze exclaimed, Zaragoza surrenders not, if
God is neutral! If the seasons had only held their ordinary course,
this heroic people might a second time have delivered themselves. In
that part of Spain January is commonly a wet month. Had the rains
fallen as usual, the enemy would hardly have been able to complete
their approaches; had the weather, on the contrary, been severe, it
might have stopped the contagion, and then the city would have had
hands as well as hearts for its defence. But the season proved at once
dry enough for the ground to be in the most favourable state for the
besiegers’ operations, and mild enough to increase the progress of
the disease, which was now more destructive than the enemy, though no
enemy ever employed the ♦CAVALLERO, 71.♦ means of destruction with less
remorse. When once the pestilence had begun it was impossible to check
its progress, or confine it to one quarter of the city. It was not long
before more than thirty hospitals were established; ... as soon as one
was destroyed by the bombardment the patients were removed to some
other building which was in a state to afford them temporary shelter,
and thus the infection was carried to every part of Zaragoza. The
average of daily deaths from this cause was at this time not less than
three hundred and fifty; men stretched upon straw, in helpless misery
lay breathing their last, and with their dying breath spreading the
mortal taint of their own disease, who, if they had fallen in action,
would have died with the exultation of martyrs. Their sole comfort was
the sense of having performed their duty religiously to the uttermost
... all other alleviations were wanting; neither medicines nor
necessary food were to be procured, nor needful attendance ... for the
ministers of charity themselves became victims of the disease. All that
the most compassionate had now to bestow was a little water in which
rice had been boiled, and a winding-sheet. The nuns, driven from their
convents, knew not where to take refuge, nor where to find shelter for
their dying sisters. The Church of the Pillar was crowded with poor
creatures, who, despairing of life, hoped now for nothing more than to
die in the presence of the tutelary saint. The clergy were employed
night and day in administering the sacraments to the dying, till they
themselves sunk under the common calamity. The slightest wound produced
gangrene and death in bodies so prepared for dissolution by distress
of mind, agitation, want of proper aliment and of sleep. For there was
now no respite neither by day nor night for this devoted city; even
the natural order of light and darkness was destroyed in Zaragoza: by
day it was involved in a red sulphureous atmosphere of smoke and dust,
which hid the face of heaven; by night the fire of cannon and mortars,
and the flames of burning houses, kept it in a state of horrible
illumination. The cemeteries could no longer afford room for the dead;
huge pits were dug to receive them in the streets and in the courts
of the public buildings, till hands were wanting for the labour; they
were laid before the churches, ♦SEBASTIAN HERNANDEZ, P. 17. CAVALLERO,
P. 108.♦ heaped upon one another, and covered with sheets; and that
no spectacle of horror might be wanting, it happened not unfrequently
that these piles of mortality were struck by a shell, and the shattered
bodies scattered in all directions.
♦FIRST TALK OF SURRENDER IN THE CITY.♦
On the 1st of February the situation of the city appeared so desperate,
that persons of approved and unquestionable patriotism came to the
Regent of the Royal Audience of Aragon, D. Pedro Maria Ric, and
besought him to represent to Palafox the necessity of capitulating; but
Ric, with a spirit like that of Palafox himself, could not submit to
this while there was any possibility of prolonging the defence. He knew
that of all examples there is none which makes so sure and so powerful
an impression as that of heroic suffering; and that if Zaragoza were
defended to the last gasp, the influence of its fall under such
circumstances would be not less honourable and hardly less salutary
than a happier termination. Nor indeed would the people have consented
to a surrender; their spirit was unsubdued, and the principle which
supported it retained all its force. The worst effect of their sense
of increasing danger was, that it increased their suspicions, always
too easily excited; and ♦D. P. M. RIC, SEMANARIO PATRIOTICO, NO. 28,
P. 214. CAVALLERO, P. 110.♦ to those suspicions several persons were
sacrificed, being with or without proof hung during the night in the
Cozo and in the market-place. The character indeed of the struggle was
such as to excite the most implacable indignation and hatred against
an enemy, who having begun the war with such unexampled treachery,
prosecuted it with a ferocity equally unexampled in later ages.
♦THE CONTEST CARRIED ON BY FIRE.♦
Four days the French were employed in forming three galleries to cross
the Rua Quemada. They failed in two; the third opened into the cellar
of an undefended house; thence they made way along great part of the
street from house to house, and crossing another street by means of
a double epaulement of bags of earth, established themselves in the
ruins of a house which formed an angle of the Cozo and of the Rua del
Medio, Their next object was to get possession of the Escuelas Pias, a
building which commanded some traverses made for defending the Cozo.
The French often attacked it, and were as often repulsed; they then
attempted the adjoining houses. The system of blowing up the houses
exposed them to an evil which had not been foreseen, for when they
attempted to establish themselves upon the ruins, the Spaniards from
the dwellings near fired upon them with sure effect. They endeavoured
therefore so to proportion the charge in their mines as to breach the
house without destroying it; but to deprive them of the cover which
they would thus have obtained, the Zaragozans with characteristic
desperation set fire now to every house before they abandoned it. They
began this mode of defence here, maintaining the entrance till they
had prepared the building for burning; for so little wood was used in
the construction, that it was necessary to smear the floors and beams
with melted resin, to make them more combustible. When all was ready
they then set fire to the place, and retired into the Escuelas Pias,
interposing thus a barrier of flames between them and the assailants.
The enemy endeavoured in vain to extinguish the fire under a shower
of balls; and the time thus gained was employed by the Zaragozans in
forming new works of defence. Unable to win the Schools by any other
means, the enemy at length prepared a mine, which was discovered too
late ♦ROGNIAT, 30, 1. CAVALLERO, 121. FEB. 7.♦ for the Spaniards
to frustrate their purpose, but in time to disappoint them of their
expected advantage by setting fire to the disputed edifice.
♦CONVENT OF JESUS TAKEN IN THE SUBURBS.♦
On the same day operations were renewed against the suburbs, where
the enemy, at the commencement of the siege, had received so severe
a repulse. General Gazan, availing himself of an ambiguity in his
orders, had, after that lesson, contented himself with keeping up the
blockade; nor could any representation induce him to engage in more
active operations, till M. Lasnes arrived with authority to enforce his
orders. The Convent of Jesus, situated on the road to Barcelona, formed
part of the defence on that side; the engineers, not having time to
rase it, deeming it better that it should be occupied than abandoned
for the enemy. Trenches were now opened against this building, and
twenty battering pieces soon effected a breach, which was carried
almost as easily as it had been made; but when the enemy, flushed with
success, entered the suburbs in pursuit of the retreating garrison,
they were driven out with great slaughter, as on their former attempt.
♦ROGNIAT, 34, 35.♦ They entrenched themselves, however, on the ruins of
the convent, established a communication with it, and lodgements on the
right and left.
The attack in the centre was pursued with the same vigour, and
resisted with the same desperate determination. Every door, every
staircase, every chamber was disputed; the ♦S. FRANCISCO TAKEN.♦
French abandoned all attacks to the left for the sake of concentrating
their efforts here, that they might the sooner reach the Cozo, extend
themselves along it to the right as far as the quay, and thus connect
their operations with those of Gazan on the other side the Ebro: and
these increased efforts were met with proportionate exertions by the
Zaragozans. Grenades were thrown from one floor to another, and bombs
were rolled among the enemy, when they were so near that the Spaniards
who rolled them expected themselves also to perish by the explosion.
Their resolution seemed, if it were possible, to increase with their
danger; every spot was defended with more obstinacy than the last;
and this temper would have been, as it deserved to be, invincible,
if pestilence the while had not been consuming them faster than fire
and sword. The sense of honour as well as of duty was carried to its
highest point; the officers preferred dying upon the stations which
they had been appointed to defend, rather than to live after having
lost them, though every possible resistance had been made. On this
side, after having occupied and been driven from the vaults of the
Hospital, which had been reduced to ruins in the former siege, the
enemy succeeded at length in carrying a gallery to the great convent
of S. Francisco; ... a countermine was prepared, which compelled them
to stop before they could get under the walls of the convent. The
engineer, Major Breuille, immediately charged the mine with three
thousand weight of powder, and fired it, having drawn by feigned
preparations for an assault as many Spaniards as he could within
the sphere of destruction. The explosion was terrible, and brought
down part of the building: the enemy rushed through the breach, and
making way into the church, formed an epaulement there to establish
themselves. Some Zaragozans who were acquainted with the building got,
by passages connected with the tower, upon the cornices of the church;
others mounted the roof, and broke holes in it, and from thence they
poured down grenades upon the invaders, and drove them from their post.
The ruins of this convent, which had been burnt during the first siege,
and now shattered by the mine, were disputed two whole days, till the
defenders at length were driven from the last chapel by the bayonet.
For the advantage now both in numbers and in physical power was on the
side of the enemy, the pestilence having so wasted the Spaniards, that
men ♦ROGNIAT, 36. CAVALLERO, 126.♦ enough could not be provided to man
the points which were attacked without calling up from the hospitals
those who had yet strength enough to use a weapon.
From the tower of this building the French commanded the Cozo for a
musket-shot distance ♦THE FRENCH BEGIN TO MURMUR.♦ on either side.
After many desperate attempts their miners succeeded in crossing that
street; but they were baffled in their attacks upon the University,
and so many of their officers and best soldiers had fallen in this
murderous struggle, that the disgust which ought to have been excited
by their abominable cause was produced by the difficulty which they
found in pursuing it. Not the men alone, but the officers also, began
to complain that they were worn out, though they had as yet only taken
a fourth part of the town; it was necessary, they said, to wait for
reinforcements, otherwise they should all be buried in these cursed
ruins, before they could drive the fanatics from their last retreat.
Marshal Lasnes represented to them, that destructive as the mode of war
was, it was more so to the besieged than to them, whose operations were
directed by more skill, and carried on by men trained to such service;
that pestilence was doing their work; and that if these desperate
madmen chose to renew the example of Numantia, and bury themselves
under the ruins of their city, bombs and mines would not now be
♦ROGNIAT, 38.♦ long in destroying the last of them. Marshal Lasnes was
a man after the Emperor Napoleon’s own heart; with so little honourable
feeling, that he regarded the Zaragozans merely as madmen; and with so
little human feeling, that he would have completed the destruction of
the city and its last inhabitants with the same insensibility that he
declared his intention of doing so.
♦NOT EVEN AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO RELIEVE THE CITY.♦
S. Genis had repeatedly said, “Let me never be appealed to if there is
any question of capitulating, for I shall never be of opinion that we
can no longer defend ourselves.” In the same spirit Palafox wrote to
his friend General Doyle: “Within the last forty-eight hours,” said he,
“6000 shells have been thrown in; two-thirds of the city are in ruins;
but we will perish under the ruins of the remaining part, rather than
surrender.” It was not by any promises or hopes of external succour
that this spirit was supported. Palafox well knew that no efforts would
be wanting on the part of his brothers, or of his friends; but he knew
also what divided counsels and jarring interests were opposed to them,
and that willing lives were all they could have had at their command.
General Doyle with great exertions got together ammunition and stores
at Mequinenza, in the beginning of February; and the Marques de Lazan
took the field from Lerida with a nominal force of 7000 foot and 250
horse to attempt something for the relief of the besieged city. It was
soon learnt by their spies that a corps of 10,000 foot and 800 horse
was ready to oppose them; and rather than make an attempt which must
inevitably have ended in the utter rout of his ill-disciplined troops,
Lazan waited at Monzon, to be joined by a division from Valencia,
which the Junta of that kingdom had at last consented to send across
the Ebro. But a French division in Aragon threatened to impede the
junction: ammunition was wanted from Lerida, which the Junta of that
city demurred at granting; time was consumed in miserable counsels and
hopeless expectation, Lazan looking to Reding for some great exertion,
and Reding deterred from attempting any thing, though with a superior
force, by total want of confidence in his army, and the suspicion that
whatever passed at his head-quarters was immediately communicated
to the enemy; and thus while Lazan and his brother were in the most
pitiable distress, knowing the state of Zaragoza, where their families
were suffering under the unexampled horrors of such a siege, ... while
every man in their division partook that feeling which the situation
of the besieged excited in all their countrymen ... an anxiety as
unexampled as it was great, ... and while every where it was expected
that some efforts such as the occasion required would be made; even
the most ready and devoted courage was of no avail where preparation,
order, discipline, prompt judgement, and vigorous authority were all
wanting; and though the province and the nation were in arms, Zaragoza
was left to its fate without even an attempt to save it.
♦PROGRESS OF THE PESTILENCE.♦
Meantime pestilence was consuming the Zaragozans faster than fire and
sword. The points which were not immediately threatened were now
wholly manned by men who rose from their straw in the hospitals, and
sate at their posts, unable to support themselves standing, wrapped in
their blankets, and shivering or panting for breath, as the ague or
the hot fit of the disease might prevail. The officer whose dreadful
task it was to choose out patients for the service became in his turn
a victim to the contagion. Hopeless of finding relief any where, the
sick resigned themselves quietly to their fate; the dying and the
dead were buried together beneath the houses which were blown up, or
consumed in the flames; and the French found court-yards and chambers
filled with corpses, and said themselves that they were fighting now
only to obtain possession of a cemetery. ♦ROGNIAT, 39. CAVALLERO,
129.♦ The ravages of the disease were such, that many, bearing up with
invincible resolution to the last, fell in the streets and died. The
enemy did not remit their attacks while death was thus doing their
work; they profited by the weakness of the besieged, and opening a fire
♦FEB. 18.♦ from their batteries on both sides the Convent of Jesus
upon the suburbs, made another attempt upon the feeble works where
they had twice been repulsed with such great loss. A fire ♦THE SUBURBS
TAKEN.♦ from fifty pieces soon made the way open, and the bridge being
flanked by some of their guns, no succour could be sent from the city.
Baron de Versaje, who commanded there, and had distinguished himself
in the defence, was killed in repairing to his post. A breach was
made in the Convent of S. Lazarus on the left bank; the garrison,
exhausted by privations and fatigue and sickness, opposed all the
resistance in their power, ... the greater number dying in its defence;
and this edifice being taken, the Spaniards could neither retreat
from the suburbs, nor hope to support themselves there, when they
could no longer be supplied with food or ammunition from the city.
Finding themselves separated by the enemy into two columns, the one
body crossed the bridge with considerable loss, and effected their
retreat into the town; the other cut their way through the enemy, and
endeavoured to escape in the open country ♦ROGNIAT, 41. CAVALLERO,
137.♦ along the bank of the Ebro; they were pursued by the French
horse, and after sustaining a second action till their powder was
exhausted, were taken prisoners to the number of 1500.
♦THE UNIVERSITY TAKEN.♦
The loss of the left bank exposed to the enemy the only part of the
city which had not yet been open to their direct attacks, but had only
suffered from the bombardment. On the other side, the University,
after repeated attempts, had been taken, and the traverses which the
Spaniards had so well defended in the Cozo. Palafox had now been
seized with the disease. Capitulation had been mentioned at the last
council in which he was present, and when it was asked how long the
city could hold out, his answer had been, _hasta la ultima tapia_;
“to the ♦PALAFOX TRANSFERS HIS AUTHORITY TO A JUNTA.♦ last mud-wall.”
Being now utterly disabled, he transferred all his authority, civil
and military, on the night of the 18th, to a Junta, naming Ric to be
the president. That noble-minded Spaniard immediately summoned the
members, and they began their functions at one on the morning of the
19th. The chiefs of the various military departments were summoned to
deliver ♦CONDITION OF THE BESIEGED.♦ their opinions. The general of
cavalry represented, that there remained only sixty-two horses, and
those weak and unserviceable, the rest having died of hunger. From a
statement of the infantry it appeared that there were only 2822 men fit
for service. Ammunition was nearly exhausted; there was none but what
was manufactured in the Inquisition, and that would be destroyed if a
shell should fall there. The commandant of engineers reported that the
fortifications were demolished, there were neither men nor materials
for repairing them, and all the cloth which could serve for bags of
earth had been consumed. All the officers who had thus been consulted
gave their opinion that the place ought to be surrendered, and that
the Junta would be responsible to God and the King for the lives which
every hour were sacrificed, if they persisted in resistance, now that
it was become manifestly impossible to save the city. Having heard
this melancholy representation, the Junta required General San Marc,
who was one of their members, to express his judgement; the eminent
talents and courage which he had displayed during the whole siege would
render his opinion decisive both with them and the commander-in-chief
and the people. He stated, that if the enemy made a general attack,
which the preparations that were observed appeared to indicate, the
loss of the city was inevitable, and would be followed by every
imaginable horror. It was known with what fury the French treated every
place which they conquered, and their rage would be greater here, on
account of the hatred which they and their general and their bloody
Emperor bore towards a city that had once put them to such shame, and
now cost them so dearly. If the attacks were partial, such as those
which were repeatedly made every day, they might hold out two days
longer, or possibly four, provided men could be found for defence and
for the works; longer than four days it was not possible to maintain
the contest: San Marc concluded by declaring, that unless there were
well-founded expectations of speedy relief, it was unjustifiable ♦RIC,
SEM. PATR. 215, 6.♦ to sacrifice the lives which in these days must be
lost, the loss of the city in that short time being unavoidable.
Upon this the Junta proceeded to make inquiry what expectations of
relief there were: for this purpose the Duke of Villahermosa was sent
to Palafox; but Palafox was now so ill that he could give no account
of any thing, for the fever had fixed upon his brain. His secretary
was applied to for any letters and documents which might be in his
possession: he delivered in two, both of which were dated long back.
One was a letter from Francisco Palafox, saying, that after making
the utmost exertions to collect troops, but in vain, he was then
at Tortosa, assembling the peasantry with some soldiers from the
garrisons on the coast, and that he designed to strengthen this force
with some gun-boats that were to be sent up the Ebro. The other was
a scrap of paper, written in enigmatical terms (for it had to pass
through the enemy’s lines), and, as it was supposed, by the Conde de
Montijo. It said, that the writer and the Duke del Infantado wished
to come to the relief of Zaragoza, but the Central Junta had ordered
that the Swiss should go, and that they were to fall upon Madrid. The
Swiss was understood to mean General Reding; but he was so situated
that no succour could be expected from him; for he was in Catalonia,
and the enemy being masters of the suburbs, it was not possible for
him now to cross the bridge. Moreover there could be no doubt, that
other divisions of the French gave him full employment. These papers,
therefore, only confirmed the Junta in their apprehensions that the
French were victorious every where, and that in the ♦RIC, 216, 7.♦
general distress of the country they could expect no relief.
♦FLAG OF TRUCE SENT TO THE FRENCH.♦
While they were deliberating the bombardment was renewed. They knew
that the city could not hold out; twenty-six members voted for a
capitulation, eight, with Ric among them, that they should still
continue their resistance, urging that there was a possibility of
being succoured. Such was the high spirit of these brave men, that
the opinion of the minority was followed: for they who had voted for
surrendering had done so for the sake of others, ... for themselves,
there was not one among them who would not rather have died than
capitulated. They agreed to send a flag of truce to the enemy,
requesting a suspension of hostilities for three days, that officers
might in the meantime be sent to ascertain the situation of the Spanish
armies, and according to the intelligence which might thus be obtained,
they would then treat for a surrender. Lasnes, when he had summoned
the city, had proposed this method himself, ... he now resented the
proposal as an insult, and vented the most ferocious threats against
the city, unless it were immediately delivered up. The flag was
remanded with a second letter, reminding him that the proposal was
originally his own: he did not vouchsafe to answer in any other manner
than ♦RIC, 217, 8.♦ by a shower of bombs, and by ordering the attack to
be renewed.
♦LAST EFFORTS OF THE BESIEGED.♦
In the evening of that day the quarter of the Tanneries was lost, a
part of the strand leading to the stone bridge, and the Puerto del
Angel, a point of great importance. Four cannon in the battery of the
wooden bridge were spiked, treacherously it was supposed, ... but
there was no time for ascertaining this and punishing the traitors.
The handful of men who remained were at their posts, manifesting their
wonted resolution; but they were too few for the severe service to
which they were exposed, and San Marc applied to Ric to reinforce with
only 200 the points which were attacked, ... more he did not ask for,
knowing the deplorable state of the city. Ric had already charged Don
Miguel Marraco, a beneficed priest of the Church of the Pillar, whom
the general had commissioned to organise the peasantry, to provide men
for the works, ... he now sent him a note which would have excited
him to new exertions had there been any remissness on his part. Don
Mariano Cerazo, an honourable citizen, who had distinguished himself
by his zeal and his influence with the people, was called upon in
like manner; and certain priests also, who had united for the purpose
of training and encouraging the peasantry, were requested in this
emergency to furnish men. These measures, before the pestilence had so
widely extended itself, would in a quarter of an hour have produced
a thousand armed men. Ric ordered also the alarm to be beaten in the
New Tower, and taking advantage of a favourable moment, when the enemy
were driven back by the bayonet from the Convent del Sepulcro, he sent
the public crier through the streets to proclaim this success, and
summon the people by sound of trumpet to complete the victory. But
disease had subdued them; of the surviving population, the few who were
not suffering under the disorder were attending their sick or dying
friends, and neither hope nor despair could call them out, ... hope,
indeed, they had none, and the dreadful duty in which they were engaged
rendered them insensible to all evils but those before their eyes.
San Marc was joined by only seventeen men; ill tidings came upon him
from every quarter; one commander complained that he was cut off at his
station, another that he was on the point of being so, a third that he
was undermined, ... from every quarter they called for troops and ♦RIC,
218, 9.♦ labourers and ammunition, at a time when all were wanting.
♦D. P. MARIA RIC GOES OUT TO TREAT WITH M. LASNES.♦
Thus situated, the Junta ordered the almoners of the different parishes
to inform their parishioners of the state of the city, and report
the opinion which they should form in consequence. Two-thirds of
the city had been destroyed; thirty thousand of the inhabitants had
perished, and from three to four hundred persons were daily dying of
the pestilence. Under such circumstances the Junta protested that they
had fulfilled their oath of fidelity, _for Zaragoza was destroyed_; and
they dispatched a flag of truce to the French commander, requesting a
suspension of hostilities for four-and-twenty hours, that they might
in that time negotiate for a capitulation. A French officer came with
the reply, requiring the Junta to wait upon Marshal Lasnes within two
hours, and declaring that after that time was expired he would not
listen to any terms. Ric instantly summoned the Junta, and as they
could not all be immediately collected, he proceeded with some of them
toward Marshal Lasnes, leaving some to acquaint the others with the
result of the flag of truce, and to act as circumstances might require.
They took a trumpeter with them to announce a parley, because the
firing was still continued on both sides; but, notwithstanding this,
the Spanish deputies were fired at from one of the enemy’s batteries.
Ric protested against this violation of the laws of war, and refused
to proceed till he was assured that it should not be repeated. An
aide-de-camp of the French general had just before arrived, with
instructions that the Junta should repair to the Casa Blanca, not
to the suburbs, as had been first appointed; this officer went for
an escort of infantry, and conducted Ric and his colleagues to the
general’s presence. Lasnes received them with an insolent indifference,
while his despite for the brave resistance which he had found betrayed
itself in marks of affected contempt. He took some turns about the
room, then addressing himself to Ric, began to inveigh against the
Zaragozans for not believing him when he said that resistance was
in vain, ... for which, he said, they deserved little consideration
from his hands. He reproached the Junta also. Ric interrupted him.
The Junta, he said, had commenced their sittings on the yesterday,
and therefore could not be responsible for any thing before that
time. The Marshal himself must feel, that if they had surrendered
without having ascertained the absolute necessity of surrendering,
they would have failed in their duty. When they were informed of the
actual state of affairs, they had considered of a capitulation, and
addressed a letter, proposing measures which he himself had suggested
in the summons to which he now alluded. This had offended him, and
he did not condescend to notice their second letter in explanation
of the first. They had then dispatched a third flag, requesting a
suspension of four-and-twenty hours, because they were accountable to
the people, and that time was necessary for ascertaining the public
will. Zaragoza, which had so nobly distinguished itself by the manner
of its resistance, must also distinguish itself in the manner of
capitulating, when capitulation was become inevitable. “Acting upon
these principles,” said Ric, “it is my duty to declare that I bring
neither powers nor instructions, neither do I know the will of the
people; but I believe they ♦RIC, 229–231.♦ will accept a capitulation,
provided it be reasonable, and becoming the heroism with which Zaragoza
has defended itself.”
♦CAPITULATION.♦
The manner and the manliness of this declaration were not lost even
upon Lasnes: in spite of himself he felt the superiority of the men
who stood before him, and, abstaining from farther insults, he said,
that the women and children should be safe, and that the negotiation
was concluded. Ric replied, it was not yet begun; for this would be
surrendering at discretion, and Zaragoza had no such thought. If
the Marshal insisted upon this, he might renew his attacks on the
city, “And I and my companions,” said the noble Aragoneze, “will
return there, and continue to defend ourselves; we have yet arms
and ammunition, and daggers: war is never without its chances; and
if we are driven to despair, it yet remains to be seen who are to be
victorious.” This answer did not appear to irritate the French general;
he knew, indeed, that though farther resistance could not possibly save
Zaragoza, every inch which he had to win must be dearly purchased,
and, for the honour of France, the sooner the siege was concluded the
better; ... it had already lasted too long. There was another reason,
too, why he did not refuse to grant terms, ... it would be in his power
to break them. He called for his secretary, and dictated the preamble
of the capitulation and some of the articles. The first stipulated
that the garrison should surrender prisoners. Ric proposed that they
should march out, as became them, with the honours of war; Lasnes would
not consent to make any alteration in the words of the article, but
he promised that those honours should be allowed them, and that the
officers should retain their baggage, and the men their knapsacks. Ric
then required that Palafox might be at liberty to go whithersoever he
pleased, with all his staff. It was replied, that an individual could
never be the subject of capitulation; but Marshal Lasnes pledged his
word of honour that Palafox should go to any place he pleased; and
he specified Mallen or Toledo. Those places, Ric replied, would not
suit him, because they were occupied by French troops, and it was
understood that he thought of going to Majorca. Lasnes then gave his
word of honour that he might go to any place which he thought best.
It was demanded that all persons, not included in the garrison, who
wished to leave Zaragoza, in order to avoid the contagion, should be
allowed passports. Lasnes replied, all who wished it might go out, ...
he pledged his word to this; ♦RIC, 231, 2.♦ but it was not necessary,
he said, to insert an article upon this head, and he was desirous of
terminating the capitulation.
♦FARTHER CONDITIONS ASKED, AND REFUSED.♦
While copies of the capitulation were drawing out, the French general
produced a plan of the city, and laid his finger upon the part which
was that night to have been blown up, telling Ric that 44,000 lbs. of
powder were already lodged for the explosion, and that this would have
been followed by a cannonade from seventy pieces of artillery, and a
bombardment from thirty mortars, which they were at that time mounting
in the suburbs. The duplicates being signed, Ric and his companions
returned to lay the terms before the other members of the Junta;
and they, who had ascertained the opinion of their fellow-citizens,
accepted, ratified, and signed the act. Some farther stipulations,
however, they still thought desirable; they wished it to be stated in
the articles, that the garrison were to march out with the honours
of war; for, as only the written capitulation would appear in the
gazettes, if this were not expressed it would not be understood. They
required also, that the peasants who had been formed into temporary
corps should not be prisoners of war, urging, that they ought not to
be considered as regular soldiers, and representing the injury which
it would be to agriculture if they were marched away. And at the
petition of the clergy, they requested that an article might be added,
securing to them the punctual payment of their revenues from the funds
assigned by the government for that purpose. With these proposals
Ric returned to Marshal Lasnes; the two former were in every respect
unexceptionable; the last was the only one upon which any demur might
have been looked for. The French commander, however, broke into a fit
of rage, snatched the paper out of Ric’s hand, and threw it into the
fire. One of his generals, sensible of the indecency of this ♦RIC,
232–4.♦ conduct, rescued it from the flames; and Ric, unable to obtain
more, received a ratified copy of the capitulation, and returned to the
city.
The French, by their own account, threw above 17,000 bombs during
the siege, and expended near an hundred and sixty thousand weight of
powder. More than 30,000 men, and 500 officers, the flower of the
Spanish armies, lay buried beneath the ruins of Zaragoza; and this is
far from the amount of lives which were sacrificed in this memorable
and most virtuous defence, the number of women and children who
perished by the bombardment, by the mines, by famine and pestilence,
remaining untold. The loss of the besiegers was carefully concealed;
it was sufficient to cripple their army; the Paris papers declared,
that one part was to march against Lerida, another against Valencia,
and neither of these movements could be effected.
♦CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH.♦
On the evening of the capitulation the French troops entered. They
began immediately to pillage. General Laval was appointed governor. He
ordered all the clergy of the city to go out and compliment Marshal
Lasnes; ... the yoke was upon their necks; they went forth to appear
at this ceremony, like prisoners in a Roman triumph, and as they went,
the French soldiers were permitted to rob them of their apparel in
the streets. Laval, when complaint was made to him of such outrages,
observed, that his troops had to indemnify themselves for the plunder
which they looked upon as certain, and which ♦RIC, 235.♦ they would
have had in another day, if the capitulation had not disappointed them.
♦TREATMENT OF THE PRISONERS.♦
When the French entered the city six thousand bodies were lying in the
streets and trenches, or piled up in heaps before the churches. The
people, still unsubdued in spirit, were with difficulty restrained
from declaring that the capitulation was concluded without their
consent, and rushing upon the invaders with the determination of
taking vengeance and dying in the act. The armed peasants, instead
of delivering up the weapons which they were no longer permitted to
use, broke them in pieces with generous indignation. General O’Neille
died before the surrender; St. Marc was one of the many hundreds whom
the pestilence carried off within a few days after it. P. Basilio
escaped from the danger of the war and of the contagion. He was a
man of exemplary life and great attainments; and having been tutor
to Palafox, and fought by his side in both sieges, remained now at
his bedside, to wait upon him in his illness, and administer, if need
should be, the last offices of religion to his heroic and beloved
pupil. There the French found him, as they had ever found him during
the siege, at the post of duty; and they put him to death for having
served his country with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with
all his strength. P. Santiago Sass suffered a like martyrdom. The
officers received orders to come out of the city, on pain of being
shot if they remained ♦FEB. 22.♦ there after four-and-twenty hours.
Immediately upon forming without the town for their march, they were,
in contempt of the capitulation, plundered of every thing, stripped of
the devices of their different ranks, and pushed in among the common
soldiers as leaders of insurgents. It was affirmed in the French
bulletin that 17,000 men laid down their arms: there were not more than
four-and-twenty hundred capable of bearing them; the rest were in the
hospitals, and this, with five-and-twenty hundred taken in the suburbs
and during the siege, was the number which was marched off for France.
Two hundred and seventy of these men, who from fatigue and weakness
could not keep up the pace which their ferocious guard required, were
butchered and left on the road, where their companions in the next
division might march over their bodies. Augustina Zaragoza was among
the prisoners. She had distinguished herself in this siege as much as
in the former. At the commencement she took her former station at the
Portillo, by the same gun which she had served so well; “See, general,”
said she, with a cheerful countenance, pointing to the gun when Palafox
visited that quarter, “I am again with my old friend.” Her husband
was severely wounded, and she pointed the cannon at the enemy, while
he lay bleeding among his companions by her side. Frequently she was
at the head of an assaulting party, sword or knife in hand, with her
cloak wrapt round her, cheering the soldiers, and encouraging them
by her example; constantly exposed as she was, she escaped without a
wound: yet once she was thrown into a ditch, and nearly suffocated
by the dead and dying who covered her. At the close of the siege she
was too well known by the French to escape notice, and they made her
prisoner. Fortunately, as it proved, she had at that time taken the
contagion, and was removed to the hospital, where, as she was supposed
to be dying, little care was taken to secure her. Feeling herself
better, she availed herself of this, and effected her escape. Another
heroine, whose name was Manuella Sanchez, was shot through the heart.
Donna Benita, a lady of distinction, who headed one of the female corps
which had been formed to carry provisions, bear away the wounded, and
fight in the streets, escaped the hourly dangers to which she exposed
herself, only to die of grief upon hearing that her daughter had been
killed. During the siege six hundred women and children perished, not
by the bombardment and the mines, but in action, by the sword, or
bayonet or bullet.
♦TREATMENT OF PALAFOX.♦
Marshal Lasnes had pledged his word of honour that Palafox should be
at liberty to go wherever he would, as soon as he should be able to
travel; in contempt of that pledge, he was immediately made prisoner,
surrounded entirely by French, and left even in want of necessary
food. Ric, who was ever ready to exert himself when any duty was to be
performed, remonstrated against this treatment both verbally and in
writing. He could obtain little immediate ♦HE IS COMPELLED BY THREATS
OF DEATH TO SIGN ORDERS FOR DELIVERING UP OTHER FORTRESSES.♦ relief,
and no redress. Arrangements were concerted for his escape, and so
well laid, that there would have been every prospect of success, if he
had been sufficiently recovered to make the attempt. They were not,
however, altogether fruitless; for M. Lasnes having extorted from him,
by threats of immediate death if he refused, orders to the governors of
Jaca, Benasque, Monzon, and Mequinenza, to deliver up those places to
the French, he found means to advise his brother, the Marques de Lazan,
of the iniquitous proceeding, and to direct that no obedience should
be given to orders so obtained. Unfortunately Jaca and Monzon had been
entrusted to commanders who waited only for an opportunity of betraying
their charge, and they opened the gates to the enemy. Before Palafox
had recovered he was hurried away into France, a country from which and
to which, while it was under the iron yoke of Buonaparte, no prisoner
returned. On the way he was treated with insolence and barbarity, and
robbed even to his very shirt. Buonaparte, who, feeling no virtue in
himself, acknowledged none in others, had already reproached him as a
coward and a runaway in the field; he now, with contradictory calumny,
reviled him for having defended Zaragoza against the will of the
inhabitants. “The people,” it was said in the French papers, “held him
in such abhorrence, that it was necessary to station a guard before
his door, for otherwise he would have been stoned. An idea of the
detestation in which he and the monks of his party were held could only
be formed by remembering the hatred with which those men were regarded
in France, who governed by terror and the guillotine.” Yet while they
thus asserted at one time that Palafox defended the city against the
will of the people, at another they affirmed that the Spanish troops
would have surrendered long before, being perfectly sensible that
resistance was unavailing after the French had entered the city, but it
did not depend upon them, ... they were obliged to submit to the wills
of the meanest of the inhabitants. Any one who should have expressed a
wish to capitulate would have been punished with death: such a thought
could not be uttered till two-thirds of the city were lying in ruins,
and 20,000 of its defenders destroyed by disease.... No higher eulogy
could be pronounced upon Zaragoza than was comprised in the very
calumnies of its unworthy conqueror.
♦DEMANDS OF THE FRENCH.♦
Before the main body of the French made their entry they demanded of
Ric 50,000 pair of shoes, 8000 pair of boots, and 1200 shirts, with
medicines and every requisite for an hospital. Several of the officers
demanded for themselves double equipage and linen, curtains, pens,
paper, and whatever they wanted, insisting that plenty of every thing
should be supplied them, and the best of its kind, at the expense of
the city. A service of china was required for Junot; and this merciless
oppressor, who had escaped the proper punishment of his crimes in
Portugal, insisted that a tennis-court should be fitted up for his
amusement, in a city of which two-thirds were then lying in ruins,
beneath which so large a proportion of the inhabitants lay buried! Ric
resisted demands which it was impossible for the city to supply. The
French generals, provoked at his refusal to engage for the maintenance
of their household, threatened to send in a squadron of hussars.
He replied, that well they might, since the gates of the city were
demolished and in their power, but that from that moment they would
not advance a foot of ground till they had moistened it with French
blood. Another member of the Junta, who had less courage, undertook
that these ruffians should be satisfied as far as was possible. Ric,
who was too true a Spaniard to live under the government of the
Intruder, ♦RIC, 245–9.♦ renounced the high office which he held, and,
not being considered a prisoner, obtained his liberty.
♦LASNES MAKES HIS ENTRANCE.♦
Lasnes made his entrance on Sunday the 5th of March; his approach
was announced by the discharge of 200 cannon, and he proceeded in
triumph through that part of the city which remained standing, to the
Church of the Pillar. The wretched inhabitants had been compelled
to adorn the streets with such hangings as could be found, and to
witness the pomp of festive triumph, and hear the sounds of joy
and exultation. ♦BASENESS OF THE SUFFRAGAN BISHOP.♦ The suffragan
bishop of the diocese, a traitor who had fled from the town when it
took arms, and now returned thither to act as the instrument of the
oppressors, met Lasnes at the great door of the church, and conducted
him in procession, with the crucifix and the banner, to a throne
prepared before the altar, and near the famous idol, which had escaped
destruction. Then the wretch addressed a sermon to his countrymen upon
the horrors of war! “They had seen,” he said, “in their unhappy city,
the streets and market-places strewn with dead, parents expiring and
leaving their children helpless and unprotected, babes sucking at the
dry breast of the famished mother, palaces in ruins, houses in flames,
dead bodies heaped at the doors of the churches, and hurried into
common graves without any religious ceremony. And what had been the
cause of all this ruin? I repeat it,” said the villanous time-server,
“I shall always repeat it, your sins and your seditious spirit, your
forgetfulness of the principles of the gospel. These horrors have
ceased: and to whom are you indebted for this unexpected happiness? To
God in the first place, who raises and destroys monarchies according to
his will; after God, to the Virgin of the Pillar, who interceded for
us; and in the next place to the generous heart of the great Napoleon,
the man who is the messenger of God upon earth to execute his divine
decrees, and who is sent to punish us for our sins. Nothing can equal
his power except his clemency and his goodness! He has granted us the
inestimable favour of peace; oh that, at the expense of my tears and
my blood, I could render it eternal! It is fitting, O my God, that
for this great and unexpected mercy, this signal mercy, we should all
exclaim, _Te Deum Laudamus!_ We praise thee, O God!” Such were the
blasphemies which this hoary traitor uttered over the ruins of his
heroic city! It is not possible to record them without feeling a wish,
that some one of the noble-hearted Zaragozans, who at that hour of
bitterness were wishing themselves in the grave, had smitten him upon
the spot in the name of his religion and his country.
♦LANGUAGE OF THE FRENCH.♦
The oath of obedience and allegiance was then administered to those
persons who either retained or accepted office under the Intruder’s
government. A superb entertainment followed, at which Lasnes and his
chief officers sate down to a table of four hundred covers, and at
every health which was drunk to the family of Buonaparte the cannons
were discharged. The transactions of the day furnished a fine topic
for the journalists at Paris. “All the people,” they said, “manifested
their joy at so sudden and happy a change in acclamations of ‘long
live the Emperor!’ they were edified by the behaviour of their
conquerors during the religious ceremony; that ceremony had melted
the most obdurate hearts, the hatred of the French was eradicated
from all breasts, and Aragon would soon become one of the most
submissive provinces in Spain!” At the time when these falsehoods
were circulated in France, Junot issued a proclamation, declaring,
that every Aragoneze found in arms should be punished with death.
Upon this the Supreme Junta addressed an order to their generals,
requiring them to apprise the French commanders to whom they might be
opposed, that every Spaniard who was capable of carrying arms was a
soldier, so their duty required them to be, and ♦DECREE OF THE CENTRAL
JUNTA.♦ such the Supreme Junta declared them: “This,” they said, “was
not a war of armies against armies, as in other cases, but of an
army against a whole nation, resisting the yoke which a tyrant and
usurper sought to force upon them; every individual, therefore, of that
nation was under the protection of the laws of war, and the general
who should violate those laws was not a soldier, but a ruffian, who
would provoke the indignation of Heaven, and the vengeance of man.
The Junta well knew,” they said, “that the French, when they were
victorious, ridiculed principles which the observance and respect of
all nations had consecrated, and that they did this with an effrontery
and insolence equal to the affectation with which they appealed to them
when they were vanquished. The Spaniards were, however, in a condition
to enforce that justice which they demanded. Three Frenchmen should
suffer for every Spaniard, be he peasant or soldier, who might be put
to death. Europe would hear with admiration as well as horror, that
a magnanimous nation, which had begun its struggle by making 30,000
prisoners, was forced, in opposition to its natural character, to
decimate those prisoners without distinction, from the first general to
the meanest in the ranks. But it was the chiefs of their own nation who
condemned these unfortunate wretches, and who, by imposing upon Spain
the dreadful necessity of retaliation, signed the death of their own
countrymen when they murdered a Spaniard.”
♦ADDRESS TO THE NATION.♦
The Junta pronounced the funeral oration of Zaragoza, in an address
to the people. “Spaniards,” said they, “the only boon which Zaragoza
begged of our unfortunate monarch at Vittoria was, that she might be
the first city to sacrifice herself in his defence. That sacrifice has
been consummated. More than two months the murderous siege continued;
almost all the houses were destroyed, those which were still standing
had been undermined; provisions were nearly exhausted, ammunition all
consumed; 16,000 sick were struggling with a mortal contagion, which
every day hurried hundreds to the grave; the garrison was reduced to
less than a sixth part; the general dying of the pestilence; O’Neille,
the second in command, dead; St. Marc, upon whom the command then
devolved, prostrated by the fever: so much was required, Spaniards, to
make Zaragoza yield to the rigour of fate, and suffer herself to be
occupied by the enemy. The surrender was made upon such terms as the
French have granted to other towns, and those terms have been observed
as usual by the perfidious enemy. Thus only were they able to take
possession of those glorious precincts, filled only with demolished
houses and temples, and peopled only with the dead and the dying; where
every street, every ruin, every wall, every stone, seemed mutely to say
to the beholder, Go, tell my king, that Zaragoza, faithful to her word,
hath joyfully sacrificed herself to maintain her truth.
“A series of events, as mournful as they are notorious, frustrated all
the efforts which were made to relieve the city; but the imagination
of all good men accompanied her defenders in their dangers, was
agitated with them in their battles, sympathised in their privations
and efforts, and followed them through all the dreadful vicissitudes
of their fortune; and when strength failed them at last through a
continued resistance, which they had prolonged almost beyond belief,
in the first moment of grief it seemed as if the light of liberty had
been at once extinguished, and the column of independence overthrown.
But, Spaniards, Zaragoza still survives for imitation and example!
still survives in the public spirit which, from her heroic exertions,
is for ever imbibing lessons of courage and of constancy. For where
is the Spaniard, priding himself upon that name, who would be less
than the Zaragozans, and not seal the liberty of his country, which he
has proclaimed, and the faith to his king, which he has promised, at
the cost of the same perils and the same labours? Let the base, the
selfish, and the cowardly be dismayed by them; not the other towns of
Aragon, who are ready to imitate and to recover their capital; not the
firm and faithful patriots, who see in that illustrious city a model to
imitate, vengeance to be exacted, and the only path of conquest. Forty
thousand Frenchmen, who have perished before the mud walls of Zaragoza,
cause France to mourn the barren and ephemeral triumph which she has
obtained, and evince to Spain, that three cities of equal resolution
will save their country, and baffle the tyrant. Valour springs from
valour; and when the unhappy who have suffered, and the victims who
have died there, shall learn that their fellow-citizens, following
them in the paths of glory, have surpassed them in fortune, they will
bless their destiny, however rigorous it has been, and rejoice in the
contemplation of our triumphs.
“Time passes away, and days will come when these dreadful convulsions,
with which the genius of iniquity is now afflicting the earth, will
have subsided. The friends of virtue and patriotism will come to the
banks of the Ebro to visit those majestic ruins, and beholding them
with admiration and with envy, Here, they will say, stood that city
which in modern ages realised, or, more truly, surpassed those ancient
prodigies of devotement and constancy, which are scarcely credited in
history! Without a regiment, without other defence than a weak wall,
without other resources than its courage, it first dared to provoke
the fury of the tyrant: twice it withstood the force of his victorious
legions. The subjection of this open and defenceless town cost France
more blood, more tears, more slaughter, than the conquest of whole
kingdoms: nor was it French valour that subdued it; a deadly and
general pestilence prostrated the strength of its defenders, and the
enemy, when they entered, triumphed over a few sick and dying men, but
they did not subdue citizens, nor conquer soldiers.”
♦HONOURS DECREED TO THE INHABITANTS.♦
This address was followed by a decree, declaring “that Zaragoza, its
inhabitants, and garrison, had deserved well of their country, in an
eminent and heroic degree: That whenever Palafox should be restored
to liberty, to effect which no efforts on the part of the government
should be wanting, the Junta, in the name of the nation, would confer
upon him that reward which might seem most worthy of his unconquerable
constancy and ardent patriotism: That every officer employed in the
siege should be promoted one step, and every private soldier enjoy
the rank and the pay of serjeant: That all the defenders of Zaragoza,
and its inhabitants, and their heirs, should enjoy personal nobility:
That pensions, conformable to their rank and circumstances, should
be granted to the widows and orphans of all who had perished there:
That the having been within the walls during the siege should be
considered as a claim in future pretensions: That Zaragoza should be
exempt from all contributions for ten years, from the time when peace
should be established; and that at that time the rebuilding of the
public edifices, with all possible magnificence, should be begun at
the expense of the state, and a monument erected in the great square
of the city, in perpetual memory of the valour of the inhabitants
and their glorious defence: That in all the cities of the kingdom
an inscription should forthwith be set up, relating the most heroic
circumstances of the two sieges, and a medal be struck in its honour,
as a testimony of national gratitude. Finally, the Junta promised the
same honours and privileges to every city which should resist a like
siege with like constancy, and proposed rewards for the best poem and
best discourse upon this memorable event; the object being not only to
hold up the virtues of the Zaragozans to the present generation and to
posterity, but to inflame the hearts of the Spaniards with the same
ardent patriotism, the same love of freedom, and the same abhorrence of
tyranny.”
♦FALSEHOODS OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT.♦
The capitulation was published by the Intruder’s ministers in the
Madrid gazette, and inserted in a French journal printed in the same
capital. That journal was suppressed by order of Buonaparte as soon
as he was informed of this; and it was stated in his bulletin that
Lasnes would allow no capitulation, and had only published certain
provisions as his[4] pleasure; and that the French possessed themselves
of the whole town by force. Had the facts been thus, it would not
have derogated in the slightest degree from the heroism of a people
who had discharged their duty to the uttermost. But the falsehood is
worthy of notice, not only as showing Napoleon Buonaparte’s systematic
disregard of truth, but as exemplifying also that want of generosity
which peculiarly characterized him, and made him incapable of doing
justice in any one instance to the principles, virtues, talents, or
even courage, of those by whom he was opposed.