HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO VIII.
For the long series of historical incidents, of which this Canto records only as much as appears to come within the province of poetry, the reader is referred to the Histories of Napier and Southey, and to Thiers’s Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, as well as to the work of Foy, which will bear comparison with any of those mentioned.
With regard to Godoy’s character and conduct, I have read most carefully his Mémoires published some years back in Paris; but to many of the statements in that book it is impossible to give credit, and to the view which I have taken of his career in this and the last Canto I cannot but strongly adhere.
Foy thus describes him and the Royal family of Spain:—
“On vit Godoy s’élancer de la couche adultère de la reine aux premiers grades de la milice, à la présidence des conseils, au gouvernement absolu de la paix et de la guerre. * * Le roi d’Espagne n’avait pas quarante mils soldats en Europe. Ses arsenaux étaient dégarnis, son trésor était vide. Les dons patriotiques arrivèrent de toutes part. La Catalogne demanda à se lever en masse. Les provinces de Biscaye et de Navarre firent des appels à la population. Les grands seigneurs accoururent à la tête de leurs vassaux. Les moines arrivèrent enrégimentés. Des bandes de contrebandiers, oubliant leurs démêlés habituels avec le gouvernement, demandèrent à combattre les ennemis du trône et de l’autel. Tous les états, tous les rangs voulurent vaincre ou mourir pour la patrie. Quel parti tira le gouvernement espagnol de tant de dévouement? * * Le général des Franciscains offrit de marcher à la tête de dix mille moines. Le duc d’Albe et deux autres seigneurs voulurent lever dix mille hommes à leurs frais. Le chapitre de Toléde offrit vingt-cinq millions de réaux. Le clergé parcourait les villages le crucifix à la main.” (Foy, Hist. Guerre. Pénin. liv. iv.) All was useless. “Aucun exploit, aucune vertu, n’honorèrent sa jeunesse, il n’avait pas tiré l’épée pendant la guerre. Il ne montra pendant la paix ni talent dans les conseils, ni détermination dans le gouvernement.” (Ibid.)
A curious parallel for the fortune of Godoy, and for the popular hatred which he excited, is to be found in Horace:—
Ibericis peruste funibus latus,
Licèt superbus ambules pecuniâ,
Fortuna non mutat genus.
Videsne, sacram metiente te viam,
Cum bis ter ulnarum togâ,
Ut ora vertat huc et huc euntium
Liberrima indignatio?
“Arat Falerni mille fundi jugera,
“Et Appiam mannis terit;
“Sedilibusque magnus in primis eques,
“Othone contempto, sedet!”
Epod. iv.
Menas, Pompey’s freedman, and Augustus’s Tribune, a double and impartial traitor, to whom this ode was addressed, was the Godoy of ancient Rome.
The Massacre of Madrid on the memorable Second of May did not happily involve so much bloodshed as for a long period had been imagined. The exaggeration common to all countries in commemorating their patriotic struggles, and especially so in the Peninsula, had fully quadrupled the number of martyrs who fell upon that occasion. Recent minute inquiries have confirmed the statement of Napier that the entire number of the Madrid population slain in this massacre did not exceed 200. The real name of the “Daïz” in the text was Daoiz. The shootings subsequent to the street massacre took place, as I have recorded them, under circumstances which in Spain were necessarily regarded as of excessive atrocity, the denial of the assistance of clergy, which by Frenchmen was lightly considered, being in Spanish eyes the acmé of horrors. The supposed miraculous appearances in the Northern provinces are derived from Foy’s History.
For the circumstances of the rising which followed throughout Spain the reader is referred to Napier and to Southey, whose description of the Siege of Zaragoza I have followed because it is the more poetical, although I cannot refrain from remarking that it is disfigured by occasional passages of exaggeration and bombast not altogether worthy of an historical work.
The state of political knowledge in Spain at the period of the French invasion may be inferred from the character of the questions treated by their publicists. An old Spanish political writer, held in the greatest esteem down to that period, D. Diego Saavedra Faxardo, formally discusses this thesis: Whether is it better for a prince to delegate his authority to one or many? and concludes in favour of delegation to a single person, for the following reason, stated in his own words: “That the King is the image of the sun, and when the sun disappears from the horizon, he leaves to one only, the moon, and not to several, the care of presiding over the night!” The political work from which this morçeau is extracted was composed for the instruction of the Prince of the Asturias, who afterwards became Carlos II. It was long the French system to keep Spain in this state of pupillage. Choiseul, the ablest minister of France during the 18th century, said that he was more certain of his preponderance in the cabinet of Madrid than in that of Versailles! He said this in the reign of Carlos III., the ablest of the Spanish Bourbons. Up to the end of the last century, France was the planet, and Spain the satellite.
The first era of the Peninsular campaigns comprised our two first victories of Roriça and Vimieiro, more intrinsically glorious perhaps, than any of their successors, but rendered futile in their consequences by the mistaken generosity of concession which characterized the Convention of Cintra.
The second period of the War was commenced by the battle of Talavera, previously to which Wellington found the Spanish General Cuesta equally unmanageable, stubborn, and foolishly arrogant, as the Portuguese General showed himself on the eve of the battle of Roriça which commenced the first period of the War. In both cases the results were the same. After a great deal of vapouring about “doing the business themselves and not needing British assistance,” both worthies retired, leaving the sole and undivided honour of each day to the genius and fortune of Wellington. In the preliminary combat of Alcabon, the Spanish division (4,000 infantry, 2,000 horse, and 8 guns) scampered off from before the French, and it was manifest that they could not be depended on. Wellington was therefore determined that they should withdraw to Talavera, where there was strong ground suited for defence, on which alone the Spaniards were likely to make a stand. Cuesta boastingly replied that “he would fight where he stood.” The 27th, at daylight, the British General renewed his solicitations, at first fruitlessly; but when the enemy’s cavalry came in sight, Cuesta sullenly yielded, yet turning to his staff with frantic pride observed that “he had first made the Englishman go down on his knees!” (Napier, Hist. W. P. b. viii. c. 2.) In the next preliminary combat of Salinas, the Spanish army to the number of 11,000 men (including artillery) threw down their arms, and ran away, declaring that the Allies were entirely routed! It might have been so but that their example was despised. Thus undivided glory was thrust upon Wellington; and ever after the part which the Spaniards took was very subordinate.
After the battle of Talavera, the Spaniards were shamefully defeated (having regard to the truth of History it is impossible to use any other expression) by the French in two successive actions—those of Arzobispo and Almonacid, at both of which they threw down their arms and ran, and in the latter were slaughtered in thousands—a result partly attributable to the bad conduct of the men and partly to the bad guiding of their commander, Cuenca, whose character was a concentration of all the worst possible qualities of a General. “King” Joseph, who had retreated after the battle of Baylen, now returned to Madrid. Embarrassed by these disasters, by the perfidious withholding of supplies, by the perpetual crossing and opposition of the Spanish juntas, which like those of Portugal, instead of an aid, were for ever a thorn in the side of their Liberator, Wellington, in the face of an overwhelming French force, took the resolution of retiring into Portugal. The conduct of the Spaniards may be best estimated from his own words, stating his reasons for declining again to co-operate with them:
“But there was a more shameful consideration, namely, the constant and shameful misbehaviour of the Spanish troops before the enemy. We in England never hear of their defeats and flights, but I have heard Spanish officers telling of nineteen or twenty actions of the description of that at the bridge of Arzobispo, accounts of which, I believe, have never been published. * * * In the battle of Talavera, in which the Spanish army, with very trifling exception, was not engaged—whole corps threw away their arms, and ran off, when they were neither attacked nor threatened with an attack. When these dastardly soldiers run away, they plunder everything they meet. In their flight from Talavera they plundered the baggage of the British army, which was at that moment bravely engaged in their cause.”
When Wellington came to this resolution to retire into Portugal, he was at the head of only 17,000 British troops of all arms; the “terror-stricken Spaniards” were literally an incumbrance. (Napier, Hist. W. P. b. viii. c. 5.) Our troops, through the faithlessness of their allies, were almost starving, and they were confronted by 70,000 French! The wonder is that they were not utterly and immediately crushed by the latter. But Soult was the only great General then amongst the French commanders; and the promptness is as much to be admired as the prudence with which Wellington retired into Portugal.
The Spanish army made some miserable attempts after this at independent action against the French, which ended four months after the battle of Talavera in the disastrous battle of Ocaña, one of the most frightful routs recorded in history, where the whole Spanish army of more than 50,000 men was destroyed, having 5000 killed and wounded, and leaving 26,000 prisoners, 45 pieces of artillery, 30,000 muskets, and 3000 horses and beasts of burden in the hands of the enemy! The French lost but 1700 men, killed and wounded; and I must do them the justice of saying that no exploit of ours in the Peninsula equalled this in its numerical results; for God forbid that I should obscure the glory of an enemy or gloss over the misconduct of an ally. The rest of the Spanish army was subsequently defeated at Alba de Tormes, which closed the campaigns of 1809.
These scattering and consuming thunderbolts opened the eyes of the Spaniards at last to the value of the British alliance, and threw the defence of the Peninsula entirely into those heroic hands, by which it was so brilliantly completed. The soldiery of Spain acted thenceforth a subordinate part, and the boast after the battle of Baylen, “We will not need the services of you Ingleses—we will escort you home through France, but you will not have to strike a blow!” was not again repeated. For six months of the next year (till Wellington re-appeared on the scene) they continued their despairing efforts against the French, but with uniform defeat and failure. No fitting leaders appeared, and the efforts of the people were worse than useless.
The third era of the Peninsular campaigns commenced with the third invasion of Portugal by the French army, which was this time commanded by Massena. The battle of Busaco was the great event of the commencement of this campaign. This powerful check was for the time successful, but unable long to control a far superior force, and the British army fell back within the lines of Torres Vedras. Massena arrived in front of them, and made prodigious efforts to pass. But this triumph of Wellington’s genius, and marvel of engineering and strategic skill, was impregnable to all assaults, and was at once the salvation of Portugal and the ultimate means of rescuing Spain from the Invader. Emerging from his unassailable redoubt, Wellington at last pursued the French beyond the frontier, and defeated them on the Spanish soil in battle, action, and assault, from Salamanca to Vitoria, from Vitoria to the Pyrenees.
One can laugh at this distance of time at the monstrosities written about these memorable struggles by French nobles and generals. Thus Foy has the coolness to say of the relative numbers at Vimieiro, “Les Anglois étaient deux contre un par rapport aux Français!” (Hist. Guerre. Pénins., livre ix.) He further denies that it was a battle at all. “Ils n’étaient pas desireux de changer un avantage défensif bien caractérisé en une bataille dont le succès leur paraissait incertain!” (Ibid.)
The political sagacity and military skill of Wellington not only maintained his position in the face of overwhelming difficulties, but speedily took the offensive. The co-operation of (Lord) Beresford, who was placed over the Portuguese army, organized by the genius of Wellington, and led by British officers, must not be overlooked. Massena was forced to retreat from Portugal; and as he passed the border-line of the two Peninsular countries, Wellington followed victorious and menacing, having achieved what at first appeared utterly vain to attempt. The battle of Fuentes de Onoro ensued, the French were forced to evacuate the fortress of Almeida, and then followed a long career of victory to the British arms, which was uninterrupted till our triumphant entry into Toulouse, and the news of Napoléon’s abdication.
The allusion in this Canto to the Basque Guerrillas needs a word of explanation. The Chapelgorris and Chapelchurris are distinguishing names of the Basque mountain peasantry, derived from the colour of their caps. Chacolin is the thin, sour wine of the district. During the late Carlist war, a considerable degree of romantic interest attached to these peasantry for the keenness of their partisan admixture in the strife. One of the most famous events in the Carlist struggle was the siege of Bilbao, which was raised by the Cristino General Cordova, and where the most famous of modern Guerrilleros, Zumalacarregui, received his death-wound. Had this most energetic of the Carlist Generals lived, the war might have had a very different termination. It was he, who, on the wretchedly unprovided state of his men as to arms being remarked to him, pointing to the muskets in the Cristino battalions, said, “There are their arms!” and contrived to arm them very respectably by stripping the Cristinos in repeated brilliant surprises. The circumstances of this rude but powerful hero’s death are recorded in the Cristino song:
Ya vienen Chapelchurris
Con corneta y clarin,
Para entrar en Bilbao
A beber chacolin.
Mal chacolin tuvieron,
Y dia tan fatal,
Que con la borrachera
Se murió el general!
I. “’Twas fraud and treason her destruction doomed.”
Rancorous Despite,
Disloyal Treason and heart-burning Hate.
Spenser, Fairy Queen.
IV. “The sword
Which mighty Carlos at Pavía won,
The puny Ferdinand to France restored.”
Ὦ σπέρμ’ Ἀχιλλέως, τἄλλα μὲν πάρεστί σοι
Πατρῷ’ ἑλέσθαι τῶν δ’ ὅπλων κείνων ἀνὴρ
Ἄλλος κρατύνει νυν, ὁ Λαέρτου γόνος.—
Soph. Philoct. 364.
“Oh, born of Achilles! the rest of what pertained to thy father thou mayst take; but these arms another now possesses—Laertes’ son!” Such was the answer of Ulysses to Neoptolemus, when the latter sought the arms of Achilles, and such should have been the reply of Ferdinand to Napoléon.
VII. “And when the Nation woke, ’twas in a glare of light.”
See Wordsworth’s “Convention of Cintra.”
X. “Castile, unconquered Aragon, Navarre,” &c.
Com esta voz Castella alevantada
Suas forças ajunta para as guerras,
De varias regioens, e varias terras.
Camóens, Lus. iv. 7.
XVI. “His strangled carcase on Domingos’ plain,” &c.
——φρόνησον ...
Ὡς νῷν ἀπεχθὴς δυσκλεής τ’ ἀπώλετο.
Soph. Antig. 49.
“Remember, how he perished odious and infamous!”
XXVII. “Nor dauntless Manuela be unsung * *
Nor thou, Burita, sprung from noblest bed.”
These heroines were by no means singular in their courage and constancy, at that eventful era. Blanca is, I trust, no inaccurate type of that multitude of heroic women who sprang up in all parts of Spain during the Peninsular War, who rose superior to the weakness of their sex in the face of invasion and its attendant horrors, and who resembled more the Antigones than the Ismenes of ancient history. It was theirs to falsify the familiar reproach:
——γυνὴ γὰρ τἄλλα μὲν φόβου πλέα,
Κακή τ’ ἐς ἀλκὴν, καὶ σίδηρον εἰσορᾷν.
Eurip. Med. 266.
“For Woman is full of fear, and weak for the combat and at sight of steel.” The heroic plebeian Maid of Zaragoza, and the not less heroic patrician, Burita, were not of Ismene’s way of thinking, which is nevertheless expressed with beautiful feminine propriety (for common occasions):—
Ἀλλ’ ἐννοεῖν χρὴ τοῦτο μὲν, γυναῖχ’ ὅτι
Ἔφυμεν, ὡς πρὸς ἄνδρας οὐ μαχουμένα.
Soph. Antig. 61.
“But it is meet we think on this—that we are women, and unequal to contend with men.” They rather said with Antigone:—
——σοὶ δ’ εἰ δοκεῖ,
Τὰ τῶν θεῶν ἔντιμ’ ἀτιμάσασ’ ἔχε. * *
Ἀλλ’ ἔα με, καὶ τὴν ἐξ ἐμοῦ δυσβουλίαν.
Ib. 95.
“Do thou, if so to thee seem fit, despise that which the Gods deem holiest. * * But suffer me and my rashness!”
XXVIII. “And cloistered sisters the cartouche to mould.”
O! decus, o! sacrâ fœmina digna domo!
Ovid. Fast. vi. 810.
“Though History rend each page, this, this shall be enrolled!”
See Wordsworth’s “Convention of Cintra.”
XXIX. “See the furious charge
Of France’s chivalry, like Aias’ car,
Mow thousands down.”
Αἴας δὲ Τρώεσσιν ἐπάλμενος εἷλε Δόρυκλον κ. τ. λ.
Ὣς ἔφεπε κλονέων πεδίον τότε φαίδιμος Αἴας
Δαΐζων ἵππους τε καὶ ἀνέρας.
Hom. Il. xi. 489.
XXXVI. “Upon thy beauteous banks, Mondego, where,” &c.
As filhas do Mondego a morte escura
Longo tempo chorando memoraram;
E por memoria eterna, em fonte pura
As lagrimas choradas transformaram:
O nome lhe pozeram, que ainda dura,
Dos amores de Ignez, que alli passaram.
Vede que fresca fonte rega as flores,
Que lagrimas são a agua, e o nome amores.
Camóens, Lus. iii. 135.
XXXVIII. “But sad the victory gained where Moore heroic died.”
See the clear and affecting account of Sir John Moore’s last moments, by the present Lord Hardinge, annexed to Mr. Moore’s Narrative.
XL. “The pillow tended by the loving wife,” &c.
See the beautiful speech of Andromache over the body of Hector:—
Οὐ γάρ μοι θνήσκων λεχέων ἐκ χεῖρας ὄρεξας·
Οὐδέ τί μοι εἶπες πυκινὸν ἔπος, οὗτέ κεν αἰεὶ
Μεμνήμην νύκτας τε καὶ ἤματα δακρυχέουσα.
Hom. Il. xxiv. 743.
XLIII. “Thou wilt not go—thou wilt not, Carlos, leave,” &c.
Clyt. Ποῦ σ’ αὖθις ὀψόμεθα; ποῦ χρή μ’ ἀθλίαν
Ἐλθοῦσαν εὑρεῖν σὴν χὲρ’, ἐπίκουρον κακῶν;
Achil. Ἡμεῖς σε φύλακες, οὗ χρεὼν, φυλάσσομεν.
Clyt. “Where shall we again behold thee? Whither must I
wretched go to find thy protecting hand?”
Achil. “We will guard you, when it is needful.”
Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. 1026.
“No danger fear, mi alma, blushful rose!”
Nè te, Altamoro, entro al pudico letto,
Potuto ha ritener la sposa amata.
Pianse, percosse il biondo crine e ’l petto,
Per distornar la tua fatale andata.
“Dunque (dicia) crudel, più che’l mio aspetto
“Del mar l’orrida faccia a te fia grata?
“Fian l’arme al braccio tuo più caro peso,
“Che’l picciol figlio ai dolci scherzi inteso?”
Tasso, Gerus. Lib. xvii. 26.
XLVII. “She leaps—Archangels weep at Virtue’s sacrifice!”
Ὦ τύμβος, ὦ νυμφεῖον, ὦ κατασκαφὴς,
Οἴκησις αἰείφρουρος * * κάκιστα δὴ μακρῷ
Κάτειμι, πρίν μοι μοῖραν ἐξήκειν βίου.
Soph. Antig. 891.
“Oh sepulchre, oh bridal bed, oh earth-dug everlasting dwelling!—by the worst of deaths I perish before the allotted day.”
I visited in September last the principal historical scenes recorded in this Canto—the Castle at Bayonne where Napoléon filched the crown with such sinister dexterity from the old King, as well as from Ferdinand VII.; the fine fortress at Badajoz where the miserable Godoy was born; the museum of Armoin at Madrid, where, alas, the sword of Francis the First surrendered at Pavía, is not; and the monument in the Prado, erected to the memory of the victims who fell on the Dos de Maio. I had previously visited the fields of Roriça and Vimieiro, and made more than one pilgrimage to Corunna.
The name of the Maid of Zaragoza (in contradiction to all English writers) I have fixed, upon Spanish authority, as Manuela Sanchez.
IBERIA WON.