CHAPTER II.
CONTINUATION OF THE OPERATIONS IN ARAGON.
From the field of battle at Tudela, all the fugitives of O’Neil’s, and a great part of those from Castaños’s army, fled to Zaragoza and with such speed as to bring the first news of their own disaster. With the troops, also, came an immense number of carriages and the military chests, for the roads were wide and excellent and the pursuit was slack.
The citizens and the neighbouring peasantry were astounded at this quick and unexpected calamity. They had, with a natural credulity, relied on the vain and boasting promises of their chiefs, and being necessarily ignorant of the true state of affairs never doubted that their vengeance would be sated by a speedy and complete destruction of the French. When their hopes were thus suddenly blasted; when they beheld troops, from whom they expected nothing but victory, come pouring into the town with all the tumult of panic; when the peasants of all the villages through which the fugitives passed, came rushing into the city along with the scared multitude of flying soldiers and camp followers; every heart was filled with consternation, and the date of Zaragoza’s glory would have ended with the first siege, if the success at Tudela had been followed up by the French with that celerity and vigour which the occasion required.
Appendix Vol. I.
Napoleon, foreseeing that this moment of confusion and terror would arrive, had with his usual prudence provided the means and given directions for such an instantaneous and powerful attack as would inevitably have overthrown the bulwark of the eastern provinces. But the sickness of marshal Lasnes, the difficulty of communication, the consequent false movements of Moncey and Ney, in fine, the intervention of fortune, omnipotent as she is in war, baffled the emperor’s long-sighted calculations, and permitted the leaders in the city to introduce order among the multitude, to complete the defensive works, to provide stores, and finally by a ferocious exercise of power to insure implicit obedience to their minutest orders. The danger of resisting the enemy appeared light, when a suspicious word or even a discontented gesture was instantaneously punished by a cruel death.
The third corps having thus missed the favourable moment for a sudden assault, and being reduced by sickness, by losses in battle, and by Muster roll of the French Army, MSS. detachments to seventeen thousand four hundred men, including the engineers and artillery, was too weak to invest the city in form, and, therefore, remained in observation on the Xalon river. Meanwhile, a battering train of sixty guns, with well furnished parcs, which had been by Napoleon’s orders previously collected in Pampeluna, were dragged by cattle to Tudela and embarked upon the canal leading to Zaragoza.
Marshal Mortier, with the fifth corps, was also directed to assist in the siege, and he was in march to join Moncey, when his progress also was arrested by sir John Moore’s advance towards Burgos. But the utmost scope of that general’s operation being soon determined by Napoleon’s counter-movement, Mortier resumed his march to reinforce Moncey, and, on the 20th of December, their united corps, forming an army of thirty-five thousand men of all arms, advanced against Zaragoza. Cavalhero.
Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. At this time, however, confidence had been restored in that town, and all the preparations necessary for a vigorous defence were completed.
The nature of the plain in which Zaragoza is situated, the course of the rivers, the peculiar construction of the houses, and the multitude of convents have been already described, but the difficulties to be encountered by the French troops were no longer the same as in the first siege. At that time but little assistance had been derived from science, but now, instructed by experience and inspired as it were by the greatness of their resolution, neither the rules of art nor the resources of genius were neglected by the defenders.
Zaragoza offered four irregular fronts, of which the first, reckoning from the right of the town, extended from the Ebro to a convent of barefooted Carmelites, and was about three hundred yards wide.
The second, twelve hundred yards in extent, reached from the Carmelites to a bridge over the Huerba.
The third, likewise of twelve hundred yards, stretched from this bridge to an oil manufactory built beyond the walls.
The fourth, being on an opening of four hundred yards, reached from the oil manufactory to the Ebro.
The first front, fortified by an ancient wall and flanked by the guns on the Carmelite, was strengthened Rogniat’s Seige of Zaragoza.
Cavalhero’s Siege of Zaragoza. by some new batteries and ramparts, and by the Castle of Aljaferia, commonly called the Castle of the Inquisition, which stood a little in advance. This was a fort of a square form having a bastion and tower at each corner, and a good stone ditch, and it was connected with the body of the place by certain walls loop-holed for musketry.
The second front was defended by a double wall, the exterior one being of recent erection, faced with sun-dried bricks, and covered by a ditch with perpendicular sides fifteen feet deep and twenty feet asunder. The flanks of this front were derived from the convent of the Carmelites, from a large circular battery standing in the centre of the line, from a fortified convent of the Capuchins, called the Trinity, and from some earthen works protecting the head of the bridge over the Huerba.
The third front was covered by the river Huerba, the deep bed of which was close to the foot of the ramparts. Behind this stream a double entrenchment was carried from the bridge-head to the large projecting convent of Santa Engracia, a distance of two hundred yards. Santa Engracia itself was very strongly fortified and armed; and, from thence to the oil manufactory, the line of defence was prolonged by an ancient Moorish wall, on which several terraced batteries were raised, to sweep all the space between the rampart and the Huerba. These batteries, and the guns in the convent of Santa Engracia, likewise overlooked some works raised to protect a second bridge that crossed the river, about cannot-shot below the first.
Upon the right bank of the Huerba, and a little below the second bridge, stood the convent of San Joseph, the walls of which had been strengthened and protected by a deep ditch with a covered way and pallisade. It was well placed to impede the enemy’s approaches, and to facilitate sorties on the right bank of the river; and it was, as I have said, open, in the rear, to the fire of the works at the second bridge, and both were again overlooked by the terraced batteries, and by the guns of Santa Engracia.
The fourth front was protected by the Huerba, by the continuation of the old city wall, by new batteries and entrenchments, and by several armed convents and large houses.
Beyond the walls the Monte Torrero, which commanded all the plain of Zaragoza, was crowned by a large, ill-constructed fort, raised at the distance of eighteen hundred yards from the convent of San Joseph. This work was covered by the royal canal, the sluices of which were defended by some field-works, open to the fire of the fort itself.
On the left bank of the Ebro the suburb, built in a low marshy plain, was protected by a chain of redoubts and fortified houses. Finally, some gun-boats, manned by seamen from the naval arsenal of Carthagena, completed the circuit of defence. The artillery of the place was, however, of too small a Cavalhero. calibre. There were only sixty guns carrying more than twelve-pound balls; and there were but eight large mortars. There was, however, no want of small arms, many of which were English that had been supplied by colonel Doyle.
These were the regular external defences of Zaragoza, most of which were constructed at the time, according to the skill and means of the engineers; but the experience of the former siege had taught the people not to trust to the ordinary resources of art, and, with equal genius and resolution, they had prepared an internal system of defence infinitely more efficacious.
It has been already observed that the houses of Zaragoza were fire-proof, and, generally, of only two stories, and that, in all the quarters of the city, the numerous massive convents and churches rose like castles above the low buildings, and that the greater streets, running into the broad-way called the Cosso, divided the town into a variety of districts, unequal in size, but each containing one or more large structures. Now, the citizens, sacrificing all personal convenience, and resigning all idea of private property, gave up their goods, their bodies, and their houses to the war, and, being promiscuously mingled with the peasantry and the regular soldiers, the whole formed one mighty garrison, well suited to the vast fortress into which Zaragoza was transformed: for, the doors and windows of the houses were built up, and their fronts loop-holed; internal communications were broken through the party-walls, and the streets were trenched and crossed by earthen ramparts, mounted with cannon, and every strong building was turned into a separate fortification. There was no weak point, because there could be none in a town which was all fortress, and where the space covered by the city was the measurement for the thickness of the ramparts: nor in this emergency were the leaders unmindful of moral force.
The people were cheered by a constant reference to the former successful resistance; their confidence was raised by the contemplation of the vast works that had been executed; and it was recalled to their recollection that the wet, usual at that season of the year, would spread disease among the enemy’s ranks, and would impair, if not entirely frustrate, his efforts. Neither was the aid of superstition neglected: processions imposed upon the sight, false miracles bewildered the imagination, and terrible denunciations of the divine wrath shook the minds of men, whose former habits and present situation rendered them peculiarly susceptible of such impressions. Finally, the leaders were themselves so prompt and terrible in their punishments that the greatest cowards were likely to show the boldest bearing in their wish to escape suspicion.
To avoid the danger of any great explosion, the powder was made as occasion required; and this was the more easily effected because Zaragoza contained a royal depôt and refinery for salt-petre, and there were powder-mills in the neighbourhood, which furnished workmen familiar with the process of manufacturing that article. The houses and trees beyond the walls were all demolished and cut down, and the materials carried into the town. The public magazines contained six months’ provisions; the convents were well stocked, and the inhabitants had, likewise, laid up their own stores for several months. General Doyle also sent a convoy into the town from the side of Catalonia, and there was abundance of money, because, in addition to the resources of the town, the military chest of Castaños’s army, which had been supplied only the night before the battle of Tudela, was, in the flight, carried to Zaragoza.
Companies of women, enrolled to attend the hospitals and to carry provisions and ammunition to the combatants, were commanded by the countess Doyle’s Correspondence, M.S.
Cavalhero, Siege of Zaragoza. of Burita, a lady of an heroic disposition, who is said to have displayed the greatest intelligence and the noblest character during both sieges. There were thirteen engineer officers, and eight hundred sappers and miners, composed of excavators formerly employed on the canal, and there were from fifteen hundred to two thousand cannoneers.
The regular troops that fled from Tudela, being joined by two small divisions, which retreated, at the same time, from Sanguessa and Caparosa, formed a garrison of thirty thousand men, and, together with the inhabitants and peasantry, presented a mass of fifty thousand combatants, who, with passions excited almost to phrensy, awaited an assault amidst those mighty entrenchments, where each man’s home was a fortress and his family a garrison. To besiege, with only thirty-five thousand men, a city so prepared was truly a gigantic undertaking!
SECOND SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.
The 20th of December, the two marshals, Moncey and Mortier, having established their hospitals and Rogniat. magazines at Alagon on the Xalon, advanced in three columns against Zaragoza.
The first, composed of the infantry of the third corps, marched by the right bank of the canal.
The second, composed of general Suchet’s division of the fifth corps, marched between the canal and the Ebro.
The third, composed of general Gazan’s division of infantry, crossed the Ebro opposite to Tauste, and from thence made an oblique march to the Gallego river.
The right and centre columns arrived in front of the town that evening. The latter, after driving back the Spanish advanced guards, halted at a distance of a league from the Capuchin convent of the Trinity; the former took post on both sides of the Huerba, and, having seized the aqueduct by which the canal is carried over that river, proceeded, in pursuance of Napoleon’s orders, to raise batteries, and to make dispositions for an immediate assault on Monte Torrero. Meanwhile general Gazan, with the left column, marching by Cartejon and Zuera reached Villa Nueva, on the Gallego river, without encountering an enemy.
The Monte Torrero was defended by five thousand Spaniards, under the command of general St. Marc; but, at day-break on the 21st, the French opened their fire against the fort, and one column of infantry having attracted the attention of the Spaniards, a second, unseen, crossed the canal under the aqueduct, and, penetrating between the fort and the city, entered the former by the rear, and, at the same time, a third column stormed the works protecting the great sluices. These sudden attacks, and the loss of the fort, threw the Cavalhero. Spaniards into confusion, and they hastily retired to the town, which so enraged the plebeian leaders that the life of St. Marc was with difficulty saved by Palafox.
It had been concerted among the French that general Gazan should assault the suburb, simultaneously with the attack on the Torrero; and that officer, having encountered a body of Spanish and Swiss troops placed somewhat in advance, drove the former back so quickly that the Swiss, unable to make good their retreat, were, to the number of three or four hundred, killed or taken. But, notwithstanding Rogniat. this fortunate commencement, Gazan did not attack the suburb itself until after the affair at Monte Torrero was over, and then only upon a single point, and without any previous examination of the works. The Spaniards, recovering from their first alarm, soon reinforced this point, and Gazan was forced to desist, with the loss of four hundred men. This important failure more than balanced the success against the Monte Torrero. It restored the shaken confidence of the Spaniards at a most critical moment, and checking in the French, at the outset, that impetuous spirit, that impulse of victory, which great generals so carefully watch and improve, threw them back upon the tedious and chilling process of the engineer.
The 24th of December the investment of Zaragoza was completed on both sides of the Ebro. General Gazan occupied the bridge over the Gallego with his left, and covered his front from sorties by inundations and cuts that the low, marshy plain where he was posted enabled him to make without difficulty.
General Suchet occupied the space between the Upper Ebro and the Huerba.
Morlot’s division of the 3d corps encamped in the broken hollow that formed the bed of that stream.
General Meusnier’s division crowned the Monte Torrero, and general Grandjean continuing the circuit to the Lower Ebro, communicated with Gazan’s posts on the other side. Several Spanish detachments that had been sent out to forage were thus cut off, and could never re-enter the town; and a bridge of boats being constructed on the Upper Ebro completed the circle of investment, and ensured a free intercourse between the different quarters of the army.
General Lacoste, an engineer of reputation, and aide-de-camp to the Emperor, directed the siege. His plan was, that one false and two real attacks should be conducted by regular approaches on the right bank of the Ebro, and he still hoped to take the suburb by a sudden assault. The trenches being opened on the night of the 29th of December, the 30th the place was summoned, and the terms dictated by Napoleon when he was at Aranda de Duero, were offered. The example of Madrid was also cited to induce a surrender. Palafox replied, that—If Madrid had surrendered, Madrid had been sold: Zaragoza would neither be sold nor surrender! On the receipt of this haughty answer the attacks were commenced; the right being directed against the convent of San Joseph; the centre against the upper bridge over the Huerba; the left, which was the false one, against the castle of Aljaferia.
The 31st Palafox made sorties against all the three attacks. From the right and centre he was beaten back with loss, and he was likewise repulsed on the left at the trenches: but some of his cavalry gliding between the French parallel and the Ebro surprised and cut down a post of infantry stationed behind some ditches that intersected the low ground on the bank of that river. This trifling success exalted the enthusiasm of the besieged, and Palafox gratified his personal vanity by boasting proclamations and orders of the day, some of which bore the marks of genius, but the greater part were ridiculous.
The 1st of January the second parallels of the true attacks were commenced. The next day Palafox caused the attention of the besiegers to be occupied on the right bank of the Ebro, by slight skirmishes, while he made a serious attack from the side of the suburb on general Gazan’s lines of contrevallation. This sally was repulsed with loss, but, on the right bank, the Spaniards obtained some success.
Marshal Moncey being called to Madrid, Junot assumed the command of the third corps, and, about the same time, marshal Mortier was directed to take post at Calatayud, with Suchet’s division of the fifth corps, for the purpose of securing the communication with Madrid. The gap in the circle of investment left by this draft of eight thousand men, being but scantily stopped by extending general Morlot’s division, a line of contrevallation was constructed at that part to supply the place of numbers.
The besieged, hoping and expecting each day that the usual falls of rain taking place would render the besiegers’ situation intolerable, continued their fire briskly, and worked counter approaches on to the right of the French attacks: but the season was unusually dry, and a thick fog rising each morning covered the besiegers’ advances and protected their workmen, both from the fire and from the sorties of the Spaniards.
The 10th of January, thirty-two pieces of French artillery being mounted and provisioned, the convent of San Joseph and the head of the bridge over the Huerba, were battered in breach, and, at the same time, the town was bombarded. San Joseph was so much injured by this fire that the Spaniards, resolving to evacuate it, withdrew their guns. Nevertheless, two hundred of their men made a vigorous sortie at midnight, and were upon the point of entering one of the French batteries, when they were taken in flank by two guns loaded with grape, and were, finally, driven back, with loss of half their number.
The 11th, the besiegers’ batteries continued to play on San Joseph with such success that the breach became practicable, and, at four o’clock in the evening, some companies of infantry, with two field-pieces, attacked by the right, and a column was kept in readiness to assail the front, when this attack should have shaken the defence. Two other companies of chosen men were directed to search for an entrance by the rear, between the fort and the river.
The defences of the convent were reduced to a ditch eighteen feet deep, and a covered way which, falling back by both flanks to the Huerba, was then extended along the banks of that river for some distance. A considerable number of men still occupied this covered way: but, when the French field-pieces on the right raked it with a fire of grape, the Spaniards were thrown into confusion, and crossing the bed of the river took shelter in the town. At that moment the front of the convent was assaulted; but, while the depth of the ditch and the Spanish fire checked the impetuosity of the assailants at that point; the chosen companies passed round the works, and finding a small bridge over the ditch crossed it, and entered the convent by the rear. The front was carried by escalade, almost at the same moment, and the few hundred Spaniards that remained were killed or made prisoners.
The French, who had suffered but little in this assault, immediately lodged themselves in the convent, raised a rampart along the edge of the Huerba, and commenced batteries against the body of the place and against the works at the head of the upper bridge, from whence, as well as from the town, they were incommoded by the fire that played into the convent.
The 15th, the bridge-head, in front of Santa Engracia, was carried with the loss of only three men; but the Spaniards cut the bridge itself, and sprung a mine under the works; the explosion, however, occasioned no mischief, and the third parallels being soon completed, and the trenches of the two attacks united, the defences of the besieged were thus confined to the town itself. They could no longer make sallies on the right bank of the Huerba without overcoming the greatest difficulties. The passage of the Huerba was then effected by the French, and breaching and counter-batteries, mounting fifty pieces of artillery, were constructed against the body of the place. The fire of these guns played also upon the bridge over the Ebro, and interrupted the communication between the suburb and the town.
Unshaken by this aspect of affairs, the Spanish leaders, with great readiness of mind, immediately forged intelligence of the defeat of the emperor, and, with the sound of music, and amidst the shouts of the populace, proclaimed the names of the marshals who had been killed; asserting, also, that Palafox’s brother, the marquis of Lazan, was already wasting France. This intelligence, extravagant as it was, met with implicit credence, for such was the disposition of the Spaniards throughout this war, that the imaginations of the chiefs were taxed to produce absurdities proportionable to the credulity of their followers; hence the boasting of the leaders and the confidence of the besieged augmented as the danger increased, and their anticipations of victory seemed realized when the night-fires of a succouring force were discerned blazing on the hills behind Gazan’s troops.
The difficulties of the French were indeed fast increasing, for while enclosing Zaragoza they were themselves encircled by insurrections, and their supplies so straightened that famine was felt in their camp. Disputes amongst the generals also diminished the vigour of the operations, and the bonds of discipline being relaxed, the military ardour of the troops naturally became depressed. The soldiers reasoned openly upon the chances of success, which, in times of danger, is only one degree removed from mutiny.
The nature of the country about Zaragoza was exceedingly favourable to the Spaniards. The town, although situated in a plain, was surrounded, at the distance of some miles, by strong and high mountains, and, to the south, the fortresses of Mequinenza and Lerida afforded a double base of operations for any forces that might come from Catalonia and Valencia. The besiegers drew all their supplies from Pampeluna, and consequently their long line of operations, running through Alagon, Tudela, and Caparosa, was difficult to defend from the insurgents, who, being gathered in considerable numbers in the Sierra de Muela and on the side of Epila, threatened Alagon, while others, descending from the mountain of Soria, menaced the important point of Tudela.
The marquis of Lazan, anxious to assist his brother, had drafted five thousand men from the Catalonian army, and taking post in the Sierra de Liciñena, or Alcubierre, on the left of the Ebro, drew together all the armed peasantry of the valleys as high as Sanguessa, and extending his line from Villa Franca on the Ebro to Zuera on the Gallego, hemmed in the division of Gazan, and even sent detachments as far as Caparosa to harass the French convoys coming from Pampeluna.
To maintain their communications and to procure provisions the besiegers had placed between two or three thousand men in Tudela, Caparosa, and Tafalla, and some hundreds in Alagon and at Montalbarra. Between the latter town and the investing army six hundred and fifty cavalry were stationed: a like number were posted at Santa Fé, to watch the openings of the Sierra de Muela, and sixteen hundred cavalry with twelve hundred infantry, under the command of general Wathier, were pushed towards the south as far as Fuentes, Wathier, falling suddenly upon an assemblage of four or five thousand insurgents that had taken post at Belchite, broke and dispersed them, and then pursuing his victory took the town of Alcanitz, and established himself there in observation for the rest of the siege. But Lazan still maintained himself in the Alcubierre.
In this state of affairs marshal Lasnes, having recovered from his long sickness, arrived before Zaragoza, and took the supreme command of both corps on the 22d of January. The influence of his firm and vigorous character was immediately perceptible; he recalled Suchets division from Calatayud, where it had been lingering without necessity, Rogniat. and, sending it across the Ebro, ordered Mortier to attack Lazan. At the same time a smaller detachment was directed against the insurgents in Zuera, and, meanwhile, Lasnes repressing all disputes, restored discipline in the army, and pressed the siege with infinite resolution.
The detachment sent to Zuera defeated the insurgents and took possession of that place and of the bridge over the Gallego. Mortier encountered the Spanish advanced guard at Perdeguera, and pushed it back to Nuestra Señora de Vagallar, where the main body, several thousand strong, was posted. After a short resistance, the whole fled, and the French cavalry took four guns; Mortier then spreading his troops in a half circle, extending from Huesca to Pina on the Ebro, awed all the country lying between those places and Zaragoza, and prevented any further insurrections.
A few days before the arrival of marshal Lasnes, the besieged being exceedingly galled by the fire from a mortar-battery, situated at some distance behind the second parallel of the central attack, eighty volunteers, under the command of Don Mariano Galindo, endeavoured to silence it. They surprised and bayonetted the guard in the nearest trenches, and passing on briskly to the battery, entered it, and were proceeding to spike the artillery, when unfortunately the reserve of the French arrived, and, the alarm being given, the guards of the first trenches also assembled in the rear of this gallant band, intercepting all retreat. Thus surrounded, Galindo, fighting bravely, was wounded and taken, and the greatest part of his comrades perished with as much honour as simple soldiers can attain.
The armed vessels in the river now made an attempt to flank the works raised against the castle of Aljaferia, but the French batteries forced them to drop down the stream again; and between the nights of the 21st and the 26th of January the besiegers’ works being carried across the Huerba, the third parallels of the real attacks were completed. The oil manufactory and some other advantageous posts, on the left bank of the above-named river, were also taken possession of and included in the works, and at the false attack a second parallel was commenced at the distance of a hundred and fifty yards from the castle of Aljaferia; but these advantages were not obtained without loss. The Spaniards made sallies, in one of which they spiked two guns and burnt a French post on the right.
The besiegers’ batteries had, however, broken the wall of the town in several places. Two practicable breaches were made nearly fronting the convent of San Joseph; a third was commenced in the convent of Saint Augustin, facing the oil manufactory. The convent of San Engracia was laid completely open to an assault; and, on the 29th, at twelve o’clock, the whole army being under arms, four chosen columns rushed out of the trenches, and burst upon the ruined works of Zaragoza.
On the right, the assailants twice stormed an isolated stone house that defended the breach of Saint Augustin, and twice they were repulsed, and finally driven back with loss.
In the centre, the attacking column, regardless of two small mines that exploded at the foot of the walls, carried the breach fronting the oil manufactory, and then endeavoured to break into the town; but the Spaniards retrenched within the place, opened such a fire of grape and musquetry that the French were content to establish themselves on the summit of the breach, and to connect their lodgement with the trenches by new works.
The third column was more successful; the breach was carried, and the neighbouring houses also, as far as the first large cross street; beyond that, the assailants could not penetrate, but they were enabled to establish themselves within the walls of the town, and immediately brought forward their trenches, so as to comprehend this lodgement within their works.
The assault of the fourth column, which was directed against San Engracia, was made with such rapidity and vigour that the Polish regiment of the Vistula not only carried that convent itself, but the one adjoining to it; and the victorious troops, unchecked by the fire from the houses, and undaunted by the simultaneous explosion of six small mines planted in their path, swept the ramparts to the left as far as the bridge over the Huerba; and, at that moment, the guards of the trenches, excited by the success of their comrades, broke forth, without orders, mounted the walls, pushed along the ramparts to the left, bayonetted the artillery-men at their guns in the Capuchin convent, and, continuing their career, endeavoured some to reach the semicircular battery and the Misericordia, and others to break into the town.
This wild assault was soon checked by grape from two guns planted behind a traverse on the ramparts, and by a murderous fire from the houses. As their ranks were thinned, the ardour of the French sunk, and the courage of their adversaries increased. The former were, after a little, driven back upon the Capuchins; and the Spaniards were already breaking into that convent in pursuit, when two battalions, detached by general Morlot from the trenches of the false attack, arrived, and secured possession of that point, which was moreover untenable by the Spaniards, inasmuch as the guns of the convent of Santa Engracia saw it in reverse. The French took, on this day, more than six hundred men. But general La Coste immediately abandoned the false attack against the castle, fortified the Capuchin convent and a house situated at an angle of the wall abutting upon the bridge over the Huerba, and then joining them by works to his trenches, the ramparts of the town became the front line of the French.
The walls of Zaragoza thus went to the ground, but Zaragoza herself remained erect; and, as the broken girdle fell from the heroic city, the besiegers started at the view of her naked strength. The regular defences had, indeed, crumbled before the skill of the assailants; but the popular resistance was immediately called, with all its terrors, into action; and, as if Fortune had resolved to mark the exact moment when the ordinary calculations of science should cease, the chief engineers on both sides were simultaneously slain. The French general, La Coste, a young man, intrepid, skilful, and endowed with genius, perished like a brave soldier; but the Spanish colonel, San Genis, died not only with the honour of a soldier, but the glory of a patriot; falling in the noblest cause, his blood stained the ramparts which he had himself raised for the protection of his native place.