Palafox published that day a proclamation in which he tried to raise the spirits of the soldiers, promising the rank of captain to the man who should bring him a hundred recruits, threatening with the penalty of death and confiscation of property the man who should fail to hasten to the defence, or should leave the lines. All this showed great distress on the part of the commanding officers. That day was memorable for the attack on Santa Monica, which the volunteers of Huesca were defending. During the greater part of the night the French had been bombarding the building. The batteries of the orchard were no longer serviceable, and it was necessary to take away the cannon, an operation performed by our valiant men, exposed without protection to the hostile fire. This opened a breach at last; and, penetrating into the orchard, they tried to gain possession of that also, forgetting that they had twice been repulsed on previous days. But Lannes, exasperated by the extraordinary and unprecedented tenacity of the Saragossans, had given orders to reduce the convent to powder,—a thing which was easier to accomplish with the cannon and howitzer than to take it by storm. At all events, after six hours of artillery fire, a large part of the eastern wall fell, and then the French showed their exultation, and, without loss of time, rushed forward to seize the position, aided by the cross-fire from the Molino in the city. Seeing them coming, Villacampa, commander of the Huesca men, and Palafox, who had hurried to the point of danger, tried to close up the breach with sacks of wool and some empty musket-boxes. The French, reaching the spot, made a mad, furious assault, but, after a brief hand-to-hand struggle, they were repulsed. During the night they went on cannonading the convent.
The next day they decided to make another attack, certain that no mortal could defend that skeleton of stone and brick which every moment was crumbling to the earth. They assailed it at the door of the reception-room; but during all the morning they did not conquer a hand's breadth of earth in the cloister.
The wall of the eastern side of the convent fell flat to the earth during the afternoon. The third floor, which was very much weakened, could not hold the weight, and fell upon the second. The latter, which was even weaker, could not help letting itself go upon the first; and the first, incapable of sustaining by itself the weight of the whole structure above, fairly poured itself out over the cloister, burying hundreds of men. It would have been but natural had the rest been intimidated by such a catastrophe, but they were not. The French gained possession of one part of the convent, but not of all; and, in order to gain the rest, they were obliged to clear a road through the ruins. While they were doing this, the men of Huesca who still survived, placed themselves in the stairway, and made holes through the floor, in order to throw hand-grenades against the besiegers.
Fresh French troops were, however, able to reach the church. They passed over the roof of the convent, and spread themselves in the interior; they descended to the cloisters and attacked the brave volunteers. Hearing the noise of this encounter, those below plucked up heart, redoubled their energy, and, with the loss of a great number of men, succeeded in reaching the stairway. The volunteers found themselves between two fires, and although it was still possible for them to get out by one of the two openings in the cloister, almost all of them swore that they would die before they would surrender. They all ran, seeking for a strategic point which would permit them to defend themselves to some advantage; but they were driven the length of the cloisters, and when the last gun-shot was heard, it was the signal that the last man had fallen. A few inside the building were able to get out by an underground door. Don Pedro Villacampa, commander of the Huesca volunteers, came out into the city that way, and when he found himself in the street, he turned, looking about mechanically for his boys.
During this fight we were in the houses about the Calle de Palomar, firing upon the French detachment sent to assault the convent. Before the battle was over, we learned that defence was no longer possible in Las Monicas. Don José de Montoria himself, who was with us, confessed it.
"The volunteers of Huesca have not borne themselves badly," he said. "They are known to be good fellows. Now we must busy ourselves defending these houses on the right. I do not suppose that one is left. There goes Villacampa alone. Then are not those Mendieta, and Paul, Benedicto, and Oliva? Let us go. I see that indeed none are left in that place."
In this way the convent of Las Monicas passed into the hands of the French.
CHAPTER XXI
On reaching this point in my story, I beg the reader to pardon me if I do not give the dates exactly of that which I relate. In this period of horror, lasting from January 27 to the middle of the next month, the successive events are so confused, so mixed up, so run together in my mind, that I cannot distinguish days and nights, and, in some instances, I do not know whether certain skirmishes of those I recall took place in daylight. It seems to me that all happened during one long day, or in one endless night, and that time was not then marked by its ordinary divisions. Many sensations and impressions are linked together in my memory, forming one vast picture where there are no more dividing lines than those that the events themselves offer,—the greater fright of one moment, the unexplained panic or fury of another.