Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

It is well to say that the high altar of San Augustine was an enormous one, filled with gilded wooden sculptures, like others you have seen in any of the churches of Spain. It extended from the floor to the arch above, and from wall to wall, and represented in row upon row the celestial hierarchies. Above, the blood-stained Christ spread his arms upon the cross; below, and on the altar, a little shrine enclosed the symbol of the Eucharist. Although the whole was supported by the ground and the walls, there were little interior covered ways destined for the special services of that republic of saints, and by them the sacristan could ascend from the sacristy to change the dress of the Virgin, to light the candles before the highest crucifix, or to clean the dust of centuries from the antique fabrics and painted wood of the images.

Well, the French rapidly gained possession of the camarín of the Virgin, and the narrow passages I have spoken of. When we arrived, from behind each saint, in every niche, gleamed a gun barrel. Established thus behind the altar, and advancing slowly forward, they were preparing to take all of this upper part of the church.

We were not entirely unprotected; and in order to defend ourselves from the altar-piece, we occupied the confessionals, the altars of the chapels, and the galleries. Those of us who were most exposed were in the central nave; and while the more daring advanced resolutely towards the altar, others of us took positions in the lower choir; and from behind the chorister's desk, from behind chairs and benches which we piled up against the choir-screen, we tried to dislodge the French nation from its possession of the high altar.

Tio Garces, with others as brave, ran to occupy the pulpit, another churrigueresque structure whose sounding board was crowned by a statue of Faith which reached almost to the roof. They mounted, occupying the little stair and the great chair, and from there, by a singular chance, they shut up every Frenchman who dared to show his head in that direction. They also suffered great loss, for the men in the altar were much annoyed by the pulpit, and tried hard to get that obstacle out of their way. At last some twenty Imperials came out, evidently bent upon reducing at all hazards that wooden redoubt without whose possession it was madness to attempt to come out into the broad nave. I have never seen anything more like a great battle, and as in that the attention of both armies is concentrated upon one point, the most eagerly disputed of all, whose loss or conquest decides the outcome of the struggle, so the attention of all was now directed to the pulpit, so well defended and so well attacked. The twenty had to resist a sharp fire from us in the choir, and the hand-grenades which were thrown at them from the galleries. But in spite of great loss, they advanced resolutely, bayonets fixed, upon the pulpit stairway. The ten defenders of the fortress were not intimidated, and defended themselves with empty guns, with the unfailing superiority which they always showed in that kind of conflict. Many of our men who were firing from the chapel altars and the confessionals, ran to attack the French with their swords, representing in that way, in miniature, conditions of a rude field battle; the contest was waged, man to man, with bayonet-thrusts, guns, and blows as each one met his adversary.

The enemy was reinforced from the sacristy, and our rear-guard also came out of the choir. Some who were in the gallery on the right jumped upon the cornice of a great reredos at one side, and not satisfied with firing from there, threw down upon the French three statues of saints that capped its three angles. Meantime the pulpit was still held bravely, and in that hell of flame I saw Tio Garces standing erect, directing the men, and looking like a preacher screaming impudently with a hoarse voice. If I should ever see the devil preaching sin, standing on the great chair in the pulpit of a church invaded by all the other demons of hell in hideous riot, it would not especially attract my attention after that.

This could not last long; and Tio Garces presently fell, screaming hoarsely, pierced by a hundred balls. The French, who had poured up by way of the sacristy, now advanced in a closed column, and in the three steps which separated the presbytery from the rest of the church, offered us a wall-like defence. When this column fired, the question of the pulpit was instantly settled, and having lost one out of every five of our men, leaving a large number of our dead upon the tiles of the floor, we retreated to the chapels. The first defenders of the pulpit, those who had gone to reinforce them, and Tio Garces also, were picked up on bayonets, pierced through and tossed over the redoubt. So died that great patriot unnamed in history.

The captain of our company remained lifeless also upon the pavement. We retired in disorderly fashion to various points separated from one another, not knowing who would command us. Indeed, the initiative of each one, or of each group of two or three, was the only organization then possible, and no one thought of companies or of military rank. All were obedient to one common purpose, and showed a marvellous instinctive knowledge of rudimentary strategy which the exigencies of the struggle demanded at every moment. This instinctive insight made us understand that we were lost from the time that we got into the chapels on the right, and it was rashness to persist in the defence of the church before the great numbers of the French who now occupied it. Some of our soldiers thought that with the benches, the images, and the wood of an old altar-piece, which could easily be broken to pieces, we ought to raise a barricade in the arch of our chapel, and defend ourselves to the last; but two Augustine fathers opposed this useless effort.

"My sons, do not trouble yourselves to prolong the resistance which will only destroy you, and give our side no advantage," said one of them. "The French are attacking this moment by the Calle de las Arcades. Hasten there, and see if you can not harass them; but do not imagine that you can defend the church profaned by these savages."