Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

These exhortations decided us to leave the church. Some of the Estremadura men remained in the choir, exchanging shots with the French, who now filled the nave. The friars only half-fulfilled their promise of giving us something for which to sing "Gaudeamus." As a recompense for having defended their church to the last extreme, they were giving us some bits of jerked beef and dry bread, without our seeing or smelling the wine anywhere, in spite of our straining our eyes and our nostrils. But to explain this, they said that the French, occupying all the upper part, had possession of all the principal storehouse of provisions. Lamenting this, they tried to console us with praises of our good behavior.

The failure of the wine made me remember the great Pirli. I happened to recollect that I had seen him at the beginning of the battle. I asked for him, but nobody could account for his disappearance. The French occupied the church, and also some of the upper part of the convent. In spite of our unfavorable position below, we were resolved to go on resisting; and we bore in mind the heroic conduct of the volunteers of Huesca, who defended Las Monicas until they were buried beneath its ruins. We were maddened, and believed ourselves disgraced if we did not conquer. We were impelled to these desperate struggles by a hidden, irresistible force which I cannot explain except as the strong tension and spiritual exaltation springing from our aspirations towards the ideal.

An order from outside stopped us, dictated doubtless by the practical good sense of General Saint March.

"The convent cannot be held," it was said. "Instead of sacrificing men with no advantage to the city, let all go out to defend the points attacked in the Calle de Pabostre, and the Puerta Quemada, where the enemy are trying to advance, conquering houses from which they have been repulsed various times."

We therefore left San Augustine. While we were passing through the street of the same name, parallel with the Calle de Palomar, we saw that they were throwing hand-grenades among the French established in a little opening near the latter of these two streets. Who was throwing those projectiles from the tower? In order to tell it more briefly, and with greatest eloquence, let us open the history and read: "In the tower six or eight peasants had placed themselves, having provided themselves with provisions and ammunition to harass the enemy. They continued to hold it for some days without being willing to surrender."

There was the glorious Pirli! Oh, Pirli, more happy than Tio Garces, thou dost occupy a place in history!

CHAPTER XXIII

Incorporated into the battalion of Estremadura, we went along the Calle de Palomar into the Plaza de la Magdalena, whence we could hear the roar of battle at the end of the Calle de Puerta Quemada. As we have said, the enemy tried to take the Calle de Pabostre in order to get possession of Puerta Quemada, an important point whence they could rake with their artillery the street of the same name towards the Plaza de la Magdalena. As the possession of San Augustine and Las Monicas permitted them to threaten that central point by the easy way to the Calle de Palomar, they already considered themselves masters of the suburb. In fact, if those in San Augustine managed to advance to the ruins of the Seminary, and those of the Calle de Pabostre to the Puerta Quemada, it would be impossible to dispute with the French the quarter of Las Tenerias.

After a short time they took us to the Calle de Pabostre, and as the battle of the outside and inside of the buildings and of the public way was now all combined, we entered the first block by the Calle de los Viejos. From the windows of the house in which we found ourselves, we could see nothing but smoke, and could tell but little of what was going on there. I saw later that the street was all filled with embrasures and trenches at certain distances made of heaps of earth, furniture, and rubbish. From the windows a tremendous fire was poured forth, and, remembering a phrase of the beggar Sursum Corda, I can say that our souls were turned into bullets. Inside the houses the blood flowed in torrents. The onset of the French was terrible, and that the resistance might not be less terrible the belfries summoned men unceasingly. The general dictated stern orders for the punishment of stragglers. The friars rallied the people of other districts, dragging them forward as in a leash. Some heroic women set an example, throwing themselves into danger, guns in hand.