[113] Napier is always hard on Spanish officers and administrators, but I think that of the whole class Palafox receives the most undeserved contumely from his pen. He holds him to have been a mere puppet, whose strings were pulled by obscure Saragossan demagogues like the celebrated Tio Jorge. He even doubts his personal courage. Both Spanish and French historians unite in taking the Captain-general quite seriously, and I think they are right. His best testimonial is the harsh and vindictive treatment that he received at Napoleon’s hands.
[114] The chief of these buildings inserted in the wall were the convents or Santa Engracia and the Misericordia, and the cavalry barracks.
[115] That Palafox and those about him despaired of the defence is honestly confessed in the Marquis de Lazan’s Campaña del verano de 1808. He and his brother ‘had not believed that an open town defended by untrained peasants could defend itself,’ and the news of Lefebvre’s first repulse astonished as much as it pleased them.
[116] The Spaniards have called this first attack on Saragossa the action of the Eras del Rey, the name of the meadows outside the Portillo and Carmen gates, in which the French columns massed themselves for the attack.
[117] He called them the ‘Regiment of Ferdinand VII,’ and the ‘Second Regiment of the kingdom of Aragon.’
[118] They belonged to the 14th Provisional Regiment, and the accompanying corps were the 4th and 7th bataillons de marche.
[119] 3rd Regiment of the Vistula.
[120] 3rd, 6th, and 9th escadrons de marche.
[121] The Regiment of Estremadura was so weak at the outbreak of hostilities that its three battalions had only 770 men. It had been hastily brought up to 900 bayonets before entering the city.
[122] His name was Vincente Falco; he belonged to the artillery.