[517] He describes it as if ‘a position nearly impregnable, and defended by 12,000 men, had been abandoned to the wild charge of a few squadrons, whom two companies of steady infantry could have stopped’ (i. 268).
[518] The Calle de Alcala, Calle de Atocha, and Carrera de San Geronimo.
[519] This description is mainly from Vaughan’s unpublished diary (p. 230).
[520] This must have been an under-estimate. More than 1,500 of the Somosierra troops had joined the army of Infantado by the New Year.
[521] Report on the defences of Madrid, by the Duke of Infantado, quoted in Arteche (iii. 400, 401).
[522] Napier calls Perales ‘a respectable old general’; but as Toreño remarks (i. 305), he was neither old, nor a military officer of any rank, nor respectable. He was a man of fashion noted for his licentious life, and the mob which murdered him is said to have been headed by his discarded mistress. Arteche suggests that the sand-cartridges were constructed for the purpose of ruining him, and that the whole business was a piece of private vengeance. The marquis had once been a very popular character among the lower classes, but had lost credit by showing politeness to Murat.
[523] Not ‘another military officer,’ as Napier says.
[524] ‘Hombre de corazon pusilánime, aunque de fiera y africana figura,’ says Toreño (i. 307).
[525] The first clause of the Capitulation was to the effect that no religion save the Catholic Apostolic Roman faith should be tolerated! The second provided that all government officials should be continued in the tenure of their offices. Clearly such articles were absurd in a military capitulation, and the second was impossible to execute, as the conqueror must necessarily place in office such persons as he could trust. But the amnesty articles (Nos. 4 and 11) could have been observed, and were not.
[526] Not, as the Spaniards whispered, because he feared the stiletto of some fanatical monk, but because he wished to leave the place clear for his brother Joseph. For the curious story of his visit to the royal palace, and long study of the portrait of Philip II, see Toreño, i. 309.