Her fellows flee—she checks their base career;
The foe retires—she heads the sallying host,
Who can appease like her a lover’s ghost?
Who can avenge so well a leader’s fall?
What maid retrieve, when man’s flushed hope is lost?
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foiled by a woman’s hand, before the battered wall!”
DESPERATE CONFLICT.
On the 4th of August, the French stormed the city, and penetrated as far as the Corso, or public square. Here a terrible conflict was maintained. Every inch of ground was manfully contested; but the enemy’s cavalry was irresistible, and the besieged began to give way. All appeared lost. The French, thinking the victory gained, began to plunder. Seeing this, the besieged rallied, and attacked them. They succeeded in driving the enemy back to the Corso. They also set fire to the convent of Francisco, and many perished in its conflagration. Night now came, to add its horrors to the scene. The fierce contest still raged on. The lunatic asylum was invaded, and soon the dread cry of “Fire” mingled with the incoherent ravings of its inmates. “Here,” says one writer, “were to be seen grinning maniacs, shouting with hideous joy, and mocking the cries of the wounded; there, others, with seeming delight, were dabbling in the crimson fluid of many a brave heart, which had scarcely ceased to beat. On one side, young and lovely women, dressed in the fantastic rigging of a mind diseased, were bearing away headless trunks and mutilated limbs, which lay scattered around them, while the unearthly cries of the idiot kept up a hideous concert with the shouts of the infuriated combatants. In short, it was a scene of unmingled horror, too fearful for the mind to dwell upon.” After a severe contest and dreadful carnage, the French forced their way into the Corso, in the very centre of the city, and before night were in possession of one-half of it. Lefebre now believed that he had effected his purpose, and required Palafox to surrender, in a note containing only these words: “Headquarters, St. Engrucia,—Capitulation.” Equally laconic the brave Spaniard’s answer was: “Headquarters, Saragossa,—War to the knife’s point.”
The contest which was now carried on stands unparalleled. One side of the Corso was held by the French soldiery; the opposite was in possession of the Arragonese, who erected batteries at the end of the cross-streets, within a few paces of those the French had thrown up. The space between these was covered with the dead. Next day, the powder of the besieged began to fail; but even this dismayed them not. One cry broke from the people, whenever Palafox came among them, “War to the knife!—no capitulation.” The night was coming on, and still the French continued their impetuous onsets. But now the brother of Palafox entered the city with a convoy of arms and ammunition, and a reinforcement of three thousand men. This succor was as unexpected as it was welcome, and raised the desperate courage of the citizens to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. The war was now carried on from street to street, and even from room to room. A priest, by the name of Santiago Suss, displayed the most undaunted bravery, fighting at the head of the besieged, and cheering and consoling the wounded and the dying. At the head of forty chosen men, he succeeded in procuring a supply of powder for the town, and, by united stratagem and courage, effected its entrance, even through the French lines. This murderous contest was continued for eleven successive days and nights,—more, indeed, by night than by day, for it was almost certain death to appear by daylight within reach of houses occupied by the other party. But, concealed by the darkness of the night, they frequently dashed across the street, to attack each other’s batteries; and the battle, commenced there, was often carried into the houses beyond, from room to room, and from floor to floor. As if not enough of suffering had accompanied this memorable siege, a new scourge came to add its horrors to the scene. Pestilence, with all its accumulated terrors, burst upon the doomed city. Numbers of putrescent bodies, in various stages of decomposition, were strewed thickly around the spot where the death-struggle was still going on. The air was impregnated with the pestiferous miasm of festering mortality; and this, too, in a climate like Spain, and in the month of August! This evil must be removed,—but how? Certain death would have been the penalty of any Arragonese who should attempt it. The only remedy was to tie ropes to the French prisoners, and, pushing them forward amid the dead and dying, compel them to remove the bodies, and bring them away for interment. Even for this office, as necessary to one party as the other, there was no truce; only the prisoners were better secured, by the compassion of their countrymen, from the fire.