The obstinacy and horror of their resistance was nowhere so tragic and so heroic as at the siege of Saragossa, going on at the time Napoleon, at Madrid, was issuing his decrees and proclamations. Saragossa had been fortified when the insurrection against King Joseph broke out. The town was surrounded by convents, which were turned into forts. Men, women, and children took up arms, and the priests, cross in hand, and dagger at the belt, led them. No word of surrender was tolerated within the walls. At the beginning Napoleon regarded the defence of Saragossa as a small affair, and wished to try persuasion on the people. There was at Paris a well known Aragon noble whom he urged to go to Saragossa and calm the popular excitement. The man accepted the mission. When he arrived in the town the people hurried forth to meet him, supposing he had come to aid in the resistance. At the first word of submission he spoke he was assailed by the mob, and for nearly a year lay in a dungeon.
The peasants of the vicinity of Saragossa were quartered in the town, each family being given a house to defend. Nothing could drive them from their posts. They took an oath to resist until death, and regarded the probable destruction of themselves and their families with stoical indifference. The priests had so aroused their religious exultation, and were able to sustain it at such a pitch, that they never wavered before the daily horrors they endured.
The French at first tried to drive them from their posts by sallies made into the town, but the inhabitants rained such a murderous fire upon them from towers, roofs, windows, even the cellars, that they were obliged to retire. Exasperated by this stubborn resistance they resolved to blow up the town, inch by inch. The siege was begun in the most terrible and destructive manner, but the people were unmoved by the danger. “While a house was being mined, and the dull sound of the rammers warned them that death was at hand, not one left the house which he had sworn to defend, and we could hear them singing litanies. Then, at the moment the walls flew into the air and fell back with a crash, crushing the greater part of them, those who had escaped would collect about the ruins, and sheltering themselves behind the slightest cover, would recommence their sharpshooting.”
Marshal Lannes commanded before Saragossa. Touched by the devotion and the heroism of the defenders, he proposed an honorable capitulation. The besieged scorned the proposition, and the awful process of undermining went on until the town was practically blown to pieces.
BERNADOTTE. ABOUT 1798.
Engraved by Fiesinger, after Guérin.
For such resistance there was no end but extermination. For the first time in his career Napoleon had met sublime popular patriotism, a passion before which diplomacy, flattery, love of gain, force, lose their power.
It was for but a short time that the emperor could give his personal attention to the Spanish war. Certain wheels in his great machine were not revolving smoothly. In his own capital, Paris, there was friction among certain influential persons. The peace of the Continent, necessary to the Peninsular war, and which Alexander had guaranteed, was threatened. Under these circumstances it was impossible to remain in Spain.
