♦Palafox escapes from Bayonne to Zaragoza.♦
Among the persons who accompanied Ferdinand to Bayonne was D. Joseph Palafox y Melzi, the youngest of three brothers, of one of the most distinguished families in Aragon. He was about thirty-four years of age, and had been from boyhood in the Spanish guards without ever having seen actual service; in Madrid, where he had mostly passed his time, he was only remarkable for a certain foppishness in his appearance, and in ordinary times he might have passed through life as an ordinary man, without any pretensions to moral or intellectual rank. After the tumults at Aranjuez he was appointed second in command there, under the Marquis de Castellar, to whose custody the Prince of the Peace was committed. Not being regarded at Bayonne as a person whom it was necessary to secure, he found means to escape in the disguise of a peasant, and in that dress arrived safely at a country house belonging to his family, at Alfranca, about two miles from Zaragoza. That city was in a perturbed state, ... the people restless, indignant, and eager to act against the enemy; the magistrates, and the Captain-general of Aragon, D. Jorge Juan Guillermi, desirous of maintaining order, and ready in regular course of office to obey the instruction which they received from Madrid, not scrupulous from what authority they came, while it was through the accustomed channels. The arrival of Palafox at such a time excited the hopes and the expectations of the Zaragozans. That he was hostile to the intended usurpation was certain, he would not otherwise have exposed himself to danger in escaping from Bayonne; that he came with the intention of serving Ferdinand was to be presumed, ... perhaps with secret instructions from him; it was even rumoured that Ferdinand himself had miraculously made his escape, and was now concealed in the house of the faithful companion of his flight. This report was too romantic to obtain belief, except among the most credulous of the ignorant. Palafox however was so popular, and the impatience of the people discovered itself so plainly, and their wishes so evidently looked to him as the man whom they would fain have for their leader, that though he used no means direct or indirect for encouraging this disposition, the Captain-general thought proper to send him an order to quit the kingdom of Aragon. Despotic as the system of administration had been throughout all Spain, such an order to a man of Palafox’s rank, in his own country, would have been deemed at any time a most unfit exertion of authority. Under the present circumstances it evinced the determination of General Guillermi to support the intrusive government, and hastened the insurrection which he apprehended, but was unable to avert.
Two men of strong national feeling and great hardihood had obtained at this time an ascendancy over the populace; Tio Jorge the one was called, the other Tio Marin, ... Tio, or uncle, being the appellation by which men in the lower classes who have passed the middle age are familiarly addressed in that part of Spain. ♦Insurrection in that city.♦ These persons, on the morning of the 24th of May, at the head of a multitude of peasants from the parishes of S. Madeleña and S. Pablo, proceeded to the Governor’s palace, crying out, Down with Murat! Ferdinand for ever! They disarmed the guard, made their way into his apartment, and required him to accompany them to the arsenal, and give orders for distributing arms to the people; a great quantity, they said, had been sold to the French. It was in vain that Guillermi defended himself against this absurd accusation, and pleaded his age and services and honourable wounds: his conduct towards Palafox had unequivocally shown what part he was disposed to take in this crisis of his country. But the Zaragozans, less inhuman than the populace in many other places, contented themselves with securing him in the old castle of the Aljaferia, which was used for a military prison as well as for a depot of artillery. The second in command, Lieutenant-general Mori, who was an Italian by birth, was then regarded as his successor, rather by right of seniority, than for any confidence on the part of the people; for though his name was shouted with loud Vivas, ominous intimations accompanied these shouts, that if he did not demean himself to their satisfaction, the cry would be, Down with Mori, as it had been, Down with Guillermi. A Junta was formed, but though the most respectable persons were chosen, the people continued to act for themselves. Still it was with greater moderation than had been evinced elsewhere; a cry was raised against the French inhabitants; and they were conducted to the citadel more for their own security than for that of the city.
♦Palafox made captain-general.♦
Tio Jorge and a party of peasants, now armed from the arsenal, went to Alfranca, and invited Palafox into Zaragoza; he showed no disposition to accept their invitation, and they would have taken him with them against his consent, if General Mori, feeling the instability of his own power, had not written to solicit his assistance. The next morning, when he appeared in the Council, he requested that some means might be taken for delivering him from the importunities of the people, protesting that he was ready to devote all his exertions, and his life also, if that sacrifice should be required, to his country and his King. The people who surrounded the door were now calling out that Palafox should be appointed Captain-general; they burst into the Council with this cry. Mori gladly declared himself willing to resign the office if his services were no longer necessary, and Palafox was thus invested with the command.
♦Jovellanos and Cabarrus at Zaragoza.♦
The city was in this state when Jovellanos, having been released on the accession of Ferdinand from his long and iniquitous imprisonment in Majorca, arrived there on the way from Barcelona to Asturias, his native province. The insurrection in Catalonia had not broken out when he commenced his journey, but every where the storm was gathering; travellers of his appearance were every where regarded with curiosity and suspicion; and when desirous, because of his infirm age and broken health, to avoid the noise of a tumultuous city and the inconvenience of unnecessary delay, he would have past on without entering the gates, a jealous mob surrounded the carriage. Hearing that it came from Barcelona, some were for searching the strangers, others for conducting them before the new Captain-general to be examined; presently however he was recognised, the name of Jovellanos was pronounced; He is a good man, he must stay with us, was then the cry; and he was conducted as in triumph to the palace. Palafox also intreated this eminent and irreproachable man to remain in Zaragoza and assist him with his advice; but Jovellanos pleaded infirmities brought on more by sufferings than by years, and the necessity of retirement and tranquillity for a broken constitution. Among the persons who were then with the greatest zeal assisting Palafox in his preparations for war, was the Conde de Cabarrus, a man of great reputation as a financier and political economist, remarkable alike for talents and irregularities. Jovellanos, himself the most excellent of men, had tolerated the faults of Cabarrus for the sake of the noble qualities which he possessed; and when Cabarrus, from the high favour which he enjoyed under Charles III. became in the ensuing reign an object of hatred and persecution, Jovellanos, as he had been the most disinterested of all his many friends in prosperity, was the most faithful of the few who adhered to him in his disgrace. Hitherto the love of Cabarrus for his country, his passionate desire for the improvement of its institutions, and his attachment to the principles of liberty, had never been doubted; and now at thus meeting Jovellanos after ten years of suffering, he shed tears, less in grief for the condition of Spain, than in joy for the right old Spanish spirit which they saw reviving among the people. He promised to follow his venerable friend to Jadraque, and offered to be guided by his counsels. Jovellanos the next day proceeded on his journey, and for honour as well as protection Tio Jorge, with an escort of musqueteers, convoyed him the first stage.
♦Palafox declares war against France.♦
The situation in which Palafox was placed was equally conspicuous and perilous. To have escaped from Bayonne, and taken upon himself the command of one of the kingdoms of Spain in opposition to the usurpation, marked him in a peculiar manner for the vengeance of a tyrant who was not to be offended with impunity. The capital of Aragon was an important position, and at this time exposed to danger on all sides. The adjoining province of Navarre was in possession of the French, and it was not yet known that any resistance to them had been manifested in Catalonia. The passes of the Pyrenees, leading directly into Aragon, were open, and the main body of the French army was on the other side in and about Madrid. Thus surrounded by the enemy, and in a city which in military language would have been called defenceless, (the walls and gates of Zaragoza having for many generations been of no other use than to facilitate the collection of the customs,) Palafox declared war against the French. The proclamation which he issued was in a style which accorded with the temper of the people. He declared that the Emperor of the French, the individuals of his family, and every French general and officer, should be held personally responsible for the safety of King Ferdinand, his brothers, and his uncle: that should the French commit any robberies, devastations, and murders, either in Madrid or any other place, no quarter should be given them: that all the acts of the existing government were illegal, and that the renunciations at Bayonne were null and void, having been extorted by oppression: that whatever might be done hereafter by the royal family in their state of duresse, should for the same reason be accounted of no authority; and that all who took an active part in these transactions should be deemed traitors to their country. And if any violence were attempted against the lives of the Royal Family, he declared that in that case the nation would make use of their elective right in favour of the Archduke Charles.
Upon the first intelligence of the tumults at Zaragoza, the Junta of Government at Madrid, knowing how popular the name of Palafox would prove, dispatched his elder brother, the Marquis de Lazan, to inform him of the course which they were pursuing, and persuade him to use his influence for reducing the Aragonese to submission. But the Marquis, on his arrival, found that no influence could have effected this, and that Palafox had decidedly taken his part; and he also entered heartily into the cause of his country. The Principe del Castel Franco, D. Ignacio Martinez de Villala, one of the council of Castille, and the Alcalde of the court, D. Luis Marcelino Pereyra, were sent from Bayonne upon a similar errand, with a proclamation addressed to the Zaragozans, and signed by all the Spaniards who had obeyed Buonaparte’s summons as members of the Assembly of Notables. Had they reached Zaragoza the mission might have cost them their lives, but finding that the people of Aragon were every where inflamed with the same hatred against the French, they deemed it expedient to turn back.