♦Foundling Hospital burnt.
On the night of the second of August, and on the following day, the French bombarded the city from their batteries opposite the gate of the Carmen. A foundling hospital, which was now filled with the sick and wounded, took fire, and was rapidly consumed. During this scene of horror, the most intrepid exertions were made to rescue these helpless sufferers from the flames. No person thought of his own property or individual concerns, ... every one hastened thither. The women were eminently conspicuous in their exertions, regardless of the shot and shells which fell about them, and braving the flames of the building. It has often been remarked, that the wickedness of women exceeds that of the other sex; ... for the same reason, when circumstances, forcing them out of the sphere of their ordinary nature, compel them to exercise manly virtues, they display them in the highest degree, and, when they are once awakened to a sense of patriotism, they carry the principle to its most heroic pitch. The loss of women and boys, during this siege, was very great, fully proportionate to that of men; they were always the most forward, and the difficulty was to teach them a prudent and proper sense of their danger.
♦Convent of St. Engracia.
On the following day, the French completed their batteries upon the right bank of the Guerva, within pistol-shot of the gate of St. Engracia, so called from a splendid church and convent of Jeronimites, situated on one side of it. This convent was, on many accounts, a remarkable place. Men of letters beheld it with reverence, because the excellent historian Zurita spent the last years of his life there, observing the rules of the community, though he had not entered into the order; and because he was buried there, and his countryman and fellow-labourer, Geronymo de Blancas, after him. Devotees revered it, even in the neighbourhood of our Lady of the Pillar, for its relics and the saint to whom it was dedicated. According to the legend, she was the daughter of Ont Comerus, a barbarian chief, in the pay of the Romans, by whom the city of Norba Cæsarea, (situated near the Tagus, between the present towns of Portalegre and Alcantara) was given him, together with its district, for his service in recovering it from Cathelius, a chief of the Alemanni. His daughter, Encratis, or Encratide, (for from one of these names Engracia has been formed) was brought up a Christian, and espoused to a governor on the Gallic side of the Pyrenees, to whom she was sent with a suitable escort. Their way lay through Cæsarea-Augusta, where the Præses, or Governor of Spain, Publius Dacianus, the bloodiest minister of the tenth persecution, was at that time endeavouring to extirpate Christianity. Engracia, either preferring martyrdom to her unknown spouse, or imagining that her rank would be her safeguard, visited the governor for the purpose of interceding in behalf of the Christians, and remonstrating against his cruelty. Thus much of the legend is probably fabulous; but certain it is, that a virgin of that name was tortured under that persecution; and, though she survived, was venerated as a[8]martyr in that city, before the close of the century in which she suffered. Just, however, as her claim is to pious remembrance, her church, and the divine honours which have been paid to her, were procured by fraud. Angels are said to have descended at her death, and to have officiated at her funeral, bearing tapers and thuribules, and singing hymns of triumph. During the Moorish captivity, her relics disappeared; they were discovered towards the close of the fourteenth century, which was the great age for inventions of this kind. There stood at that time, upon the site of this memorable convent, an old church, dedicated to the Zaragozan martyrs, of the tenth persecution, and called the Iglesia de las Masas, in memory of an early specimen of Catholic ingenuity. Dacianus, holding relic-worship in as much contempt as the Christians did his idolatry, in order to prevent them from indulging in it, burnt the bodies of the martyrs, together with those of some malefactors, thinking that their ashes would be undistinguishable; nevertheless, the Christians found their own, which had collected together in white balls or masses, separate from the rest. In 1389, the regular canons, to whom the church belonged, resolved to rebuild a part of it: in digging the foundation, two marble chests were discovered. The lid of the smaller was fastened down very firmly with a sort of pitch; when this was taken off, two sets of human bones were found in different compartments; over the one were the words Lupercii Martyris, sculptured in the marble; over the other, Engratiæ Virginis: these latter were of rose-colour, which was admitted as proof of their authenticity. The larger chest contained a great assortment of anonymous bones, ashes, and the white masses, which had disappeared for so many centuries. The mine was very rich; the workmen went on till they had invented thirteen chests, and at last, a whole pit full of relics, not the less efficacious because it could not be ascertained to whom they had belonged. Seventy years afterwards, Juan II. of Aragon, one of the wickedest and most perfidious of men, fancied or feigned, that by St. Engracia’s intercession, he was cured of a complaint in his eyes; in consequence of which, he resolved to enlarge this church, and build a monastery adjoining it for the Jeronimites, ... an order which, during that and the succeeding age, was in great favour at the three courts of the Peninsula. He began his work, but died without completing it, leaving that charge by will to his son, Ferdinand, the Catholic king. He continued the building, but it was not finished till the reign of Charles the Fifth.
Both the church and convent were splendidly adorned, but the most remarkable part of the whole edifice was a subterranean church, formed in the place where the relics were discovered, and having the pit, or well, as it was called, in the middle. It was divided by a beautiful iron grating, which excluded laymen from the interior of the sanctuary. There were three descents; the widest flight of steps was that which was for public use, the two others were for the religioners, and met in one behind the three chief altars, within the grating. Over the midst of these altars were two tombs, placed one upon the other in a niche; the under one containing the relics of Engracia’s companions and fellows in martyrdom; the upper, those of the saint herself, her head excepted, which was kept in a silver shrine, having a collar of precious stones, and enclosed in crystal. The altars on either side had their respective relics; and several others, equally rich in such treasures, were ranged along the walls, without the grating. The roof was of an azure colour, studded with stars to represent the sky. The breadth of the vault considerably exceeded its length; it was sixty feet wide, and only forty long. Thirty little columns, of different marbles, supported the roof. On the stone brink of the well, the history of the Zaragozan martyrs was represented in bas-relief; and an iron grating, reaching to the roof, secured it from being profaned by idle curiosity, and from the pious larcenies which it might otherwise have tempted. Within this cage-work, a silver lamp was suspended. Thirty such lamps were burning there day and night; and, though the roof was little more than twelve feet high, it was never in the slightest degree sullied with smoke. The fact is certain[9]; but the useful and important secret, by which oil was made to burn without producing smoke, was carefully concealed; and the Jeronimites continued till this time to exhibit a miracle, which puzzled all who did not believe it to be miraculous.
♦The hospital set on fire.♦
On the 4th of August, the French opened batteries within pistol-shot of this church and convent. The mud walls were levelled at the first discharge; and the besiegers rushing through the opening, took the batteries before the adjacent gates in reverse. Here General Mori, who had distinguished himself on many former occasions, was made prisoner. The street of St. Engracia, which they had thus entered, leads into the Cozo, and the corner buildings where it thus terminated, were on the one hand the convent of St. Francisco, and on the other the General Hospital. Both were stormed and set on fire; the sick and the wounded threw themselves from the windows to escape the flames, and the horror of the scene was aggravated by the maniacs, whose voices raving or singing in paroxysms of wilder madness, or crying in vain to be set free, were heard amid the confusion of dreadful sounds. Many fell victims to the fire, and some to the indiscriminating fury of the assailants. Those who escaped were conducted as prisoners to the Torrero; but when their condition had been discovered, they were sent back on the morrow, to take their chance in the siege. After a severe contest and dreadful carnage, the French forced their way into the Cozo, in the very centre of the city, and, before the day closed, were in possession of one half of Zaragoza. Lefebvre now believed that he had effected his purpose, and required Palafox to surrender, in a note containing only these words: “Head-quarters, St. Engracia. Capitulation[10]!” The heroic Spaniard immediately returned this reply: “Head-quarters, Zaragoza. War at the knife’s point[11]!”
♦War in the streets.♦