CHAPTER XVIII.
SECOND SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.

♦1808.
December.♦

The Central Junta perfectly understood and truly represented the spirit of the nation, partaking in some things its blindness and its obstinacy, but also its exalted feeling, its true heroism, and its incomparable devotion to the cause of national independence. Its information concerning the real state of affairs was as imperfect as its other arrangements. In the correspondence concerning Cadiz, Garay assured the British Ambassador that Zaragoza was still holding out, not considering that by little less than miracle that glorious city could have held out so long, and not knowing that the enemy had then been eight days in possession of its ruins.

♦Castaños accused at Zaragoza as a traitor.♦

Palafox was not present at the battle of Tudela. He had embarked on the river just before the action began, little apprehending that it was so near, and believing that his presence was required at Zaragoza. This was one cause among the many which led to the misfortunes of that day; for Castaños, who would otherwise have been with his own troops, remained with ♦Representaciones, &c. del G. Castaños, p. 195.♦ the Aragonese to supply his place, and each army was thus deprived of the General who knew the troops, and in whom they trusted. During the short time that these Generals had acted together, there had been no want of confidence and frankness between them: but after their separation, and the refusal of Castaños to throw his troops into Zaragoza instead of retreating toward Madrid, in obedience to the orders of the Central Junta, the disasters which had been sustained were imputed by Palafox to his errors. He had been far from apprehending, he said, that he should have to prepare for a second siege; and never could any combination of his own have placed him under such a necessity. The charge of incapacity against Castaños was more broadly made in an official account of the action by General O’Neille, and he was publicly accused of having sold the army and betrayed his country.

♦State of public feeling in that city.♦

Castaños himself did Palafox the justice to believe that he had been deceived by malicious representations. The other charges proceeded from men who sought to shelter their own misconduct by appearing as accusers, or from private malice, which in such times never loses the opportunity of exerting itself with sure effect. Zaragoza was in a state of tremendous agitation; the same spirit was still prevailing there which had so wonderfully repulsed the French, but that spirit had broken the bonds of order; and Palafox, who was so well able to direct the popular feeling in the hour of danger, found it necessary at other times in many things to yield to it. His power was absolute while he held it; but though it had been confirmed to him by the Supreme Junta, it was in fact held only by the tenure of popular opinion, which among large masses of men, and more especially in perilous circumstances, is always influenced less by the considerate and the wise, than by the headstrong, the audacious, and the profligate. Victims whom ♦Cavallero, p. 67.♦ he dared not interfere to save were sacrificed, and the utmost he could do in behalf of any accused persons, was to secure them in prison, and ♦Measures of precaution.♦ thus respite them from immediate death. During the former siege the French who resided in the city had been put under arrest; and there had been the twofold anxiety of guarding against any correspondence between them and the besiegers, and protecting them against the fatal effects of popular suspicion, which at any moment might have produced a massacre of these unfortunate persons. To prevent both the inconvenience and the danger, Palafox sent them away to distant places of confinement; but it was necessary to prepare the people for this by a proclamation, appealing to their honour, and courage, and humanity, and cautioning them against the enemy’s emissaries, who were seeking to bring a stain upon their cause by exciting them to acts of murder. The prisoners and deserters were also removed. The nuns were permitted to remove to other convents not within the scene of immediate danger, where they might occupy themselves without interruption in their holy exercises. Aware that in so large a city there must be persons whom their own wealth would have bribed to betray their country, and who would fain have submitted for the sake of preserving their property, Palafox decreed that the inhabitants of Zaragoza, of whatever rank or condition, should consider themselves bound to devote their persons, their property, and their lives to its defence; that the rich should foster, and assist, and clothe the poor, enable them to maintain their respective posts, and remunerate them for the zeal with which they defended their lives, their estates, and their common country. If any man were unnatural enough to disregard this sacred duty, which he owed both to his native land and his religion, he should be fined in proportion to the magnitude of his offence, and the amount of the fine appropriated to the subsistence of the army. All persons who served the cause of the enemy, by pasquinades, by endeavouring to excite a want of confidence in the chiefs, the people, or the army, or by raising disturbances and riots, should be carried before the newly-appointed judge of the police, who would pass judgment according to their crimes, and suitable to the danger of the country; but before he imposed the punishment of death, he should consult the captain-general. Every house was ordered to be well supplied with vessels of water, in order to extinguish fires; and the officers of the ward were charged to superintend this important measure of preparation. Persons entering or leaving the city were to be watched with care, because the enemy assumed the dress of the Spaniards, and, greatly superior as they were, resorted to every artifice. “All these measures,” said Palafox, “should be obeyed with religious respect, because they are all directed to the good of our country, which, in happier times, will recompense all the sacrifices we make, ... sacrifices so acceptable in the sight of God, and of the Virgin Mother of God, who is our celestial protectress.”

♦None of the inhabitants leave the city.♦

Three days were allowed for all women, all men above threescore, and all boys under fourteen, to leave the city; a general order being issued, that whithersoever they might go, they should be welcomed, and provided for. But not one of the inhabitants left the place. The sentiment of patriotism was as ardent in the women as in the men; they thought it a worse evil to seek bread and protection apart from their husbands and fathers than to abide the siege with them, and triumph or perish together: and even if this sentiment had not been so general and so strong, whither were they to betake themselves for security in a land which was every where overrun or threatened by the enemy’s armies? In no place would they have imagined themselves so secure as in Zaragoza itself, which had been so wonderfully defended and delivered, and which they believed to be invincible through the protection of Our Lady of the Pillar, who had chosen it for the seat of her peculiar worship. During the former siege prints of that idol had been distributed by women in the heat of action, and worn by the men in their hats both as a badge and an amulet. The many remarkable escapes and deliverances which had occurred ♦Supposed miracles.♦ were ascribed not to all-ruling and omnipresent Providence, but to the immediate interference ♦Memoria de lo mas Interesante, &c. 121.♦ of the Magna Mater of Zaragoza. Palafox himself had been trained up with more than common care in the superstition of the place; he and his brethren in their childhood had been taken every day to attend mass in the Holy Chapel where the image was enshrined, dressed at such times in the proper costume of the Infantes, as a mark of greater honour to the present Goddess. An appearance in the sky, which at other times might have passed unremembered and perhaps unnoticed, had given strong confirmation to the popular faith. About a month before the commencement of the first siege a white cloud appeared at noon, and gradually assumed the form of a palm tree; the sky being in all other parts clear, except that a few specks of fleecy cloud hovered about the larger one. It was first observed over the church of N. Señora del Portillo, and moving from thence till it seemed to be immediately above that of the Pillar, continued in the same form about half an hour, and then dispersed. The inhabitants were in a state of such excitement, that crowds joined in the acclamation of the first beholder, who cried out, A miracle! and after the ♦1808.♦ defeat of the besiegers had confirmed the omen, a miracle it was universally pronounced to have been, the people proclaiming with exultation that ♦Do. 11.♦ the Virgin had by this token prefigured the victory she had given them, and promised Zaragoza her protection as long as the world should endure.