Men who, like Renovales and his officers, had served at Zaragoza, were neither to be lightly surprised nor easily taken. They were upon the alert, the mountaineers were ready for their assailants, and of the column which advanced against the little town of Anso not a man escaped. The four columns which entered by Navasques, Uztarroz, Salvatierra, and Fago, effected their junction; but the movements of the Spaniards were concerted and executed with as much precision; and after two days’ fighting the French were driven to the foot of a high rock called Undari, where all that survived, seventy-eight in number, with their commander, the chef de bataillon, Puisalis, were taken prisoners: ♦1809.
June.♦ the sixth column was not engaged, forty men having deserted from it before they entered the valleys; the others thought it imprudent to proceed, and thus they were preserved from suffering a like fate with their companions. Puisalis, being severely wounded, was lodged by Renovales in his own quarters, and treated with the utmost care. The other prisoners were sent with a guard of forty men to be delivered to General Blake, but the ruffian, Buruchuri by name, who had charge of the escort, when he had advanced far enough to be under no control, massacred them all; ... a crime which he appears to have committed with impunity. Puisalis was more fortunate; as soon as his wounds were healed, he was sent with five other prisoners to Blake, and reaching him a little before the rout at Belchite, recovered his liberty at that time.
♦A second party defeated.♦
This intelligence cheered the Aragonese and the Catalans after that most disgraceful dispersion, and both Lazan and Blake took measures for assisting and encouraging the mountaineers. Ammunition was sent from Lerida; Renovales himself was indefatigable in his exertions: he collected arms from all the villages within reach, sent for armourers from Eybar and Placencia, and set up an armoury in Roncal. A second force was dispatched to crush the growing insurrection. The valley of Roncal was the part which they attacked; the Spaniards were driven ♦June 15.♦ from the point of Yso, where their advance was stationed; but Renovales arrived in time with 200 men of the vale, and as many more from that of Anso; he drove the enemy out, and pursued them as far as Lumbier, with the loss of more than forty killed; and twice that number of wounded were removed on the following day to Pamplona. This second defeat had so weakened the garrison of that city, that the Spaniards now cut off their communication both with Aragon and with France; they scoured the roads in all directions; not a day passed in which some party of the invaders, who hitherto had travelled in safety in those parts, was not intercepted and cut off, and sometimes the enemy were pursued to the very gates.
♦Proclamation of the Duque de Mahon.♦
The Duque de Mahon, one of those traitors to their country who had sided with the Intruder, in full confidence that they were taking the safe part, was at that time Viceroy of Navarre: and he addressed a proclamation to the inhabitants of Roncal, affecting to believe that they had taken no share in the insurrection; calling upon them to unite with the French troops for the purpose of apprehending and punishing the disturbers of the peace; and assuring them that the present struggle was excited solely by the personal resentment of certain individuals, whose interests were opposed to those of the nation, of the clergy, and of the nobles. If they should be seduced by these deceivers, the result could only be, the loss, if not of their lives, yet certainly of their liberty, and of that happiness which they had hitherto enjoyed. But, on the contrary, if they proved themselves worthy of the King’s favour, by their obedience to his government and their cordiality with the allied French troops, it was his intention and that of the French commandant at Pamplona, General D’Agoult, to represent their good behaviour to the throne; that when the arms of the Emperor, now victorious at Vienna and throughout all Italy, should expel the enemies of public order from Spain, they might partake in the benefits which were to be expected from so wise and humane a prince. This proclamation was answered by Renovales with the bitterest ♦June 28.♦ scorn. He addressed the viceroy as Ex-Duque de Mahon, telling him, if he disliked that style, that the person who used it was a Spaniard, and one who respected the orders of his sovereign; which sovereign, acting through the Supreme Central Junta, had proscribed him as a traitor, and therefore he had now no title. He reproached him with ingratitude towards the house of Bourbon, with disgracing his ancestors, with sacrificing his religion, his king, his country, and his honour. He told him that the people of Roncal, like those of Anso, were attached to their own institutions, and true to their lawful king; that they had fought for him with a spirit like that of their ancestors; that the magistracy had encouraged the enthusiasm of the people; and that he, unworthy as he was, had enjoyed the honour of leading them to victory. They despised his favour, and they despised his threats; and if he would march out at the head of a French division, and fix time and place where the question between them might be put to the decision of the sword, he, Renovales, would meet him there, a true Spaniard in the cause of a rightful though an oppressed king, against a false one in the cause of a potentate whom his followers impiously called almighty; and if the Ex-Duque would appoint this meeting, that almightiness should be tried.
♦Executions and reprisals.♦
Five persons who were charged with having joined the insurgents of Roncal were put to death at Pamplona upon the Intruder’s law of extermination against all who should take arms against him. The gallows was erected without the gate of S. Nicholas, and the sufferers were executed with their faces toward Roncal, and left hanging there. The proclamation which announced their punishment, declared, that for every person, whether soldier or countryman, who should be murdered by the banditti, a prisoner who had belonged to them should be put to death. This was answered by an act of retaliation. Renovales seized five persons who were acting under the intrusive government, beheaded them, and exposed their bodies on the high road, with an inscription on their shoulders, saying they were agents of the French robbers, who had been thus punished by Spanish justice. He declared, that, for every Spaniard whom the French should put to death, he would behead two French prisoners; and that if the commandant of Jaca continued to plunder the people and the churches, and burn the houses, as he had begun, he would, for every house that should be burnt, set a village on fire on the French side of the Pyrenees, instead of promoting peace and friendly intercourse, as he had hitherto done, between the peasants on the frontier.
♦Attempts to win over Renovales.♦
General D’Agoult tried what might be done with Renovales by conciliatory means. He thanked him for his treatment of Puisalis, and of those prisoners whom Buruchuri had butchered; a crime of which he entirely acquitted the Spanish officer. He applied to him now, he said, by General Suchet’s orders; and joined his own entreaties to that General’s offers. First he requested him to send back twenty-five artillerymen who had been captured by his people on the road from Tafalla, and who he understood were well treated. Renovales, he observed, owed him this in consideration of the manner in which his prisoners were used, though more than six and thirty officers had broken their parole, beginning with the Camp-Marshal Villava. After experiencing every kindness, he had found means to escape by a bribe of 4000 livres, and was said to be now in ♦1809
August.♦ Roncal, having thus dishonoured himself. If Renovales also had broken his word by escaping when he was a prisoner of war, there had been something in his conduct which justified it; and if he would now pacificate Roncal and the valleys of Aragon, and restore order there, he would entitle himself to esteem and to the King’s favour. “You are supporting a chimera,” said the French commander; “your troops are routed on all sides. You reckon upon the English. I know them better than you do; and if you desire the good of your country, take the advice of an old soldier, who went through the Revolution as a royalist, and joined the present government when he saw that the only man capable of supporting it had appeared. You are in a like position. The Bourbons exist no longer upon the throne. The Emperor and his family have superseded them. Let us be his faithful friends and allies, and render our country happy, instead of contributing to its ruin.”