♦1809.
September.♦ and every day added now to his numbers and his reputation. Rations were voluntarily provided for his people wherever they were expected, and given as freely at one time, as they were paid for at another from the spoils of the enemy. He levied a duty on the passes, where a considerable trade in colonial produce was then carried on; the clergy also assisted him from their funds, and with these resources he paid and equipped his men, and kept in pay also a sufficient number of intelligencers. It was in vain that the French made repeated efforts to crush this enterprising enemy; if his troops dispersed upon the appearance or the attack of a formidable detachment, it was only to reunite, and by striking a blow in some weak point or distant quarter, render themselves more formidable than before. General D’Agoult was accused of secretly favouring this young adventurer, and sending convoys under weak escort, with the intent that he should intercept them. Perhaps this suspicion was entertained only because ♦Two Minas, p. 16.♦ he had been a royalist, and therefore may have been supposed to abhor at heart the service wherein he was engaged. An inquiry into his conduct was instituted, and before it was concluded he put an end to his life by poison.
♦Siege of Gerona commenced.♦
St. Cyr meantime was informed that Marshal Augereau had been appointed to supersede him in Catalonia, and that General Verdier, who had been an old aide-de-camp of Augereau, had already arrived in the Ampurdan to take the command in place of General Reille, and commence the siege of Gerona. The rout at Belchite enabled the enemy to make all their preliminary movements with little other molestation than what the insufficient garrison of that city could give them; and when Verdier encamped before the place, St. Cyr removed from Vich, and took up a position to cover the siege.
END OF VOL. III.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES
[1] St. Cyr (p. 50) reproaches the English for this, and says, ‘Nous n’avions jamais espéré prendre à la vue, et sous le canon de l’escadre, une garnison forte encore d’environ 3000 hommes. Il aurait été possible aux Anglais, en plein jour, et sur-tout facile durant la nuit, d’embarquer la garnison, et de la transporter, en quelques heures, sur la rive droite de la Fluvia, en laissant seulement un faible detachement pour remettre la forteresse; comme cela s’était pratiqué, en Février, 1795, quand une escadre Espagnole occupait la baie.’ But in that siege the enemy were not masters of the town, and they had now established a battery in it to cut off the communication between the citadel and the ships, which was done so effectually, that five days before the surrender Captain Bennett found it impossible to land a single messenger there. M. St. Cyr adds, that when the prisoners defiled along the shore the English ships opened a brisk fire upon them, and that the Spaniards would never be persuaded that this was done in mistake. The Marshal was not upon the spot himself; if he had, this statement would not have appeared in his Journal.
[2] The officers were so aware of their danger, that Cabañes heard one of the staff say they should certainly have believed it was their General’s intention to betray them to the enemy, ... if they had not had the most entire confidence in him. It seems indeed probable that Buonaparte, not foreseeing what the consequences of a defeat in Catalonia would be, would have thought the disgrace or destruction of a general whom he disliked a compensation for the loss of this army.
General Duhesme perished in the flight from Waterloo: the stain of his blood was pointed out to me on the threshold of the inn at Genap, where he was cut down by a Brunswicker.
[3] M. Gouvion St. Cyr, who renders justice in other respects to General Reding, represents him as full of confidence at this time, and dreaming of a second affair of Baylen. It is upon the most indisputable authority, confirmed too by his own dispatches, that I have delineated his state of mind so differently.