The Spaniards, after the late action, had occupied with 500 men the convent of N. Señora de los Angeles, which was situated upon the highest ground in the vicinity, and having been fortified, was now an important point, as facilitating both ingress and egress for the besieged, while it remained in their hands. Mazuchelli, therefore, with the Italian troops, was ordered to take it. According to his statement the Spanish commandant Llanden fired upon the officer who summoned him; and therefore when the post was carried, after a brave resistance, every man was put to the sword except three officers, whom the Italian commander saved, and Llanden himself, who leapt from one of the ♦St. Cyr, 243.♦ church-windows, and effected his escape. The Italian soldiers had become mercilessly ferocious in the course of this war, exasperated, it is said, by the murder of some of their sick and wounded ♦Ib. 262.♦ who had fallen into the hands of Rovira and other guerilla chiefs. In these dreadful cases, where cruelty excites revenge, and revenge provokes fresh cruelty, there is a fearful accumulation of guilt on all the parties who thus aggravate the evils of war: but that the inhumanity of the invaders was carried on upon a wider scale, that it was systematically encouraged and sometimes enjoined, and that it extended to women and even children, is as certain ... as that the provocation was given by them, and the example set, ... an example which neither the Spaniards nor Portugueze were likely to be slow in following. The enemy were less fortunate in an attack upon the irregular forces under Claros and Rovira, who with incessant activity intercepted their communication with Figueras. Verdier attacked them at S. Gregori, where they were well posted and well commanded, for these leaders were men well fitted for the sort of warfare in which they were engaged, and the French were compelled to retire with the loss of one of their generals.
♦Unsuccessful sally.♦
The besiegers were at this time compelled for want of ammunition to suspend their efforts till a supply could be received from France. The time was not lost by the garrison in strengthening their works, works however which derived their main strength from the unconquerable spirit of the inhabitants. When the supplies arrived the enemy directed their fire upon the three points of St. Lucia, St. Cristobal, and the Quartel de Alemanes, or Quarter of the Germans. This latter building rested in part of its foundation upon the wall itself, and the object of the enemy was to beat it down, that they might enter over its ruins as by a bridge. The fire from the cathedral, from the Sarracinas, and from the tower of Gironella, was well kept up in return; but the French had so greatly the advantage both in the number and size of their artillery, that Alvarez ordered a sally, in the ♦Sept. 15.♦ hope of spiking their guns. That it might be the more unexpected, the gate of S. Pedro, which had been walled up since the loss of Monjuic, was re-opened, and the Spaniards advanced with such rapidity upon the enemy’s works, that the attack was made almost as soon as they were seen. In many points it was successful, in some the Spaniards failed, and when they were thrown into confusion they were unable to rally. In some few of the persons chosen for the sally, something worse than want of discipline discovered itself, ... they lagged behind in the assault, and, without sharing the danger, fell in with their braver comrades on their return. So much was done, and so much more must have been effected, if all had behaved equally well, that Colonel Marshal, an Englishman in the Spanish service, exclaimed, “We have lost a great victory!”
♦The French repulsed in a general assault.♦
The guns which had been rendered useless were soon replaced, and an incessant fire was kept up upon the three great breaches; on the 18th, the French engineers declared that all three were practicable. Monjuic had taught the enemy not to be too confident of success; the breaches indeed were of such magnitude that it seemed scarcely possible they should fail in storming them, but they knew that victory must be dearly purchased. In the evening, therefore, they sent a white flag; it was not noticed from the town, and the officers who accompanied it made signs to the Spaniards; there was no firing at this time, and the men, both of the besieging army and the town, were looking silently and intently on, to await the issue. Alvarez at length sent a verbal order to the French officers to retire, ... they requested to be heard, and were told from the walls to retire on peril of their lives; they persisted in offering a letter, and then both the castle of the Constable and the tower of Gironella fired. As soon as the officers reached their own lines, the batteries were again opened, some upon the breaches, others throwing shells into the town. During the night this was kept up, and the enemy collected troops upon the heights of Campdura and in Monjuic, for the assault. At daybreak they were seen in motion in different parts, with the purpose, it was supposed, of calling off attention from the real points of danger. The whole ♦Sept. 19.♦ forenoon was employed in preparation. Between three and four, the watch on the cathedral informed Alvarez that troops were descending from Monjuic to St. Daniel. At the same time the like intelligence arrived from the forts of the Constable and of the Capuchines; and another messenger from the cathedral followed, with tidings that the enemy were advancing in force both from Monjuic and St. Daniel against the breaches, and that many of them carried instruments for sapping.
The alarm was now rung from the cathedral, and beaten through the streets; there was scarcely any interval between the alarm and the attack, so near to the walls were the points of which the enemy were in possession: 2000 men came on straight from Monjuic, an equal number advanced between Monjuic and St. Daniel, a third body from S. Miguel; at the same time a movement of troops was seen in the woods of Palau; they advanced against the three bridges, the Puerto de Francia, and forts Calvary and Cabildo. It was not without surprise that the enemy found the Geronans prepared to receive them at all these points. Nasch, the defender of Monjuic, had his post at the Quartel de Alemanes, where one of the principal breaches was made. Colonel Marshall was at the breach of St. Lucia; a company of crusaders, composed entirely of clergy, were stationed at the breach of St. Cristobal; the rest of the garrison, and crusaders, and all the other townsmen manned the walls. The company of St. Barbara were distributed among the different posts, to perform their important functions, and proclamations were made, inviting the other women of Gerona to assist them in this awful hour.
At the Quartel de Alemanes the enemy mounted the breach with the utmost resolution, and they succeeded in forcing their way into the first quadrangle of that great building; the French batteries continued to play upon the walls and the buildings adjoining the breach, and a huge fragment fell upon those who were foremost in the assault, just at the moment when part of the Ultonia regiment was about to charge them: a few of the Spaniards were buried with them in the ruins. The Geronans then rushed on, drove back the enemy, presented themselves in the breach, and fought hand to hand with the assailants. Frequently such was the press of the conflict, and such the passion which inspired them, that impatient of the time required for reloading their muskets, the defendants caught up stones from the breach, and brained their enemies with these readier weapons. Four times the assault was repeated in the course of two hours, and at every point the enemy were beaten off. Alvarez, during the whole assault, hastened from post to post, wherever there was most need of his presence, providing every thing, directing all and encouraging all; he had prepared cressets to light up the walls and breaches in case the enemy should persist in their attempt after darkness closed; but they withdrew long before night set in, hastily and in disorder, leaving 800 of their best men slain. Among them was that Colonel Floresti, whom this very Mariano Alvarez had admitted into Monjuic at Barcelona, when the French took their ♦See vol. i. p. 201.♦ treacherous possession of that fortress.
Of the besieged forty-four fell in this glorious day, and 197 were wounded. Our brave countryman, Colonel Marshall, died of his wounds, as did D. Ricardo Maccarty, another officer of the same regiment, who was Irish either by birth or extraction. A glorious success had been gained, one that filled the conquerors with the highest and most ennobling pride; this joy it brought with it, but it brought no rest, no respite, scarcely even a prolongation of hope. There was neither wine to distribute to the soldiers after their exertions, nor even bread; a scanty mess of pulse or corn, with a little oil, or a morsel of bacon in its stead, was all that could be served out, ... and this not from the public magazines, but given by the inhabitants, who, in the general extremity, shared their stores with the soldiers, lamenting that they had nothing better to bestow. “What matters it?” said these brave Spaniards, “the joy of having saved Gerona to-day will give us strength to go on!” A party went out to bring in any of the wounded enemies who might have been left among the dead; one had been stript by a miquelet, but upon perceiving what was the object of their search, he discovered himself to be living. “Having been wounded,” he said, “he feigned death as the only chance of escaping death, for he had been led to believe that the miquelets and the peasants gave no quarter.” The man who had stripped him happened to be present when he spoke; he immediately re-clothed him, ran to bring him water, and took charge of him till he could be removed to the hospital. While the Spaniards were employed in this humane office, a fire was opened upon them from the enemy’s works, occasioned, no doubt, by some error of the French centinels: it drove them in, and the remainder of the wounded were consequently left to perish. One wretched German, by the breach of St. Lucia, lay groaning for twenty hours before death relieved him.
♦St. Cyr resolves to reduce the city by famine.♦
The loss which they had sustained in this assault thoroughly discouraged the besiegers; and when St. Cyr, for the sake of proving to the Spaniards that he was not to be outdone by them in perseverance, would have made a second effort, the officers whom he consulted were unanimously of opinion that it ought not again to be attempted. The Marshal, however unwilling to make an acknowledgement so honourable to the people against whom he was employed, was compelled then to admit that Gerona could only be reduced by famine, and to determine upon pursuing that course, which of all others is the most wearying to the soldiers, and the most painful to a general who has not extinguished in himself all sense of humanity. Every day now added to the distress of the besieged. Their flour was exhausted; wheat they had still in store, but men are so much the slaves of habit, that it was considered as one great evil of the siege, that they had no means of grinding it; two horse-mills, which had been erected, were of such clumsy construction, that they did not perform half the needful work, and the Geronans, rather than prepare the unground corn in any way to which they had not been accustomed, submitted to the labour of grinding it between two stones, or pounding it in the shell of a bomb with a cannon-ball. For want of other animal food, mules and horses were slaughtered for the hospital and for the shambles; a list was made of all within the city, and they were taken by lot. Fuel was exceedingly scarce, yet the heaps which were placed in cressets at the corners of the principal streets, to illuminate them in case of danger, remained untouched, and not a billet was taken from them during the whole siege. The summer fever became more prevalent; the bodies of the sufferers were frequently covered with a minute eruption, which was usually a fatal symptom: fluxes also began to prevail[5].