The earth-fall smothered the last words he cried:
“Though severed in our lives, yet Death could not divide!”
HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO XI.
The character of Fray Beltrán, as portrayed in this Canto, is meant to represent a portion of the extraordinary and irregular energies which the events of the French Revolution and Invasion produced in Spanish cloisters. It is with a view to impart variety to my subject, that I have dwelt upon love and madness as the shapes which Beltrán’s wild energy assumed, though political propagandism, patriotic denunciation of the French, and even taking up arms, were acts familiar to the Exclaustrados or expelled inmates of religious houses, violated by the ruthless invader—often for the purpose of converting cloisters into stables!
In these transactions, the French took one way of realising Sir Thomas More’s “Happy Republic.” “In no victory do they glory so much, as in that which is gained without bloodshed.” They rejoiced to triumph by fraud, like the ancient Spartans, or liker perhaps the Egyptian Harami—incorporated for plunder. The monks and friars of the Peninsula were not all, however, helpless. Many fled to the mountains and marshalled or joined Guerrilla parties, and there was scarcely a Guerrilla throughout Spain during the War of Independence that had not some monks and friars incorporated with it. This system continues down to the present hour, and the accession of these clerical auxiliaries has ever thrown a sort of halo over the pursuit in a superstitious country. “La Patria y la Religion!” was a potent cry, and the life of perpetual adventure was in the highest degree exciting and romantic.
But the poetical view of the Guerrillas must be counterbalanced by the more strictly historical view of their character. It is questionable whether these irregular levies did not produce nearly as much evil as good. Candour must confess that there was as much robbery as patriotism in the system. Amongst the leaders of the partidas personal interests were too often predominant. Discipline under such a system is of course impossible, and each man’s object is naturally to secure the largest share of the plunder for himself. The leaders of the different partidas were terribly jealous of each other; and one of the first exploits of Espoz y Mina, the most distinguished of all their chiefs, was to slay the leader of a Guerrilla band in his neighbourhood, because he plundered his own countrymen under the mask of patriotism: he was also, doubtless, in Mina’s way. All through Mina’s career, “he would never suffer any partida but his own to be in his district.” (Life of Mina.) The irregularity inherent in the Guerrilla system of warfare encouraged violence, license, and disregard for the rights of property. The partidas were an admirable instrument for raising a whole people against the invader; but the application of the force was subsequently misdirected, and the surprise of Figueras was the only service of first-rate importance that they ever performed in Spain. Their minor exploits were, however, innumerable, and the disparaging observations of Napier, Foy, and St. Cyr, all regular military men, are to be received with caution.
The course of life of the Spanish Guerrillero, commencing often as a soldier, then becoming a deserter, next flying to the mountains and turning robber, and lastly turning soldier on his own account, closely resembles the description of the Roman Spartacus by Florus:—“Ille de stipendiario Thrace miles, de milite desertor, inde latro, deinde in honore virium gladiator.... Exercitum percecidit ... castra delevit ... in primo agmine fortissimè dimicans.” (Lib. iii. cap. 30.)
It is not intended to palliate the numerous acts of jealousy, hatred, treachery, and plunder, which our army sustained from Spanish and Portuguese allies. But many important services were rendered by the Guerrillas, and still more by the regular troops of Portugal. And, in addition to the Guerrilla chiefs, of whom I have already noticed the principal, the regular troops of Spain achieved some successes under the command of Castaños, Palafox, Reding, Blake, O’Donnel, Sarsfield, Downie (these four Generals were Irish or of Irish extraction), Albuquerque, Freyre, Ballasteros, Longa, Giron, Mendizabal, Romana and Morillo.