Madrid was in a state of anarchy seldom equalled. A local and military junta were formed, to conduct the defence; the inhabitants took arms, a multitude of peasants from the neighbourhood entered the place, and the regular forces, commanded by the marquis of Castellar, amounted to six thousand men, with a train of sixteen guns. The pavement was taken up, the streets were barricadoed, the houses were pierced, and the Retiro, a weak irregular work, which commanded the city, was occupied in strength. Don Thomas Morla, and the prince of Castelfranco, were the chief men in authority. The people demanded ammunition, and when they received it, discovered, or said, that it was mixed with sand. Some person accused the marquis of Perales, a respectable old general, of the deed; a mob rushed to his house, murdered him, and dragged his body about the streets. Many others of inferior note fell victims to this fury, for no man was safe, none durst assume authority to control, none durst give honest advice; the houses were thrown open, the bells of the convents and churches rung incessantly, and a band of ferocious armed men traversed the streets in all the madness of popular insurrection.
Eight days had now elapsed since the first preparations for defence were made; each day the public effervescence increased, the dominion of the mob became more decisive, their violence more uncontrollable, and the uproar was extreme, when, on the morning of the 2d of December, three heavy divisions of French cavalry suddenly appeared on the high ground to the north-west, and like a dark cloud overhung the troubled city.
At twelve o’clock the emperor himself arrived, and the duke of Istria, by his command, summoned the Fourteenth Bulletin. town. The officer employed was upon the point of being massacred by the irregulars, when the Spanish soldiers, ashamed of such conduct, rescued him. This determination to resist was, notwithstanding the fierceness displayed at the gates, very unpalatable to many of the householders, numbers of whom escaped from different quarters; deserters also came over to the French, and Napoleon, while waiting for his infantry, examined all the weak points of the city.
Madrid was for many reasons incapable of defence. First, there were no bulwarks; secondly, the houses, although strong and well built, were not like many Spanish towns, fire proof; thirdly, there were no outworks, and the heights on which the French cavalry were posted, the palace, and the Retiro, completely commanded the city; fourthly, the perfectly open country around would have enabled the French cavalry to discover and cut off all convoys, and no precaution had been taken to provide subsistence for the hundred and fifty thousand people contained within the circuit of the place.
The desire of the central junta, that this metropolis should risk the horrors of a storm, was equally silly and barbarous. Their own criminal apathy had deprived Madrid of the power of procrastinating its defence until relieved from without, and there was no sort of analogy between the situation of Zaragoza and this capital. Napoleon knew this well; he was not a man to plunge headlong into the streets of a great city, among an armed and excited population; he knew that address in negotiation, a little patience, [Appendix, No. 3.] and a judicious employment of artillery, would soon reduce the most outrageous to submission, and he had no wish to destroy the capital of his brother’s kingdom.
In the evening the infantry and artillery arrived; they were posted at the most favourable points; the night was clear and bright, the French camp was silent and watchful; but the noise of tumult was Fourteenth Bulletin. heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was struggling and howling in the toils.
At midnight a second summons was sent through the medium of a prisoner. The captain-general Castellar attempted to gain time by an equivocal reply, but he failed in his object. The French light troops then stormed some houses, and one battery of thirty guns opened against the Retiro, while another threw shells from the opposite quarter, to distract the attention of the inhabitants.
The Retiro, situated on a rising ground, was connected with a range of buildings erected on the same side of the Prado, a public walk which nearly encircled the town. Some of the principal streets opened into the Prado nearly opposite to those buildings. In the morning a practicable breach being made in the Retiro wall, the difference between military courage and ferocity became apparent, for Villatte’s division breaking in easily, routed the garrison, and pursuing its success, seized the public buildings above spoken of, crossed the Prado, gained the barriers erected at the entrance of the streets, and took possession of the immense palace of the duke of Medina Celi, which was in itself the key to the city on that side. This vigorous commencement created great terror, and the town was summoned for the third time.
In the afternoon, Morla and another officer came out to demand a suspension of arms, necessary, they said, to persuade the people to surrender. Being admitted to the emperor’s presence, he addressed Morla in terms of great severity; he reproached him for his scandalous conduct towards Dupont’s army. “Injustice and bad faith,” he exclaimed, “always recoil upon those who are guilty of either.” This saying was well applied to that Spaniard, and Napoleon himself confirmed its philosophic truth in after times. “The Spanish ulcer destroyed me,” was an expression of deep anguish which escaped from him in his own hour of misfortune.
Morla returned to the town: his story was soon told: before six o’clock the next morning Madrid must surrender or perish. A division of opinion arose; the violent excitement of the populace was considerably abated, but the armed peasantry from the country, and the poorest inhabitants, still demanded to be led against the enemy. A constant fire was kept up from the houses in the neighbourhood of the Prado; the French general Maison was wounded, and general Bruyeres was killed; but the disposition to fight became each moment weaker, and Morla and Castelfranco prepared a capitulation. The captain-general Castellar refused to sign it, and as the town was only invested on one side, he effected his escape with the regular troops during the night, carrying with him sixteen guns. The people now sunk into a quiescent state, and at eight o’clock in the morning of the 4th, Madrid surrendered.