But plainly as it would have been the policy of the Spaniards to confine themselves to the slow and sure method of weeding out their invaders, till they could bring their regular troops into a fit state for taking the field, the pressing danger of Zaragoza called for immediate efforts. Francisco Palafox, looking every where for that aid which was nowhere to be found, had gone to Cuenca, and proposing that Infantado should march the central army to his brother’s relief, had been present at a council where the proposal was discussed, and had seen with his own eyes how utterly incapable that army was of engaging in such an attempt, or even of attempting ♦Infantado, Manifiesto, 87.♦ such a march. Orders to undertake something for its relief had been dispatched from the Central Junta to the provinces of Valencia and Catalonia. The Valencians were offended with Palafox for having detained General St. Marc with a division of their army; no man contributed more by his military talents to the defence of the city than that general, but he and his men were now cooped up to die of pestilence, when they might have effectually served the Zaragozans in the field. Want of will therefore made the Valencians take only half measures, and these so tardily as to be of no avail. Neither did Reding manifest the feeling which he ought to have partaken upon this subject, partly because the sense of his own difficulties possessed him, and partly perhaps from a personal dislike to the Palafox family. One natural consequence of thus delaying succour in quarters where there was most ability was to produce premature and rash attempts on the part of those who felt more generously. Palafox ♦Tardiness in obeying them.♦ had written to say, that as long as provisions lasted, and there were ruins to shelter them, Zaragoza would not surrender. The place chosen for a depot was Mequinenza, and there, chiefly by the exertions of General Doyle, stores in considerable quantity were collected; but impatient of waiting, when time was so precious, till a well-concerted attempt to introduce supplies could be made, a Colonel who had ♦Defeat of the peasantry.♦ several thousand peasants under his command moved to Belchite, within five leagues of Zaragoza, with a convoy under protection of this force, which was as unmanageable in a body, as it might have been efficient in its proper mode of warfare. The enemy, at the beginning of the siege, had stationed General Vathier at Fuentes with 600 cavalry and 1200 foot to command the country and collect provisions. This movement of the peasants was too near him to be concealed; he fell upon them, routed them with some slaughter, and got possession of all their stores. ♦Alcañiz occupied by the French.♦ The pursuit led him as far as Ixar, and from thence he proceeded against Alcañiz. The peasantry whom Francisco Palafox had collected there drew up on the heights before the town, and withstood the attack with more firmness ♦Rogniat, 17.♦ than might have been expected from such a force; but they were not equal to contend with disciplined troops; and Vathier occupied the towns of Alcañiz and Cuspe as long as the siege endured.

These misfortunes did not discourage the Spaniards, and the movements of the inhabitants both in Navarre and Aragon were formidable enough to excite some uneasiness in the besiegers. While the Navarrese bands interrupted their communication with Pamplona, the mountaineers of Soria threatened Tudela, and those of the Sierra de Muela endangered their hospitals and establishments at Alagon Lazan, meantime, with his brother Francisco, occupied the country from Villa Franca de Ebro to Licineña and Zuera, and sending detachments as far as Capavrosa to intercept the enemy’s convoys, straitened Gazan’s division in their camp. More than once the French were without meat, and upon half rations of bread; and they might have been foiled a second time before Zaragoza, more shamefully than the first, if the heroism of the inhabitants had been in any degree seconded from without, and if the want of capacity in the Spanish leaders had not been as glaring as the want of order in the field and of reason in their councils. The besiegers had felt some ill effects from the latter cause; but an end was put to jarring pretensions and contrarient views when ♦M. Lasnes takes the command.♦ Marshal Lasnes arrived on the 22d of January to take the command. He had previously ordered Mortier to leave Calatayud, and act with Suchet’s division on the left of the Ebro; having dispersed the force which Francisco Palafox had collected there, they took possession of Zuera, and scouring the country as far as Pina, Sarineña, ♦Rogniat, 18, 20.♦ and Huesca, secured the besiegers from interruption on that side. The French Marshal hoped that this might abate the spirit of the Zaragozans as much as it had cheered them ♦He summons Palafox to surrender. Jan. 25.♦ when they saw the force of their countrymen upon the surrounding heights; and he addressed a letter to Palafox, telling him that the force upon which he had relied for relief had been destroyed, that the English had fled to Coruña and embarked there, leaving 7000 prisoners, and that Romana had escaped with them, his army with their officers having yielded to the Emperor: that Infantado had been defeated at Ucles with the loss of 18,000 men; and that if after this true statement he persisted in withstanding a force more than sufficient for effecting its purpose, the destruction of the city and of its inhabitants must rest upon his head. Palafox ♦Cavallero, 107.♦
♦Seb. Hermandez, 14, 15.♦ replied, that M. Lasnes would cover himself with glory if he were to win the city by force of manly courage with the sword, and not by bombarding it; but that the Zaragozans knew their duty, and would not surrender.

All the outworks had now been taken except the Castle of the Inquisition, which had never been seriously attacked, because its possession was of no importance to the enemy. The batteries against the city itself were completed, and on the day after the summons fifty pieces opened their fire upon the wall, and on the morrow three practicable breaches were made. One was by an oil-mill, a building standing alone, without the walls, and close to them; the enemy had established themselves in it during the night. The second was to the left of this, immediately opposite S. Joseph’s; the third in the monastery of S. Engracia. All these were attacked. A column issuing from the oil-mill presently reached the first, and the explosion of two fougades at the foot of the breach scarcely appeared to impede their progress. But they found an inner intrenchment, well constructed and mounted with two guns; and when they attempted to carry this the bell of the Torre Nueva rang, the inhabitants manned the adjacent houses, and a fire was opened from roofs and windows which it was neither possible to return nor to withstand. Profiting, however, by the cover which the exploded fougades afforded them, they succeeded in lodging themselves upon the breach. On the left they were more successful; after gaining the ramparts, they made their way into the opposite house, which the artillery had breached, and into the two adjoining ones; their progress was then stopped, but they established themselves within the walls, and repaired and lengthened for their own use a double caponier, by which the besieged used to communicate with S. Joseph’s. The attack upon the third breach was more formidable. After a severe struggle the enemy entered the convent of S. Engracia, obtained possession of its ruins and of the nunnery of S. Joseph, which stood near, and of which little more than the mere shell was remaining. Piercing the walls of this, they enfiladed the curtain from S. Engracia to the bridge of the Huerba, and taking the tête-de-pont in reverse, became masters of the bridge, over which fresh troops joined them to follow up their success. They pushed on to the Capuchin convent of La Trinidad, which made part of the line; forty artillerymen, who were stationed there without support, as a place not in danger of attack, were cut to pieces at their guns, and the convent was taken. It was recovered by the Spaniards; but two battalions came to support the assailants, who took it a second time, and maintained their conquest, though at a dear price. The greater part of the French who occupied the curtain fell under the fire from the houses. They suffered also considerably in a vain attempt to possess themselves of a single house which defended an imperfect breach to the right of all their other attacks. Their whole loss was stated by themselves at 600, that of the besiegers at eight. The Spaniards, with better reason, believed that a much greater proportion of the enemy had fallen; and the French had in fact received so severe a lesson, that they determined not to ♦Rogniat, 22, 26.
Cavallero, 102–105.♦ risk any more direct attacks, but proceed always as much as possible under cover: there was danger otherwise that the troops would become impatient of so fatal a service, and even that all their efforts might be unavailing.

As it was now no longer necessary to carry on the false attack upon the Aljafaria, the engineers were called from thence to fortify the Trinidad convent, and establish a communication with it and with a house by the bridge; commanding in this manner the whole intermediate space. During the night the Spaniards endeavoured to recover the ruins of S. Engracia and the adjoining houses, but without success. They attempted twice also to regain the Trinidad, and once succeeded so far as to force open the church door: the enemy had formed an epaulement within of bags of earth, and fought to advantage behind that protection. A friar was at the head of the assailants, with a sword in one hand and the crucifix in the other; one of his brethren was killed in the act of administering extreme unction to a Spaniard who was mortally wounded; another took the holy oil from the slain, and continued to perform the same office to his dying countrymen. Women also mingled with the combatants, distributing cartridges to them, and bearing refreshments to their sons, ♦Rogniat, 25, 28.
Cavallero, 105.♦ their husbands, and fathers, and sometimes rushing upon the enemy when these dear relatives fell, to revenge their deaths, and to die with them.

The French had in vain attempted to get possession of the convents of S. Augustin and ♦Feb. 1.♦ S. Monica. Having been repelled in assaulting ♦1809.
February.♦ the breaches, they sprung a mine under the partition wall, and by that means effected an entrance, turning all the works which the Spaniards had constructed for their defence. They forced their way into the church. Every column, every chapel, every altar, became a point of defence, which was repeatedly attacked, taken, and retaken, and attacked again; the pavement was covered with blood, and the aisles and nave of the church strewed with the dead, who were trampled under foot by the combatants. In the midst of this conflict the roof, which had been shattered by bombs, fell in; the few who were not crushed, after a short pause which this tremendous shock and the sense of their own escape occasioned, renewed the fight with increased desperation: fresh parties of the enemy poured in: monks, and citizens, and soldiers came to the defence, and the contest was continued upon the ruins and the bodies of the dead and the dying. It ended in favour of the invaders, who succeeded in keeping the disputed position. Taking advantage of the opportunity afforded while the attention of the Spaniards was directed to this point, they entered the Rua Quemada, where no attack was at that time apprehended, and got possession of one side of the street to the angle which it makes with the Cozo: their sappers were beginning to pierce the walls of the houses, barricade the doors and windows, and establish traverses in the street, when the Zaragozans charged them with redoubled spirit, drove them out with considerable loss, and recovered four houses which had been taken on a preceding day. At the same time an attack was made on the side of S. Engracia, when, after exploding two mines, the Poles got possession of some ruined houses; but in obtaining this success, General Lacoste, the ♦Rogniat, 27, 30.
Cavallero, 106.♦ French commandant of engineers, was killed. His opponent, Colonel San Genis, had fallen the preceding day: he was succeeded by Colonel Zappino, Lacoste by Colonel Rogniat.

Now that the city was open to the invaders, the contest was to be carried on once more in the streets and houses. But the French had been taught by experience that in such domestic warfare the Zaragozans derived a superiority from the feeling and principle which inspired them, and the cause wherein they were engaged. They had learned that the only means of conquering it was to destroy it house by house, and street by street; and upon this system of destruction they proceeded. Three companies of miners and eight of sappers carried on this subterranean war. The Spaniards had officers who could have opposed them with not inferior skill; but men were wanting, and the art of sapping and mining is not one which can be learned on the spot where it is wanted; their attempts therefore were frequently discovered, and the men suffocated in their own works. Nor indeed had they been more expert could powder have been supplied for their consumption. The stock with which the Zaragozans began had been exhausted; they had none but what they manufactured day by day, and no other cannon-balls than those which had been fired against them, and which they collected and fired back upon the enemy.

The Zaragozans expected miracles for their deliverance; and they exerted themselves so excellently well, that the French, with all their advantages, would have found themselves unequal to the enterprise in which they were engaged, and other armies must have been brought up to supply more thousands for the slaughter, if the defenders had not been suffering under an evil which in their circumstances it was equally impossible to prevent or to alleviate. The consequences of that evil, when it had once appeared, were but too surely to be apprehended; and in bitter anticipation, yet while a hope ♦Miralles, Elogio de Zaragoza, p. 42.♦ remained, an Aragoneze exclaimed, Zaragoza surrenders not, if God is neutral! If the seasons had only held their ordinary course, this heroic people might a second time have delivered themselves. In that part of Spain January is commonly a wet month. Had the rains fallen as usual, the enemy would hardly have been able to complete their approaches; had the weather, on the contrary, been severe, it might have stopped the contagion, and then the city would have had hands as well as hearts for its defence. But the season proved at once dry enough for the ground to be in the most favourable state for the besiegers’ operations, and mild enough to increase the progress of the disease, which was now more destructive than the enemy, though no enemy ever employed the ♦Cavallero, 71.♦ means of destruction with less remorse. When once the pestilence had begun it was impossible to check its progress, or confine it to one quarter of the city. It was not long before more than thirty hospitals were established; ... as soon as one was destroyed by the bombardment the patients were removed to some other building which was in a state to afford them temporary shelter, and thus the infection was carried to every part of Zaragoza. The average of daily deaths from this cause was at this time not less than three hundred and fifty; men stretched upon straw, in helpless misery lay breathing their last, and with their dying breath spreading the mortal taint of their own disease, who, if they had fallen in action, would have died with the exultation of martyrs. Their sole comfort was the sense of having performed their duty religiously to the uttermost ... all other alleviations were wanting; neither medicines nor necessary food were to be procured, nor needful attendance ... for the ministers of charity themselves became victims of the disease. All that the most compassionate had now to bestow was a little water in which rice had been boiled, and a winding-sheet. The nuns, driven from their convents, knew not where to take refuge, nor where to find shelter for their dying sisters. The Church of the Pillar was crowded with poor creatures, who, despairing of life, hoped now for nothing more than to die in the presence of the tutelary saint. The clergy were employed night and day in administering the sacraments to the dying, till they themselves sunk under the common calamity. The slightest wound produced gangrene and death in bodies so prepared for dissolution by distress of mind, agitation, want of proper aliment and of sleep. For there was now no respite neither by day nor night for this devoted city; even the natural order of light and darkness was destroyed in Zaragoza: by day it was involved in a red sulphureous atmosphere of smoke and dust, which hid the face of heaven; by night the fire of cannon and mortars, and the flames of burning houses, kept it in a state of horrible illumination. The cemeteries could no longer afford room for the dead; huge pits were dug to receive them in the streets and in the courts of the public buildings, till hands were wanting for the labour; they were laid before the churches, ♦Sebastian Hernandez, p. 17.
Cavallero, p. 108.♦ heaped upon one another, and covered with sheets; and that no spectacle of horror might be wanting, it happened not unfrequently that these piles of mortality were struck by a shell, and the shattered bodies scattered in all directions.

On the 1st of February the situation of the city appeared so desperate, that persons of approved and unquestionable patriotism came to the Regent of the Royal Audience of Aragon, D. Pedro Maria Ric, and besought him to represent to Palafox the necessity of capitulating; but Ric, with a spirit like that of Palafox himself, could not submit to this while there was any possibility of prolonging the defence. He knew that of all examples there is none which makes so sure and so powerful an impression as that of heroic suffering; and that if Zaragoza were defended to the last gasp, the influence of its fall under such circumstances would be not less honourable and hardly less salutary than a happier termination. Nor indeed would the people have consented to a surrender; their spirit was unsubdued, and the principle which supported it retained all its force. The worst effect of their sense of increasing danger was, that it increased their suspicions, always too easily excited; and ♦D. P. M. Ric, Semanario Patriotico, No. 28, p. 214.
Cavallero, p. 110.♦ to those suspicions several persons were sacrificed, being with or without proof hung during the night in the Cozo and in the market-place. The character indeed of the struggle was such as to excite the most implacable indignation and hatred against an enemy, who having begun the war with such unexampled treachery, prosecuted it with a ferocity equally unexampled in later ages.

Four days the French were employed in forming three galleries to cross the Rua Quemada. They failed in two; the third opened into the cellar of an undefended house; thence they made way along great part of the street from house to house, and crossing another street by means of a double epaulement of bags of earth, established themselves in the ruins of a house which formed an angle of the Cozo and of the Rua del Medio, Their next object was to get possession of the Escuelas Pias, a building which commanded some traverses made for defending the Cozo. The French often attacked it, and were as often repulsed; they then attempted the adjoining houses. The system of blowing up the houses exposed them to an evil which had not been foreseen, for when they attempted to establish themselves upon the ruins, the Spaniards from the dwellings near fired upon them with sure effect. They endeavoured therefore so to proportion the charge in their mines as to breach the house without destroying it; but to deprive them of the cover which they would thus have obtained, the Zaragozans with characteristic desperation set fire now to every house before they abandoned it. They began this mode of defence here, maintaining the entrance till they had prepared the building for burning; for so little wood was used in the construction, that it was necessary to smear the floors and beams with melted resin, to make them more combustible. When all was ready they then set fire to the place, and retired into the Escuelas Pias, interposing thus a barrier of flames between them and the assailants. The enemy endeavoured in vain to extinguish the fire under a shower of balls; and the time thus gained was employed by the Zaragozans in forming new works of defence. Unable to win the Schools by any other means, the enemy at length prepared a mine, which was discovered too late ♦Rogniat, 30, 1.
Cavallero, 121. Feb. 7.♦ for the Spaniards to frustrate their purpose, but in time to disappoint them of their expected advantage by setting fire to the disputed edifice.

On the same day operations were renewed against the suburbs, where the enemy, at the commencement of the siege, had received so severe a repulse. General Gazan, availing himself of an ambiguity in his orders, had, after that lesson, contented himself with keeping up the blockade; nor could any representation induce him to engage in more active operations, till M. Lasnes arrived with authority to enforce his orders. The Convent of Jesus, situated on the road to Barcelona, formed part of the defence on that side; the engineers, not having time to rase it, deeming it better that it should be occupied than abandoned for the enemy. Trenches were now opened against this building, and twenty battering pieces soon effected a breach, which was carried almost as easily as it had been made; but when the enemy, flushed with success, entered the suburbs in pursuit of the retreating garrison, they were driven out with great slaughter, as on their former attempt. ♦Rogniat, 34, 35.♦ They entrenched themselves, however, on the ruins of the convent, established a communication with it, and lodgements on the right and left.

The attack in the centre was pursued with the same vigour, and resisted with the same desperate determination. Every door, every staircase, every chamber was disputed; the ♦S. Francisco taken.♦ French abandoned all attacks to the left for the sake of concentrating their efforts here, that they might the sooner reach the Cozo, extend themselves along it to the right as far as the quay, and thus connect their operations with those of Gazan on the other side the Ebro: and these increased efforts were met with proportionate exertions by the Zaragozans. Grenades were thrown from one floor to another, and bombs were rolled among the enemy, when they were so near that the Spaniards who rolled them expected themselves also to perish by the explosion. Their resolution seemed, if it were possible, to increase with their danger; every spot was defended with more obstinacy than the last; and this temper would have been, as it deserved to be, invincible, if pestilence the while had not been consuming them faster than fire and sword. The sense of honour as well as of duty was carried to its highest point; the officers preferred dying upon the stations which they had been appointed to defend, rather than to live after having lost them, though every possible resistance had been made. On this side, after having occupied and been driven from the vaults of the Hospital, which had been reduced to ruins in the former siege, the enemy succeeded at length in carrying a gallery to the great convent of S. Francisco; ... a countermine was prepared, which compelled them to stop before they could get under the walls of the convent. The engineer, Major Breuille, immediately charged the mine with three thousand weight of powder, and fired it, having drawn by feigned preparations for an assault as many Spaniards as he could within the sphere of destruction. The explosion was terrible, and brought down part of the building: the enemy rushed through the breach, and making way into the church, formed an epaulement there to establish themselves. Some Zaragozans who were acquainted with the building got, by passages connected with the tower, upon the cornices of the church; others mounted the roof, and broke holes in it, and from thence they poured down grenades upon the invaders, and drove them from their post. The ruins of this convent, which had been burnt during the first siege, and now shattered by the mine, were disputed two whole days, till the defenders at length were driven from the last chapel by the bayonet. For the advantage now both in numbers and in physical power was on the side of the enemy, the pestilence having so wasted the Spaniards, that men ♦Rogniat, 36.
Cavallero, 126.♦ enough could not be provided to man the points which were attacked without calling up from the hospitals those who had yet strength enough to use a weapon.

From the tower of this building the French commanded the Cozo for a musket-shot distance ♦The French begin to murmur.♦ on either side. After many desperate attempts their miners succeeded in crossing that street; but they were baffled in their attacks upon the University, and so many of their officers and best soldiers had fallen in this murderous struggle, that the disgust which ought to have been excited by their abominable cause was produced by the difficulty which they found in pursuing it. Not the men alone, but the officers also, began to complain that they were worn out, though they had as yet only taken a fourth part of the town; it was necessary, they said, to wait for reinforcements, otherwise they should all be buried in these cursed ruins, before they could drive the fanatics from their last retreat. Marshal Lasnes represented to them, that destructive as the mode of war was, it was more so to the besieged than to them, whose operations were directed by more skill, and carried on by men trained to such service; that pestilence was doing their work; and that if these desperate madmen chose to renew the example of Numantia, and bury themselves under the ruins of their city, bombs and mines would not now be ♦Rogniat, 38.♦ long in destroying the last of them. Marshal Lasnes was a man after the Emperor Napoleon’s own heart; with so little honourable feeling, that he regarded the Zaragozans merely as madmen; and with so little human feeling, that he would have completed the destruction of the city and its last inhabitants with the same insensibility that he declared his intention of doing so.

S. Genis had repeatedly said, “Let me never be appealed to if there is any question of capitulating, for I shall never be of opinion that we can no longer defend ourselves.” In the same spirit Palafox wrote to his friend General Doyle: “Within the last forty-eight hours,” said he, “6000 shells have been thrown in; two-thirds of the city are in ruins; but we will perish under the ruins of the remaining part, rather than surrender.” It was not by any promises or hopes of external succour that this spirit was supported. Palafox well knew that no efforts would be wanting on the part of his brothers, or of his friends; but he knew also what divided counsels and jarring interests were opposed to them, and that willing lives were all they could have had at their command. General Doyle with great exertions got together ammunition and stores at Mequinenza, in the beginning of February; and the Marques de Lazan took the field from Lerida with a nominal force of 7000 foot and 250 horse to attempt something for the relief of the besieged city. It was soon learnt by their spies that a corps of 10,000 foot and 800 horse was ready to oppose them; and rather than make an attempt which must inevitably have ended in the utter rout of his ill-disciplined troops, Lazan waited at Monzon, to be joined by a division from Valencia, which the Junta of that kingdom had at last consented to send across the Ebro. But a French division in Aragon threatened to impede the junction: ammunition was wanted from Lerida, which the Junta of that city demurred at granting; time was consumed in miserable counsels and hopeless expectation, Lazan looking to Reding for some great exertion, and Reding deterred from attempting any thing, though with a superior force, by total want of confidence in his army, and the suspicion that whatever passed at his head-quarters was immediately communicated to the enemy; and thus while Lazan and his brother were in the most pitiable distress, knowing the state of Zaragoza, where their families were suffering under the unexampled horrors of such a siege, ... while every man in their division partook that feeling which the situation of the besieged excited in all their countrymen ... an anxiety as unexampled as it was great, ... and while every where it was expected that some efforts such as the occasion required would be made; even the most ready and devoted courage was of no avail where preparation, order, discipline, prompt judgement, and vigorous authority were all wanting; and though the province and the nation were in arms, Zaragoza was left to its fate without even an attempt to save it.

Meantime pestilence was consuming the Zaragozans faster than fire and sword. The points which were not immediately threatened were now wholly manned by men who rose from their straw in the hospitals, and sate at their posts, unable to support themselves standing, wrapped in their blankets, and shivering or panting for breath, as the ague or the hot fit of the disease might prevail. The officer whose dreadful task it was to choose out patients for the service became in his turn a victim to the contagion. Hopeless of finding relief any where, the sick resigned themselves quietly to their fate; the dying and the dead were buried together beneath the houses which were blown up, or consumed in the flames; and the French found court-yards and chambers filled with corpses, and said themselves that they were fighting now only to obtain possession of a cemetery. ♦Rogniat, 39.
Cavallero, 129.♦ The ravages of the disease were such, that many, bearing up with invincible resolution to the last, fell in the streets and died. The enemy did not remit their attacks while death was thus doing their work; they profited by the weakness of the besieged, and opening a fire ♦Feb. 18.♦ from their batteries on both sides the Convent of Jesus upon the suburbs, made another attempt upon the feeble works where they had twice been repulsed with such great loss. A fire ♦The suburbs taken.♦ from fifty pieces soon made the way open, and the bridge being flanked by some of their guns, no succour could be sent from the city. Baron de Versaje, who commanded there, and had distinguished himself in the defence, was killed in repairing to his post. A breach was made in the Convent of S. Lazarus on the left bank; the garrison, exhausted by privations and fatigue and sickness, opposed all the resistance in their power, ... the greater number dying in its defence; and this edifice being taken, the Spaniards could neither retreat from the suburbs, nor hope to support themselves there, when they could no longer be supplied with food or ammunition from the city. Finding themselves separated by the enemy into two columns, the one body crossed the bridge with considerable loss, and effected their retreat into the town; the other cut their way through the enemy, and endeavoured to escape in the open country ♦Rogniat, 41.
Cavallero, 137.♦ along the bank of the Ebro; they were pursued by the French horse, and after sustaining a second action till their powder was exhausted, were taken prisoners to the number of 1500.

The loss of the left bank exposed to the enemy the only part of the city which had not yet been open to their direct attacks, but had only suffered from the bombardment. On the other side, the University, after repeated attempts, had been taken, and the traverses which the Spaniards had so well defended in the Cozo. Palafox had now been seized with the disease. Capitulation had been mentioned at the last council in which he was present, and when it was asked how long the city could hold out, his answer had been, hasta la ultima tapia; “to the ♦Palafox transfers his authority to a Junta.♦ last mud-wall.” Being now utterly disabled, he transferred all his authority, civil and military, on the night of the 18th, to a Junta, naming Ric to be the president. That noble-minded Spaniard immediately summoned the members, and they began their functions at one on the morning of the 19th. The chiefs of the various military departments were summoned to deliver ♦Condition of the besieged.♦ their opinions. The general of cavalry represented, that there remained only sixty-two horses, and those weak and unserviceable, the rest having died of hunger. From a statement of the infantry it appeared that there were only 2822 men fit for service. Ammunition was nearly exhausted; there was none but what was manufactured in the Inquisition, and that would be destroyed if a shell should fall there. The commandant of engineers reported that the fortifications were demolished, there were neither men nor materials for repairing them, and all the cloth which could serve for bags of earth had been consumed. All the officers who had thus been consulted gave their opinion that the place ought to be surrendered, and that the Junta would be responsible to God and the King for the lives which every hour were sacrificed, if they persisted in resistance, now that it was become manifestly impossible to save the city. Having heard this melancholy representation, the Junta required General San Marc, who was one of their members, to express his judgement; the eminent talents and courage which he had displayed during the whole siege would render his opinion decisive both with them and the commander-in-chief and the people. He stated, that if the enemy made a general attack, which the preparations that were observed appeared to indicate, the loss of the city was inevitable, and would be followed by every imaginable horror. It was known with what fury the French treated every place which they conquered, and their rage would be greater here, on account of the hatred which they and their general and their bloody Emperor bore towards a city that had once put them to such shame, and now cost them so dearly. If the attacks were partial, such as those which were repeatedly made every day, they might hold out two days longer, or possibly four, provided men could be found for defence and for the works; longer than four days it was not possible to maintain the contest: San Marc concluded by declaring, that unless there were well-founded expectations of speedy relief, it was unjustifiable ♦Ric, Sem. Patr. 215, 6.♦ to sacrifice the lives which in these days must be lost, the loss of the city in that short time being unavoidable.

Upon this the Junta proceeded to make inquiry what expectations of relief there were: for this purpose the Duke of Villahermosa was sent to Palafox; but Palafox was now so ill that he could give no account of any thing, for the fever had fixed upon his brain. His secretary was applied to for any letters and documents which might be in his possession: he delivered in two, both of which were dated long back. One was a letter from Francisco Palafox, saying, that after making the utmost exertions to collect troops, but in vain, he was then at Tortosa, assembling the peasantry with some soldiers from the garrisons on the coast, and that he designed to strengthen this force with some gun-boats that were to be sent up the Ebro. The other was a scrap of paper, written in enigmatical terms (for it had to pass through the enemy’s lines), and, as it was supposed, by the Conde de Montijo. It said, that the writer and the Duke del Infantado wished to come to the relief of Zaragoza, but the Central Junta had ordered that the Swiss should go, and that they were to fall upon Madrid. The Swiss was understood to mean General Reding; but he was so situated that no succour could be expected from him; for he was in Catalonia, and the enemy being masters of the suburbs, it was not possible for him now to cross the bridge. Moreover there could be no doubt, that other divisions of the French gave him full employment. These papers, therefore, only confirmed the Junta in their apprehensions that the French were victorious every where, and that in the ♦Ric, 216, 7.♦ general distress of the country they could expect no relief.

While they were deliberating the bombardment was renewed. They knew that the city could not hold out; twenty-six members voted for a capitulation, eight, with Ric among them, that they should still continue their resistance, urging that there was a possibility of being succoured. Such was the high spirit of these brave men, that the opinion of the minority was followed: for they who had voted for surrendering had done so for the sake of others, ... for themselves, there was not one among them who would not rather have died than capitulated. They agreed to send a flag of truce to the enemy, requesting a suspension of hostilities for three days, that officers might in the meantime be sent to ascertain the situation of the Spanish armies, and according to the intelligence which might thus be obtained, they would then treat for a surrender. Lasnes, when he had summoned the city, had proposed this method himself, ... he now resented the proposal as an insult, and vented the most ferocious threats against the city, unless it were immediately delivered up. The flag was remanded with a second letter, reminding him that the proposal was originally his own: he did not vouchsafe to answer in any other manner than ♦Ric, 217, 8.♦ by a shower of bombs, and by ordering the attack to be renewed.

In the evening of that day the quarter of the Tanneries was lost, a part of the strand leading to the stone bridge, and the Puerto del Angel, a point of great importance. Four cannon in the battery of the wooden bridge were spiked, treacherously it was supposed, ... but there was no time for ascertaining this and punishing the traitors. The handful of men who remained were at their posts, manifesting their wonted resolution; but they were too few for the severe service to which they were exposed, and San Marc applied to Ric to reinforce with only 200 the points which were attacked, ... more he did not ask for, knowing the deplorable state of the city. Ric had already charged Don Miguel Marraco, a beneficed priest of the Church of the Pillar, whom the general had commissioned to organise the peasantry, to provide men for the works, ... he now sent him a note which would have excited him to new exertions had there been any remissness on his part. Don Mariano Cerazo, an honourable citizen, who had distinguished himself by his zeal and his influence with the people, was called upon in like manner; and certain priests also, who had united for the purpose of training and encouraging the peasantry, were requested in this emergency to furnish men. These measures, before the pestilence had so widely extended itself, would in a quarter of an hour have produced a thousand armed men. Ric ordered also the alarm to be beaten in the New Tower, and taking advantage of a favourable moment, when the enemy were driven back by the bayonet from the Convent del Sepulcro, he sent the public crier through the streets to proclaim this success, and summon the people by sound of trumpet to complete the victory. But disease had subdued them; of the surviving population, the few who were not suffering under the disorder were attending their sick or dying friends, and neither hope nor despair could call them out, ... hope, indeed, they had none, and the dreadful duty in which they were engaged rendered them insensible to all evils but those before their eyes. San Marc was joined by only seventeen men; ill tidings came upon him from every quarter; one commander complained that he was cut off at his station, another that he was on the point of being so, a third that he was undermined, ... from every quarter they called for troops and ♦Ric, 218, 9.♦ labourers and ammunition, at a time when all were wanting.

Thus situated, the Junta ordered the almoners of the different parishes to inform their parishioners of the state of the city, and report the opinion which they should form in consequence. Two-thirds of the city had been destroyed; thirty thousand of the inhabitants had perished, and from three to four hundred persons were daily dying of the pestilence. Under such circumstances the Junta protested that they had fulfilled their oath of fidelity, for Zaragoza was destroyed; and they dispatched a flag of truce to the French commander, requesting a suspension of hostilities for four-and-twenty hours, that they might in that time negotiate for a capitulation. A French officer came with the reply, requiring the Junta to wait upon Marshal Lasnes within two hours, and declaring that after that time was expired he would not listen to any terms. Ric instantly summoned the Junta, and as they could not all be immediately collected, he proceeded with some of them toward Marshal Lasnes, leaving some to acquaint the others with the result of the flag of truce, and to act as circumstances might require. They took a trumpeter with them to announce a parley, because the firing was still continued on both sides; but, notwithstanding this, the Spanish deputies were fired at from one of the enemy’s batteries. Ric protested against this violation of the laws of war, and refused to proceed till he was assured that it should not be repeated. An aide-de-camp of the French general had just before arrived, with instructions that the Junta should repair to the Casa Blanca, not to the suburbs, as had been first appointed; this officer went for an escort of infantry, and conducted Ric and his colleagues to the general’s presence. Lasnes received them with an insolent indifference, while his despite for the brave resistance which he had found betrayed itself in marks of affected contempt. He took some turns about the room, then addressing himself to Ric, began to inveigh against the Zaragozans for not believing him when he said that resistance was in vain, ... for which, he said, they deserved little consideration from his hands. He reproached the Junta also. Ric interrupted him. The Junta, he said, had commenced their sittings on the yesterday, and therefore could not be responsible for any thing before that time. The Marshal himself must feel, that if they had surrendered without having ascertained the absolute necessity of surrendering, they would have failed in their duty. When they were informed of the actual state of affairs, they had considered of a capitulation, and addressed a letter, proposing measures which he himself had suggested in the summons to which he now alluded. This had offended him, and he did not condescend to notice their second letter in explanation of the first. They had then dispatched a third flag, requesting a suspension of four-and-twenty hours, because they were accountable to the people, and that time was necessary for ascertaining the public will. Zaragoza, which had so nobly distinguished itself by the manner of its resistance, must also distinguish itself in the manner of capitulating, when capitulation was become inevitable. “Acting upon these principles,” said Ric, “it is my duty to declare that I bring neither powers nor instructions, neither do I know the will of the people; but I believe they ♦Ric, 229–231.♦ will accept a capitulation, provided it be reasonable, and becoming the heroism with which Zaragoza has defended itself.”