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 prevail5.

The hope of relief was the only thing talked of in Gerona, and day and night the people, as well as the watchmen, looked eagerly on all sides for the succours of which they were so greatly in need, and which they knew Blake was preparing. That general, on the 21st of September, had assembled a convoy at Hostalrich; on the morning of the 26th a firing was heard towards Los Angeles, and a strong body of the garrison sallied out to assist the convoy. Wimpfen had the command of the advancing army. When they reached the heights of S. Pelayo, before La Bisbal, O’Donnell was sent forward, with 1000 men, to open a way through the enemy: this officer, who was generally not less successful than enterprising in his attempts, broke through the enemy, set fire to one of their encampments, and made way for 160 laden beasts, which entered safely through the Puerta del Areny. The joy of the besieged was but of short endurance; they looked to see more troops and more supplies hastening on: 10,000 men they knew had been sent upon this service, 1000 had effected their part, why could not the nine follow? After gazing for hours in vain, they could no longer deceive themselves with hope; it was but too certain that the rest of the convoy had been intercepted. They then began to censure the general who had attempted to introduce it on that side, where the way was craggy, and led through such defiles, that a handful of men would be sufficient to defeat his purpose: their disappointment vented itself in exclamations against Blake, and they blamed him for remaining at the head of an army after so many repeated misfortunes as he had sustained. ♦Failure of the attempt to relieve it.♦ That general was not more censured by the Catalans than by the enemy for his conduct during the siege. The French condemned his want of promptitude and enterprise, being conscious themselves that for want of resources they must have been seriously endangered, if they had been repeatedly and vigorously attacked, or even threatened. But Blake, after the panic at Belchite, could have no confidence in his men: nor was this his only misfortune; though in other respects a good officer, he wanted that presence of mind which is the most essential requisite for a commander, and he was therefore better qualified to plan a campaign than to execute his own arrangements. When he succeeded in the former attempt for relieving Gerona, if the fair occasion had been seized the enemy might have then been compelled to raise the siege; but it was let pass for want of alacrity and hope. This second effort was miserably unsuccessful; nine parts of the convoy fell into the enemy’s hand, and there was a loss of more than 3000 men, for the ♦St. Cyr, 262.♦ Italians gave no quarter. St. Cyr thought that the men who had got into the city could not possibly retreat from it, and must therefore accelerate its surrender; and believing that the ♦St. Cyr gives up the command to Augereau.♦ business of the siege was done, he went to Perpignan for the purpose of making arrangements for the better supply of the army, and getting rid of an irksome command which his successor seemed in no haste to assume. His situation had long been painful. The service itself was one to which no casuistry could reconcile an honourable mind; the system of preying upon the country gave a barbarous character to it, which, if the cause itself had been less odious, must have been intolerable to one bred up in those feelings and observances by which the evils of war were mitigated: and if Marshal St. Cyr had been insensible to these reflections, he had much personal mortification to endure. There was reason to suspect that the army was neglected, because he was an object of displeasure to the government which employed him; and he was made to feel that the officers under him were, for his sake, debarred from the honours and advancement which they were entitled to expect. Finding therefore that Augereau was not incapacitated by ill health ♦St. Cyr, 264, 268.♦ from assuming the command, he communicated to him his determination of holding it no longer, and was rewarded for his services by two years of disgrace and exile.

Marshal Augereau had not been many hours before Gerona when O’Donnell with his thousand men broke through the besieging army, and accomplished his retreat more daringly and not less successfully than he had effected his entrance. It was O’Donnell who first formed the Geronans into companies, and disciplined them: he had not remained in the city during the siege, because it was rightly thought he would be better able to assist it from without; and he had displayed such skill and intrepidity in intercepting a convoy at Mascara, in concert with Rovira, that the Central Junta promoted him to the rank of brigadier. When, in the unhappy attempt at relieving the city, he and his division only had entered, he took up his station between the fort of the Capuchins and of La Reynana; but Gerona stood in need of provisions, not men; a thousand troops added nothing to her useful strength, the Geronans were strong enough without them to resist an assault if another were made; with them they were not numerous enough to sally and raise the siege; the continuance of O’Donnell then could only serve to hasten the fall of the city, by increasing the consumption of its scanty stores, and to weaken his own men by the privations in which they shared. It was agreed, therefore, with Alvarez that he should cut his way through the enemy; and a few families thought it better to follow him in this perilous attempt, than remain in a city where it now became apparent that they who escaped death could not long escape captivity. The place was completely surrounded, so that to elude the enemy was impossible; the only hope was to surprise them, ♦Oct. 13.♦ and then force a way. One night, after the moon was down, they left their position in silence: the Geronan centinels at St. Francisco de Paula mistook them for an enemy, and fired: but it is not unlikely that this accident, which might so easily have frustrated the enterprise, facilitated it, by deceiving the French, who, when they heard the alarm given from the city, could never imagine that an attempt was about to be made upon their camp. To make way by the mountains, O’Donnell knew would be impossible, in the darkness, without confusion; ♦1809.
October.♦ therefore, though the enemy’s posts were more numerous on the plain, he judged it safer to take that course. The plan was ably carried into effect; his men surprised the first post, fell upon them with sword and bayonet, not firing a gun, cut them off without giving the alarm, and sparing two prisoners, made them their guides through the encampment. They passed five-and-twenty posts of the enemy, through many of which they forced their way: Souham was surprised in his quarter, and fled in his shirt, leaving behind him as much booty as the Spaniards had time to lay hands on. The alarm spread throughout the whole of the lines, but it was too late; by daybreak the Spaniards reached S. Colona, where Milans was posted with part of Blake’s army, and it was not till they were thus placed in safety that a body of 2000 foot and 200 horse, who had been sent in pursuit of them, came up. O’Donnell was promoted to the rank of camp-marshal for this exploit.

But an immediate change took place in the condition of the besieging army under the new commander. Their wants were immediately supplied from France, they were largely reinforced, and encouragement of every kind was given them, as if to show that the disfavour which they had experienced had been wholly intended toward Marshal St. Cyr. Augereau being thus in strength, sent General Pino against the town of Hostalrich, where magazines were collected for Blake’s army, and for the relief of Gerona. The town was occupied by 2000 troops; Blake was too distant to act in support of this important post; the Spaniards, after a gallant resistance, were driven into the citadel by superior numbers; the magazines were lost, and the greater part of the town burnt.

The French purchased their success dearly; but it cut off the last possibility of relief from Gerona. The besieged now died in such numbers, chiefly of dysentery, that the daily deaths were never less than thirty-five, and sometimes amounted to seventy. The way to the burial place was never vacant. Augereau straitened the blockade; and, that the garrison might neither follow the example of O’Donnell, nor receive any supplies, however small, he drew his lines closer, stretched cords with bells along the interspaces, and kept watch-dogs at all the posts. The bombardment was continued, and always with greater violence during the night than the day, as if to exhaust the Geronans by depriving them of sleep. He found means also of sending letters into the city, sparing no attempts to work upon the hopes and fears of the people; he told them of his victory at Hostalrich, ... of the hopeless state of Blake’s army, ... of the peace which Austria had made; ... he threatened the most signal vengeance if they persisted in holding out, and he offered to grant an armistice for a month, and suffer supplies immediately to enter, provided Alvarez would capitulate at the end of that time, if the city were not relieved. There was a humanity in this offer such as no other French general had displayed during the course of the Spanish war; but Alvarez and the Geronans knew their duty too well to accept even such terms as these after the glorious resistance which they had made. With such an enemy, and in such a cause, they knew that no compromise ought to be made: they had devoted themselves for Spain, and it did not become them, for the sake of shortening their own sufferings, to let loose so large a part of the besieging army as this armistice would have left at liberty for other operations.

While the people of Gerona opposed this heroic spirit of endurance to the enemy, an affair took place at sea, which, if it brought no immediate relief to the Catalans, convinced them at least that they were not wholly neglected by Great Britain. Lord Collingwood having obtained intelligence that an attempt would be made from Toulon for throwing supplies into Barcelona, sailed from Minorca about the middle of October, and took his station a few leagues off Cape St. Sebastian, on the coast of Catalonia. On the 23d the enemy’s fleet came in sight, consisting of three ships of the line, two frigates, two armed store ships, and a convoy of sixteen sail. Rear Admiral Martin was ordered to give chase; he fell in with the ships of war off ♦Oct. 25.♦ the entrance of the Rhone, but they escaped him that night, because the wind blew directly on shore. The next morning he renewed the chase, and drove two of them, one of eighty guns, the other of seventy-four, on shore, off Frontignan, where they were set fire to by their own crews; the other ship of the line and one frigate ran on shore at the entrance of the port of Cette, where there was little probability that the former could be saved, but they were under protection of the batteries. The second frigate had hauled her wind during the night, and got into Marseilles road.

Two brigs, two bombards, and a ketch belonging to the convoy, were burnt by the Pomona while Admiral Martin was in chase. The other vessels made for the bay of Rosas; a squadron pursued, and found them moored under the protection of the castle, Fort Trinidad, and several batteries newly erected by the French. Four of these vessels were armed; the largest was of 600 tons, carrying sixteen nine-pounders, and 110 men; she was inclosed in boarding nettings, and perfectly prepared for action. The English boats, however, boarded them all, though they were bravely defended, and though a constant fire was kept up from the forts and from the beach. Of the eleven ships, three had landed their cargoes, but all were taken or burnt; and of the whole convoy there only escaped the frigate, which put into Marseilles, and one of the store-ships, which probably succeeded in reaching Barcelona.

It was no unimportant service thus to straiten the French in that city, ... but it was a success which brought no relief to Gerona, where the devoted inhabitants seemed now abandoned to their fate. Hitherto the few mules and horses which remained unslaughtered had been led out to feed near the walls of St. Francisco de Paula, and of the burial ground: ... this was now prevented by the batteries of Palau and Montelivi, and by the French advanced posts; and these wretched animals, being thus deprived of their only food, gnawed the hair from each other’s tails and manes before they were led to the shambles. Famine at length did the enemy’s work; the stores from which the citizens had supplied the failure of the magazines were exhausted; it became necessary to set a guard over the ovens, and the food for the hospitals was sometimes seized upon the way by the famishing populace. The enemy endeavoured to tempt the garrison to desert, by calling out to them to come and eat, and holding out provisions. A few were tempted; they were received with embraces, and fed in sight of the walls, ... poor wretches, envying the firmer constancy of their comrades more than those comrades did the food, for lack of which their own vital spirits were well-nigh spent! None of that individual animosity was here displayed which characterized the street-fighting ♦1809.
November.♦ at Zaragoza, ... the nature of the siege was not such as to call it forth; and some of those humanities appeared, which in other instances the French generals systematically outraged in Spain. The out-sentries frequently made a truce with each other, laid down their arms, and drew near enough to converse; the French soldier would then give his half-starved enemy a draught from his leathern bottle, or brandy flask, and when they had drunk and talked together, they returned to their posts, scoffed at each other, proceeded from mockery to insult, and sometimes closed the scene with a skirmish.

The only disgraceful circumstance which occurred during the whole siege was the desertion of ten officers in a body, two of whom were men of noble birth; they had been plotting to make the governor capitulate, and finding their intentions frustrated, went over to the enemy in open day. Except in this instance, the number of deserters was very small. Towards the end of November many of the inhabitants, having become utterly hopeless of relief, preferred the chance of death to the certainty of being made prisoners, and they ventured to pass the enemy’s lines, some failing in the attempt, others being more fortunate. At this time Samaniego, who was first surgeon to the garrison, delivered in to Alvarez a report upon the state of ♦Nov. 29.♦ health: as he gave it into his hands, he said something implying the melancholy nature of its contents; Alvarez replied, “this paper then, perhaps, will inform posterity of our sufferings, if there should be none left to recount them!” He then bade Samaniego read it. It was a dreadful report. There did not remain a single building in Gerona which had not been injured by the bombardment; not a house was habitable; the people slept in cellars, and vaults, and holes amid the ruins; and it had not unfrequently happened that the wounded were killed in the hospitals. The streets were broken up; so that the rain water and the sewers stagnated there, and the pestilential vapours which arose were rendered more noxious by the dead bodies which lay rotting amid the ruins. The siege had now endured seven months; scarcely a woman had become pregnant during that time; the very dogs, before hunger consumed them, had ceased to follow after kind; they did not even fawn upon their masters; the almost incessant thunder of artillery seemed to make them sensible of the state of the city, and the unnatural atmosphere affected them as well as humankind. It even affected vegetation. In the gardens within the walls the fruits withered, and scarcely any vegetable could be raised. Within the last three weeks above 500 of the garrison had died in the hospitals; a dysentery was raging and spreading; the sick were lying upon the ground, without beds, almost without food; and there was scarcely fuel to dress the little wheat that remained, and the few horses which were yet unconsumed. Samaniego then adverted with bitterness to the accounts which had been circulated, that abundant supplies had been thrown into the city; and he concluded by saying, “if by these sacrifices, deserving for ever to be the admiration of history, and if by consummating them with the lives of us who, by the will of Providence, have survived our comrades, the liberty of our country can be secured, happy shall we be in the bosom of eternity and in the memory of good men, and happy will our children be among their fellow-countrymen!”

The breaches which had been assaulted ten weeks before were still open; it was easier for the Geronans to defend than to repair them, and the French had suffered too much in that assault to repeat it. A fourth had now been made. The enemy, learning from the officers who had deserted that the ammunition of the place was almost expended, ventured upon bolder operations. They took possession by night of the Calle del Carmen; from thence they commanded the bridge of S. Francisco, which was the only means of communication between the old city and that part on the opposite side of the Ter; from thence also they battered Forts Merced and S. Francisco de Paula. During another night they got possession of Fort Calvary, which they had reduced to ruins, and of the Cabildo redoubt: this last success seems to have been owing to some misconduct, for the historian of the siege inveighs upon this occasion against the pernicious measure of intrusting boys with command, as a reward for the services of their fathers. The city redoubts fell next. The bodily strength as well as the ammunition of the Geronans was almost exhausted, and these advantages over them were gained with comparative ease. The enemy were now close to the walls, and thus cut off the forts of the Capuchins and of the Constable, the only two remaining outworks. The garrisons of both amounted only to 160 men; they had scarcely any powder, little water, and no food. These posts were of the last importance; it was resolved to make a sally for the sake of relieving them, and the garrison of the town gave up for this purpose their own miserable rations, contributing enough for the consumption of three days. The ration was at this time a handful of wheat daily, or sometimes, in its stead, the quarter of a small loaf, and five ounces of horse’s or mule’s flesh, every alternate day.

The few men who could be allotted for this service, or indeed who were equal to it, sallied in broad day through the Puerto del Socorro, within pistol-shot of the redoubts which the enemy now possessed; they were in three bodies, two of which hastened up the hill toward the two forts, while the third remained to protect them from being attacked in the rear from the Calle del Carmen. The sally was so sudden, so utterly unlooked for by the besiegers, and so resolutely executed, that its purpose was accomplished, ♦1809.
December.♦ though not without the loss in killed and wounded of about forty men, which was nearly a third of those who were employed in it. This was the last effort of the Geronans. The deaths increased in a dreadful and daily accelerating progression; the burial-places were without the walls; it had long been a service of danger to bury the dead, for the French, seeing the way to the cemetery always full, kept up a fire upon it; hands could not now be found to carry them out to the deposit-house, and from thence to the grave; and at one time 120 bodies were lying in the deposit-house, uncoffined, in sight of all who passed the walls.

The besiegers were now erecting one battery more in the Calle de la Rulla; it was close upon one of the breaches, and commanded the whole space between Forts Merced and S. Francisco de Paula. This was in the beginning of December; on the 4th Alvarez was seized with a nervous fever, occasioned undoubtedly by the hopeless state of the city. On the 8th the disorder had greatly increased, and he became delirious. The next day the Junta assembled, and one of their body was deputed to examine Samaniego and his colleague Viader, whether the governor was in a state to perform the duties of his office. They required a more specific question; and the Canon who had been deputed then said, it was feared that, in the access of delirium, the governor might give orders contrary to his own judgement, if he were in perfect sanity of mind, and contrary to the public weal, when the dreadful situation of the city was considered. The purport of such language could not be mistaken; and they replied, that, without exceeding the bounds of their profession, they could pronounce his state of health to be incompatible with the command, and his continuance in command equally incompatible with the measures necessary for his recovery.

Samaniego and his colleague went after this consultation to visit the governor, whom they found in such a state that they judged it proper for him to receive the viaticum, thinking it most probable that, in the next access of fever, he would lose his senses and die, ... for this was the manner in which the disorder under which he laboured usually terminated. Being thus delivered over to the priests, Alvarez, before the fit came on, resigned the command, which then devolved upon Brigadier D. Julian de Bolivar: a council was held during the night, composed of the two Juntas, military and civil; and the result was, that in the morning, D. Blas de Furnas, an officer who had greatly distinguished himself during the siege, should treat for a capitulation. The whole of the 10th was employed in adjusting the terms. They were in the highest degree honourable. The garrison were to march out with the honours of war, and be sent prisoners into France, to be exchanged as soon as possible for an equal number of French prisoners then detained in Majorca and other places. None were to be considered prisoners except those who were ranked as soldiers; the commissariat, intendants, and medical staff were thus left at freedom. The French were not to be quartered upon the inhabitants; the official papers were neither to be destroyed nor removed; no person was to be injured for the part which he had taken during the siege; those who were not natives of Gerona should be at liberty to leave it, and take with them all their property; the natives also who chose to depart might do so, take with them their moveable property, and dispose as they pleased of the rest.

While the capitulation was going on, many of the enemy’s soldiers came to the walls, bringing provisions and wine, to be drawn up by strings, ... an honourable proof of the temper with which they regarded their brave opponents. During the night the deserters who were in Gerona, with many other soldiers and peasants, attempted to escape: some succeeded, others were killed or taken in the attempt, and not a few dropped with weakness upon the way. To those who remained, the very silence of night, it is said, was a thing so unusual, that it became a cause of agitation. At daybreak it was found that the soldiers had broken the greater part of their arms, and thrown the fragments into the streets or the river. When the garrison were drawn up in sight of the French, their shrunken limbs and hollow eyes and pale and meagre countenances sufficiently manifested by what they had been subdued. The French observed, not without admiration, that in the city, as well as at Monjuic, most of the guns had been fired so often that they were rendered useless; brass itself had given way, says Samaniego, before the constancy of the Geronans.

The first act of the French officer who was appointed governor was to order all the inhabitants to deliver in their arms, on pain of death, and to establish a military commission. Te Deum was ordered in the cathedral; it was performed with tears, and a voice which could difficultly command its utterance. Augereau would fain have had a sermon like that which had been preached before Lasnes at Zaragoza, but not a priest could be found who would sin against his soul by following the impious example. A guard was set upon Alvarez; he amended slowly, and the physicians applied for leave for him to quit the city, and go to some place upon the sea-shore; it was replied, that Marshal Augereau’s orders only permitted him to allow the choice of any place on the French frontier, or in the direct road to France. He chose Figueras, and, having recovered sufficiently to bear the removal, was hurried off at ♦Dec. 24.♦ midnight without any previous notice, and under a strong escort. The Friars, who had been all confined in the church of St. Francisco, with a cannon pointed against the door, and a match lighted, were marched off at the same time, in violation of the terms. The sick and wounded Spaniards were hastily removed to St. Daniel; they were laid upon straw, and being left without even such necessaries as they had possessed in the city, except that they were better supplied with food, many died in consequence. There was a grievous want of humanity in this; but no brutal acts of outrage and cruelty were committed, as at Zaragoza; and, when so many of the French generals rendered themselves infamous, Augereau, and the few who observed any of the old humanities of war, deserve to be distinguished from their execrable colleagues.

The Central Junta decreed the same honours to Gerona and its heroic defenders as had been conferred in the case of Zaragoza. The rewards which Mariano Alvarez had deserved by his admirable conduct were to be given to his family, if, as there was reason to fear, he himself should not live to receive them. The sad apprehension which was thus expressed was soon verified. He died at Figueras. It was said, and believed, in Catalonia, that Buonaparte had sent orders to execute him in the Plaza at Gerona, and that the French, fearing the consequences if they should thus outrage the national feeling, put him out of the way by poison6. His death was so probable, considering what he had endured during the siege, and the condition in which it left him, that no suspicion of this kind would have prevailed, if the public execution of Santiago Sass and of Hofer, and the private catastrophe of Captain Wright and of Pichegru, had not given dreadful proof that the French government and its agents were capable of any wickedness. In the present imputation they were probably wronged, but it was brought on them by the opinion which their actions had obtained and merited.

About 600 of the garrison made their escape from Rousillon. Eroles was one; than whom no Spaniard rendered greater services to his country during the war, nor has left to posterity a more irreproachable and honourable name.