The reason for the general rejoicing was that glorious rumors were in circulation of Spanish armies that were coming to succor us, on the heels of the French, in many parts of the Peninsula. The people crowded into the Plaza de la Seo, and in front of the Magdalene arch, waiting until the Gazette should appear; and at last it came out, cheering everybody’s spirits, and making all hearts palpitate with hope. I do not know if such rumors had really reached Saragossa, or if they originated in the wits of the chief editor, Don Ignacio Assor. It is certain that they told us in print that Reading was coming to succor us with an army of sixty thousand men, that the Marquis of Lazan, after routing the mob in the north of Catalonia, had entered France, spreading terror in every direction, and that also the Duke del Infantado was coming to our aid, who with Blake and la Romana had routed Napoleon, slaying twenty thousand men, including Berthier, Ney, and Savary, and that at Cadiz had arrived several millions in hard cash sent by the English for the expense of war. What did it all mean? Could the Gazette explain all this?
In spite of the size of these mouthfuls of rumor, we swallowed them; and there were demonstrations of joy, ringing of church bells, running through the streets, and singing the music of the jota, with many other patriotic excesses, which at least had the advantage of affording us a little of that cooling off of our mental temperature which was necessary. Do not believe that in consideration of our joy the rain of bombs had ceased! Very far from that! They seemed to jeer at the news of our Gazette, as they repeated their dose. Feeling a lively desire to laugh at them to their faces, we went to the walls. The musicians of the regiments played in a tantalizing fashion, and we all sang in an immense chorus the famous words—
The Virgin del Pilar says
She wouldn’t like to be a Frenchwoman!
They were in a mood for answering jests, and in less than two hours a greater number of projectiles were sent into the city than during all the rest of the day. There was now no longer a secure refuge; there was not a hand’s breadth of ground or of roof free from that Satanic fire. Families fled from their homes, or took refuge in the cellars. The wounded, who were numerous in the principal houses, were carried to the churches, seeking shelter in their strong vaults. Others went dragging themselves along. Some more active ones carried their bedding upon their shoulders. Most of them were accommodated in the Pilar; and after the floor was all filled, they were stretched out upon the altars and crowded into the chapels. In spite of their misfortunes, they were consoled by looking at the Virgin, who seemed to say to them unceasingly with her brilliant eyes that she would not care to be a Frenchwoman!
XII
My battalion did not take part in the sorties of the days of the twenty-second and twenty-fourth, nor in the defence of the Molino and the positions situated at the back of San José, made glorious by the destruction of many of our troops, where they had made the French feel the strength of their hand. It was not because they had not been careful to take precautions, for indeed from the mouth of Huerva to the Carmen gate they stationed fifty cannon, most of them of heavy calibre, directing them with great skill against our weakest points. In spite of all this, we laughed, or pretended to laugh, at them, as in the vainglorious response of Palafox to Marshal Lannes (who had placed himself since the twenty-second at the head of the besieging army), in which he said to him, “The conquest of this city will be a great honor to Monsieur the Marshal if he gains it in open fight, and not with bombs and grenades, which only terrify cowards.”
Of course, after a few days had passed, it was known that the hoped-for forces and the powerful armies that were coming to free us were all mists of our imaginations, and especially of that of the journalist who invented them. There were no such armies of any sort roaming about to help us.
I understood very soon that all that which was published in the Gazette of the sixteenth was a canard, and so I said to Don José de Montoria and his wife, who in their optimism attributed my incredulity to a lack of public spirit. I had gone with Augustine and others of my friends to the Montoria house to help them at a task that was wearying them greatly. A part of their roof had been destroyed by the bombs, and this threatened the walls with destruction also. They were trying to remedy this with all possible speed. The eldest son of Montoria, wounded in battle at the Molino, had been lodged with his wife and son in
