Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

Saragossa will not surrender. She will be reduced to powder. Of her historic houses, let not one brick remain upon another! Let her hundred temples fall, the ground beneath her...

Presently he seated himself upon a pile of stones, beating his brow from time to time, and without loosening his hold of the chicken, he laid his hand upon his heart, sighing de...

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...

We deceived the old man and went. The night was now far advanced, as the interment which I have just described had lasted more than three hours. The light of the fire could no l...

On reaching this point in my story, I beg the reader to pardon me if I do not give the dates exactly of that which I relate. In this period of horror, lasting from January 27 to...

On the third of February, the French gained possession of the Convent of Jerusalem,[1] which was between Santa Engracia and the hospital. The battle which succeeded the conquest...

While they were talking, I observed the face of Mariquilla, which seemed in the darkness as if modelled of white wax, and of the soft tone and finish of ivory. From her black ey...

The firing of the guns and cannon ceased. A great splendor was illumining the city. It was the burning of the Audiencia. The fire, beginning about midnight, was devouring all fo...

"We shall die for our country, for Saragossa; and although posterity will not remember us, it is always an honor to fall on the field of battle for a cause like this."

The French had taken possession also of the battery of Los Martires. That same afternoon they were masters of the ruins of Santa Engracia and the convent of Trinitarios. Is it c...

From that day, as memorable in the second siege as Eras in the first siege, began the great work in whose frenzy and exaltation both besiegers and besieged lived for the next mo...

The place where we lay down did not by any blandishments invite us to sleep luxuriously until morning, and certainly a mattress of broken stones is conducive to early rising. We...

"I am Augustine Montoria," he answered. "Am I so much disfigured? They told me yesterday that you were dead. How I envied you! I see that you are as unfortunate as I, and that y...

The possession of San Francisco would decide the fate of the city. That vast edifice, situated in the middle of the Coso, gave an incontestable superiority to the side which occ...

Augustine Montoria and I stood guard with our battalion in the Molino until after nightfall, the hour when we were relieved by the Huesca volunteers; then we permitted ourselves...

As I have said, Palafox pulled us together; and although we abandoned almost all of the Calle de Pabostre, we remained strong in the Puerta Quemada. If the battle was bloody unt...

That afternoon almost all the efforts of the French were directed against the suburb from the left of the Ebro. They assaulted the Monastery of Jesus, and bombarded the Church o...

Night came, and when a part of our troops fell back upon the city, all of the people hastened to the suburb to look at the field of battle from near at hand, and to gladden thei...

The French had assaulted with great vigor the fortified positions of the Torrero. Ten thousand men defended them, commanded by Don Philip Saint March and by O'Neill, both genera...

He followed this with a long and eloquent article which was published in the "Gazette;" but, according to general opinion, neither that document nor any of the proclamations whi...

"I believe they will attack on all sides at once, until they have made their second parallel. Do you know that Napoleon in Paris, knowing the resistance shown by this city in th...

Incorporated into the battalion of Estremadura, we went along the Calle de Palomar into the Plaza de la Magdalena, whence we could hear the roar of battle at the end of the Call...

Before we left his house, Montoria became vexed at Don Roque and me because we would not take the money that he offered us for our first expenses in the city; then were repeated...

Horrible nightmare, leave me! I do not wish to sleep. But the bad dream which I long to fling from my remembrance returns to distress me. I wish I could blot from my memory the...

"My sons, do not be discouraged. Foreseeing this event we have saved moderate quantities of food, and we have wine also. Give this mob plenty of powder! Courage, dear boys! Do n...

While the cannons on the Mediodia were throwing bombs into the centre of the city, the cannon on the east side were discharging solid balls upon the weak walls of Las Monicas, a...

But, alas! Don José de Montoria was not in his house, and we found it necessary to go a little way out of the city to look for him. Two of my companions, tired of so much going...

When we had finished carrying out the flour, I went and looked for Augustine; but I could find him nowhere, neither in his father's house, nor at the headquarters of supplies, n...

The fortress of San José had surrendered, or rather the French had entered it when their artillery had reduced it to powder, and all of its defenders had fallen, one by one, to...

I slept from three o'clock until daybreak, and in the morning we heard mass in the Coso. In the large balcony of a house called Las Monas at the entrance of the Calle de las Esc...

It was, I believe, the evening of the eighteenth when we saw Saragossa in the distance. As we entered by the Puerta de Sancho we heard the clock in the Torre Nueva strike ten. W...