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The loss was such as Marlborough or Eugene could scarcely have retrieved, and was certainly not to be retrieved by Stanhope and Staremberg. Stanhope, who took the command of the English army in Catalonia, was a man of respectable abilities, both in military and civil affairs, but fitter, we conceive, for a second than for a first place.
"I cannot tell what he will do," Jack laughed; "but you may rely upon it that he will do something, and I would take fair odds that he will somehow or other save Barcelona and rid Catalonia of its invaders." "That I judge to be altogether impossible," the priest replied.
Philip V. could not remain at Madrid, which was threatened by the enemy: he removed to Burgos; the English entered the capital, and there proclaimed Charles III. Charles III. had no longer anything left in Spain but Aragon and Catalonia. The French garrisons, set free by the evacuation of Italy, went to the aid of the Spaniards.
This was welcome news to Hector, who at once prepared to cross into Italy; but when they reached Chambery he heard that Turenne had been ordered to join the army that was collected near the Spanish frontier, in order to conquer Roussillon, which lay between Languedoc and Catalonia.
Cyr had been absorbed by the siege of Girone, which had at length just submitted to him when Marshal Augereau was sent into Catalonia, in order to take from him at once his command and the glory of his conquest.
Thus, in a battle which occurred A.D. 1010 between two Mussulman leaders, there were found among the slain a count of Urgel and three bishops of Catalonia. And the King of Leon, Alphonso V., gave his sister Theresa in marriage to Abdalla, the Moorish king of Toledo, to convert him into an ally against Castile.
In the midst of these disasters, therefore, Philip V. found a firm support in the devotion of the people and in the indefatigable zeal of Madame des Ursins. At Madrid and in all the provinces, except Catalonia, the allies were received with that repugnance which presages a disastrous future and belies the most brilliant promises of victory.
Now, while Gotz fared back to Venice, the galleon which carried Don Jaime, Prince of Catalonia, as far Joppa, brought us likewise to the Promised Land to the holy city of Jerusalem. From thence we made our pilgrimage to many other Holy Places, under the protection of the great fellowship of that royal Prince who ever showed us much favor.
The poetry of the troubadours in Catalonia, as well as in its native home, belonged much to the court, and the highest in rank and power were earliest and foremost on its lists. From 1209 to 1229, the war against the Albigenses was carried on with extraordinary cruelty and fury.
Then, after an interesting half-hour, we returned to the station and set out upon our slow eight-hour journey through the rich wine lands of Catalonia, with their quaint mediæval villages and towns, with occasional glimpses of sapphire sea, and passing over many ravines and gullies we at last, long after nightfall, entered a long tunnel at the end of which was the station of Port-Bou, the French frontier.
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