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Were Irun or Fontarabia in the hands of the Carlists, there was the always-present danger of shells being pitched into them from a gunboat in the Bidassoa; and Renteria, outside of which the Republican troops only stirred on sufferance, was to all intents as serviceable to the Carlists as if it were tenanted by a Carlist garrison, which would thereby be condemned to idleness.
The Duke Charles de Plaisance went as far as Irun, and the Prince de Neuchatel even to the banks of the Bidassoa, in order to pay marked respect to their Catholic Majesties on the part of their powerful friend; and the king and queen appeared to appreciate highly these marks of consideration.
Even at Irun, where we arrived in Spain from Bayonne, there began at once to be temperamental differences which ought to have wrought against my weird misgivings of my whereabouts. Only in Spain could a customs inspector have felt of one tray in our trunks and then passed them all with an air of such jaded aversion from an employ uncongenial to a gentleman.
Now and then the tall chimney of one of those manufactories we had seen on the way from Irun invited belief in the march of industrial prosperity; but whether the Basque who took work in a mill or a foundry forfeited his nobility remained a part of the universal Basque secret.
Ferdinand VII the beloved, the dupe of Napoleon the Great, the god of all Spain from Irun to San Roque, and one of the thorough-paced scoundrels whom God has permitted to sit on a throne had bequeathed to his country a legacy of strife, which was now bearing fruit.
This is what he told me: At three one morning he opened fire on the guard-house occupied by the Carabineros, at the bridge over the Bidassoa, between Vera and Irun. A white flag was hoisted on the guard-house. He ordered the fire to cease, and advanced to negotiate the conditions of surrender. The enemy, who had invited him to approach, by the white flag, fired and wounded one of his men.
They shortly reached the site of the proposed railway, passing through Irun, St. Sebastian, St. Andero, and Bilbao, at which places they met deputations of the principal inhabitants who were interested in the subject of their journey. At Raynosa Stephenson carefully examined the mountain passes and ravines through which a railway could be made.
BARBAROSSA, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for years.
The Bidassoa at its base branches, and thus forms the islet of Faisanes, off which the prosperous fisherman can fill his basket with trout, salmon, and mullet, aye, and lumpish eels, if his predilections so tend. But I have no intention to describe Irun. Théophile Gautier has done that before me, and I am not sacrilegious. There was another customer in the barber's shop.
A few men on that height hurling down rocks, the defile lined with sharp-shooters, half a hundred of Mejia's llaneros to cut off their retreat, and the regiment of Irun could be destroyed to a man." "Or taken prisoners." "I don't think there would be many prisoners," said Carmen, grimly. "These must almost be the last, I think they are. See! Here come the tag-rag and bobtail."
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