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He was recalled for service elsewhere, General Verdier being left in command, and during the succeeding two months the siege was vigorously prosecuted, the French being supplied with a large siege train, with which they hotly bombarded the city. Weak as were the walls of Saragossa, interiorly it was remarkably well adapted for defence.
Burgos not appearing to be a retreat sufficiently sure, the monarch and his little court soon established themselves at Vittoria. After a second assault, as sanguinary and without result as the first, General Verdier, recalled to the Ebro, found himself obliged to abandon the siege of Saragossa. Already the position of the French in Spain became defensive, and the fears of King Joseph increased.
Verdier at Logroño on the sixth, Frère in Segovia on the seventh, Lefebvre at Tudela on the eighth, and Lasalle near Valladolid on the twelfth, had all dispersed the hordes opposed to them. By the middle of the month a regular advance was ordered. It took the form of dispersion for the sake of complete occupation.
Bessières had twenty-five thousand more, half in Old Castile under himself, half in Aragon under Verdier. Duhesme commanded the thirteen thousand who were in Catalonia; Dupont stood on the Tagus near Toledo with twenty-four thousand more. In the first weeks of June four different skirmishes occurred between the French regulars and the insurgents in different parts of the country.
Then General Verdier, who held the chief command in the absence of Marshal Brune, tried to harangue the people, but his voice was drowned by the shouts of the mob who had gathered round a coffee-house where stood a bust of the emperor, which they insisted should be given up to them.
M. de Tessan did not hear the noise arising from the aurora, which he attributes to the circumstance that he was too far distant from the place of the phenomenon; but he reports the observation of a distinguished officer of the French navy, M. Verdier, who, on the night of October 13th, 1819, being in the latitude of Newfoundland, had heard very distinctly a sort of crackling or crepitation, when the vessel he was on board was in the midst of an aurora borealis.
Before I describe the events which took place on the banks of the Dvina, I should, perhaps, acquaint you with the composition of 2nd Corps. Marshal Oudinot, who commanded the Corps, had under his orders no more than 44,000 men, divided into three divisions of infantry, commanded by Generals Legrand, Verdier and Merle. There were two brigades of light cavalry.
MM. Cornulier and Verdier are convinced, after carefully studying the subject, that there are almost always aurorae boreales in the high polar latitudes, and that their brilliancy alone is variable. This conviction is in accordance with the very careful observations which have now been made for four years in the northern hemisphere.
Verdier not so complimentary, but more intellectual. He is intensely fond of pictures, and has given me a great many ideas about them which I should never have gained without him; I shouldn't have known where to look for such ideas. He thinks everything of pictures; he thinks we don't make near enough of them.
He secured means for the subsistence of the army and of the Convention for many days, independently of the depots which were in the Sections. "General Verdier, who commanded at the Palais National, exhibited great coolness; he was required not to suffer a shot to be fired till the last extremity.
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