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Cyr had entered that country, and, having taken Figueras and Gerona, was looking with a wistful eye on the castle of Trinity, on the south-east side, the capture of which would be a certain prelude to the fall of Rosas. My captain determined to defend it, although it had just been abandoned by another British naval officer, as untenable.
As he had but lately done for his campaign in Italy against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two armies: one composed of Austrasians, Neustrians, Burgundians, and divers German contingents, and commanded by Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make for Pampeluna; the other, consisting of Provençals, Septimanians, Lombards, and other populations of the South, under the command of Duke Bernard, who had already distinguished himself in Italy, had orders to penetrate into Spain by the eastern Pyrenees, to receive on the march the submission of Gerona and Barcelona, and not to halt till they were before Saragossa, where the two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn-al-Arabi had promised to give up to the King of the Franks.
In fact, the Spaniards throughout showed precisely the qualities they did early in the century, when, as every student will remember, their fleets were a helpless prey to the English war-ships, and their armies utterly unable to stand in the open against those of Napoleon's marshals, while on the other hand their guerillas performed marvellous feats, and their defence of intrenchments and walled towns, as at Saragossa and Gerona, were the wonder of the civilized world.
Cyr at Taragona. In St. Cyr's army were eight thousand Westphalians under General Morio, three thousand Berglanders, fifteen hundred Wurzburgers, from eight to nine hundred men of Schwarzburg, Lippe, Waldeck, and Reuss, all of whom were employed in the wearisome siege of Gerona, which was defended by Don Alvarez, one of Spain's greatest heroes.
Gerona, on the other hand, was only captured by Augereau after a resistance as gallant as that of Saragossa. "That is the extraordinary thing about these Spaniards. Sometimes they show themselves cowardly beyond expression, at others they fight like heroes.
Seventy-five thousand men in Andalusia, under Soult; fifty thousand under Marmont, in Leon; sixty thousand under Bessières, at Valladolid and Biscay; forty-five thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to guard Catalonia; thirty thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand under Joseph and Jourdan, fifteen thousand under Régnier, besides many more thousand troops in the various garrisons, in all over three hundred thousand men, held Spain in military subjection.
See how the people fought at Saragossa, and since then at Gerona, and many other places. We are not afraid of being killed, but we have no confidence in our chiefs." "I have no doubt that is so, Garcia; and that, if the regiments were trained by British officers, as some of the Portuguese now are, you would fight well.
Last night Señor Jacinto Vega was kidnapped at the town of Gerona; and seven travellers were murdered at O'Donnel, which town was pillaged, as well as the barrio of Matayumtayum of the town of La Paz. On that day various suspicious parties were seen in the town of Pañique and in the same barrio, according to reliable reports which I have just received.
As he had but lately done for his campaign in Italy against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two armies one composed of Austrasians, Neustrians, Burgundians, and divers German contingents, and commanded by Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make for Pampeluna; the other, consisting of Provenccals, Septimanians, Lombards, and other populations of the South, under the command of Duke Bernard, who had already distinguished himself in Italy, had orders to penetrate into Spain by the eastern Pyrenees, to receive on the march the submission of Gerona and Barcelona, and not to halt till they were before Saragossa, where the two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn- al-Arabi had promised to give up to the king of the Franks.
While fighting his uncle's battles on the Pyrenees, and besieging Gerona, Philip III. caught a fever, and died on his way home in 1285. His successor, Philip IV., called the Fair, was crafty, cruel, and greedy, and made the Parliament of Paris the instrument of his violence and exactions, which he carried out in the name of the law.
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