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Updated: June 14, 2025
"I know that they had a division close to Leiria, the day before yesterday; but whether they have any large body just across the Mondego, I cannot say." "Then we will first surprise their post. I will undertake that. Will you march your force down the river, close to the town?
Dined with Pinto Basto and met Fonseca. 16th, to Caldas. 17th, to Alcobaca; then drove on to Batalha, and slept at Leiria. These great monasteries, now deserted, with their architecture and their tombs, are of the highest interest. 18th.
The French drove the light division through Coimbra and, following, pressed so hotly that a number of minor combats took place between their cavalry and the British rear guards. Before Leiria the rear guards had to fight strongly, to enable the guns to quit the town before the French entered it.
Inside are several stories of square halls finely vaulted with massive octagonal vaults; below, the windows are little more than slits, but on one floor there are larger two-light pointed openings. Far finer and larger has been the castle of Leiria, some fifty miles south of Coimbra: it or the keep was begun by Dom Diniz in 1324.
Soon after starting on his work, Terence learned that the British troops had passed through Pombal, Leiria, and Thomar. It was consequently unnecessary for him to endeavour to clear those towns. The delays caused at every village rendered the work slow, as well as arduous.
Massena tarnished the reputation, gained by the manner in which he had drawn off his army from its dangerous position, by the ruthless spirit with which the operation was conducted; covering his retreat by burning every village through which he passed, and even ordering the town of Leiria to be destroyed, although altogether out of the line he was following.
He had already, knowing that great bodies of French cavalry had crossed the Mondego, called in the companies that were working Leiria and the coast; as they might otherwise have been cut up, in detail, by the French cavalry. With these he marched east, picking up the other companies as he went and, on the same evening, the regiment was collected on the Zezere.
We went on to Leiria, where a great market gave us an opportunity of admiring the beauty of the country women and their charming costumes. We put up in a posada, in which the stable was on the first floor and the kitchen on the second, and where we shared rooms with geese and pigs and a party of travelling gelders from France. After Leiria came Pombal.
From Coimbra we proceeded farther south, having again to cross the Mondego, which we did in the latter end of September, reaching Leiria on the 2nd of October. On the march we passed a nunnery, where we halted for about a quarter of an hour.
Another close to Guarda has a much richer corbel table with a large ball ornament on the cornice and a round window filled with curiously built-up tracery above the plain, round-arched west door, while further south on the castle hill at Leiria are the ruins of the small church of São Pedro built of fine limestone with a good west door.
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