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Updated: June 22, 2025


It wanted about an hour of sunset on the last day of September 1833, when two young men, whose respective ages did not much exceed twenty years, emerged from a country lane upon the high-road from Tarazona to Tudela, in that small district of Navarre which lies south of the river Ebro.

It was necessary, however, that the despatch about the battle of Tudela should be promptly forwarded to the Emperor, who must be impatiently awaiting news from the army on the Ebro. Enlightened by what had befallen me in the mountains, the marshal consented that the officer bearing it should go by Miranda and Burgos, where the presence of French troops on the roads made the way perfectly safe.

"I will instantly depart," replied Luis, "if you promise me an interview. I am about to leave Spain perhaps for ever; but I cannot go without bidding you farewell. You will not refuse me a meeting which may probably be our last." "What mean you?" exclaimed the lady. "Why do you leave Spain, and when? But we shall be overheard. To-morrow my father goes to Tudela. Be here at mid-day.

Benjamin of Tudela in the compilation of his travels in the twelfth century gives a humiliating account of the few brethren who still clung, in dire poverty and meanness, to their native land. In Tyre he found 400 Jews, mostly glass-blowers. There were in Jerusalem only 200, almost all dyers of wool.

He censured Joseph and Savary for giving up the line of the Upper Douro: he blamed them next for the evacuation of Tudela, and summed up the situation by stating that "all the Spanish forces are not able to overthrow 25,000 French in a reasonable position" adding, with stinging satire: "In war men are nothing: it is a man who is everything."

The Spanish armies, as yet unsupported by British troops, were defeated at Gomenal, Espinosa, Reynosa, Tudela, and at the pass of the Somo sierra Mountains, and at an early hour of the morning of the 4th December Madrid surrendered.

It was a form of recommendation which Napoleon never failed to recognise. Marshal Lannes did me the honour of appointing me to carry the news of the victory of Tudela, and I could indulge the hope of being major before long. But, alas! I had yet much blood to lose before I reached that rank.

A ball of another description had since proved fatal to the dragoon. He had fallen in one of the last actions of the war, fighting gallantly by the side of the Mochuelo, whose fortunes he had continued to share. Accompanied by his bride and father-in-law, Herrera was on his way to the villa near Tudela, now again the property of Count Villabuena.

I moved on, therefore, so as not to witness the execution, and the hussars shot the monk and the peasant, repeating, 'Ah, you don't know the Chamborant! I could not understand how an officer and two privates of Ney's corps could be so near Taragona when their regiments had not come that way; but most probably they had been captured elsewhere, and were being taken to Saragossa, when their escort learned the defeat of their countrymen at Tudela, and massacred their prisoners in revenge for it.

Voyages faites principalement dans les 12, 13, 14, and 15 siècles, par Benjamin de Tudela, Carpin, Ancilin, Rubruquis, Marco Polo, Haiton, Mandeville, et Contarini; publiés par P. Bergerin, avec des Cartes Géographiques. La Haye, 1735. 2 vols. 4to. This is a valuable collection, except so far as regards Marco Polos' Travels, the translation of which is neither elegant nor faithful.

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