Iberia Won 41

Iberia Won 41

The gates of the fortress of Pamplona had been opened to the French

general Darmagnac as to a friend. But the military authority

remained in the hands of the Viceroy, Marquis de Valle-Santoro,

and the volunteer battalion of Tarragona, 700 men strong, was

lying in the citadel, and performed the military service of the

place. Since Cardinal Cisneros, regent of Castile, dismantled all

the strong places of Navarre, with the exception of its capital,

the received opinion has been that he who commands in Pamplona is

master of the province. To command in Pamplona, it is requisite to

obtain possession of the citadel. This fortress, built by Philip

II., contains within it extensive magazines for munitions of war

and mouth, and might hold out for an indefinite period. The French

soldiers came on fixed days, in undress and unarmed, to receive

their provisions in the interior of the citadel. The Spanish

troops maintained a strict guard upon these occasions, and never

failed to have the drawbridge raised during the entire time that

the distribution lasted. During the night of the 15th February,

1808, Darmagnac collected 100 grenadiers at his lodgings, which

he had taken “_non sans dessein_,” says Foy, on the esplanade

which separates the town from the citadel. They entered their

general’s residence with their firelocks and cartouches, one after

the other, in profound silence. At seven o’clock on the morning

of the 16th, sixty men went to receive their provisions as usual,

but were commanded by an officer of intelligence and daring named

Robert. Under pretext of waiting for the quarter-master, the men

stopt, some of them on the drawbridge and some beyond it. The

drawbridge was thus prevented from being raised. It rained; and

some of them entered the guard-house, as it were to escape from

the shower. “_A un signal donné_,” (says Foy) they leapt upon the

arms of the guard, where they lay ranged at one side; and the

two sentinels were immediately disarmed. The Spaniards could not

extricate themselves from the hands of the French, who filled the

guard-house. Those who made any resistance were beat with the

butt-ends of muskets. By this time arrived the grenadiers who had

been lying in ambuscade at the general’s house. They proceeded

straight to a bastion of 15 guns, directed on the entrance to

the ditch. The forty-seventh French battalion, quartered not

far distant, followed close on the grenadiers. The rampart was

covered with Frenchmen, before the Spanish garrison, shut up

in their _casernes_, had even thought of putting themselves on

their defence. Darmagnac announced to the Viceroy and the Council

of Navarre that, as he would probably have some stay to make in

Pamplona, he had been obliged for the security of his troops to

introduce into the citadel a battalion which would do duty there

in concert with the national garrison--“a slight change, he added,

which, instead of altering the good understanding between, them,

should only be regarded as a tie the more between two reciprocally

faithful allies!”

 

Ties of a similar character became established daily. Thouvenot,

General of Brigade, had been sent to San Sebastian, with a

commission to assemble in one dépôt the soldiers who arrived from

France on their way to join their respective corps in Spain. “This

dépôt (concludes Foy) becoming presently very numerous found

itself in possession of the place, without the detachments of

the Spanish regiments of the King and of Africa, who formed the

garrison, perceiving it. It is thus that the French became masters

of Figuera, Barcelona, Pamplona, and San Sebastian; and then their

military operations in the Peninsula became placed on a reasonable

basis! The mask was thrown off, the interested observers whom Spain

had received as allies, for a time dissembled their projects, but

they no longer sought to conceal the means which they adopted for

their accomplishment.”--_Hist. Guerre. Pénins._ liv. iii.

 

Yet these are the events which Thiers, in his _Histoire du Consulat

et de l’Empire_, has the coolness to describe, without one word of

reprobation, censure, or comment, in the following words:

 

“As soon as the French troops crossed the frontiers they were

quartered at Saint Sebastian, Pampeluna, Rosas, Figueras, and

Barcelona.”

 

Of the character and deeds of Godoy, the chief actor in these

transactions, the following brief but on the whole satisfactory

sketch is given by Thiers:--

 

“This man, whom an extraordinary degree of favour had raised up

to the supreme power in Spain, governed the state as an absolute

master for more than ten years; he had confirmed his power

by filling the government offices with his creatures. He had

become the dispenser of every favour and every boon, and was so

completely the medium of the king’s decisions, that the monarch

answered to every applicant: ‘Call upon Emanuel,’--the prince

being named Emanuel Godoy. This supreme authority had stirred up

against him a general detestation, which had counterbalanced the

favour he enjoyed, because he had of course committed many acts

of injustice in building up his power. The Prince of Asturias was

in the cabinet; he likewise had to complain of the favourite’s

haughtiness, the Prince of Peace not fearing to irritate him by

exhibiting the source of a despotic sway which laid its burden even

on the successor to the crown. The Prince of Asturias became his

enemy, and lost no opportunity of contriving his destruction, in

which object he was encouraged by the opinion of the people.

 

“On every side murmurs rose against the Prince of Peace; his

influence began to decline; and he was soon driven to his last and

lowest shifts to prop it up. _He had long since felt the necessity

of consolidating his power, and had striven by every art to acquire

the friendship of France._ His enemies availed themselves of

this circumstance to injure him, and charged him with treachery;

asserted that he wanted to sell Spain to France, and had reduced

her already to one of those vice-royalties obedient to the Emperor.

 

“On the other hand (so mutable and various is the public mind) they

attributed to France whatever evil afflicted Spain, and accused

her of supporting the Prince of Peace. This state of things every

day produced fresh bickerings between the partisans of the rival

princes; the counsels of the Prince Royal were not always prudent,

and he was induced by the aversion of the people towards his

powerful opponent to endeavour to quell the ambition of the Prince

of Peace by making him the victim of his immoderate thirst for

power. The favourite, foreseeing the coming catastrophe, and all

Spain in arms to crush and overthrow him, gave himself up for lost,

when the French troops advanced into the Spanish territory, to

execute the treaty of Fontainebleau, _of which he alone possessed

the secret, and which was not even signed_.”

 

The Basque glories, which I have recorded in the ballad of “The

Tartar Town,” are all strictly historical. The Basque dialect was

once spoken all over Spain, and is nearly identical with the Tartar

language. I use this supposed Tartar origin for poetical purposes.

Ever since the death of Ferdinand VII., the Basque _fueros_ have

been a constant bone of contention. Espartero abolished, but

Narvaez partially restored them. The only _fueros_ now retained are

an exemption from duty upon stamps, salt, and tobacco.

 

 

III. “A glory streamed around her, giant-strong.”

 

This stanza has been inspired by Murillo’s _Immaculate

Conceptions_, on whose wonderful beauties I have gazed for days at

Seville and Madrid.

 

 

IV. “Seemed as a rosebud gathering ere it blew

All forms of Beauty.”

 

Als eine blume zeigt sie sich der welt;

Zum muster wuchs das schöne bild empor.

Göthe, “_Miedings Tod._”

 

“She blossoms to the world like a flower; her beautiful form grows

up to be a pattern.”

 

 

VI. “Oh Love, oh wedded Love, of life the balm!”

 

“You have reason to commend that excellent institution * * the

faithful nuptial union of man and wife that was first instituted.”

(Bacon, _New Atlantis_.) The same sentiments are still more nobly

expressed in Milton’s _Tetrachordon_ and _Doctrine and Discipline

of Divorce_, where the poet, unshackled by his prose fetters, is

still a poet, glowing with fancy and with rare sublimity, and has

given __EXPRESSION__ to nobler sentiments on chaste love than any other

writer, ancient or modern.

 

 

VII. “The rapturous joy more rapture gave alone.”

 

Tu mihi sola places; nec jam, te præter, in urbe

Formosa est oculis ulla puella meis.

Atque utinam posses uni mihi bella videri.

Tibul. 1. iv. 13.

 

“A stolen pressure of the hand, a tone

Unheard save by one ear.”

 

Fallendique vias mille ministrat Amor!

Tibul. 1. iv. 6.

 

“A language dead to all save lovers.”

 

O quanta dulce imagen,

Quantas tiernas palabras

Alli diré, que el labio

Quiere decir, y calla.

Cienfuegos.

 

 

“And bend, oh bend those glorious eyes

Upon thy slave once more, once more.”

 

Medid el ayre de unos bellos ojos,

Y me direys del cielo al suelo el trecho.

Lope de Vega, _Angelica_, iii.

 

 

X. “Like Clytemnestra’s son by Furies driven.”

 

----“Ereptæ magno inflammatus amore

Conjugis, et scelerum furiis agitatus Orestes.”

Virg. _Æn._ iii. 330.

 

Ὅμως δὲ φεῦγε, μηδὲ μαλθακὸς γένῃ·

Ἐλῶσι γάρ σε καὶ δι’ ἠπείρου μακρᾶς

Βεβῶτ’ ἀνατεὶ τὴν πλανοστιβῆ χθόνα,

Ὑπέρ τε πόντον, καὶ περιῤῥύτας πόλεις.

Æschyl. _Eumen._ 74.

 

“Fly! nor inert become. For they (the Furies) shall pursue

thee through the long continent, passing untired through the

wanderer-trodden earth, through the sea, and the sea-girt cities!”