History of the Peninsular War, Volume 3 (of 6)Southey, Robert
History
History of the Peninsular War, Volume 3 (of 6)
Southey, Robert
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Lasnes made his entrance on Sunday the 5th of March; his approach
was announced by the discharge of 200 cannon, and he proceeded in
triumph through that part of the city which remained standing, to the
Church of the Pillar. The wretched inhabitants had been compelled
to adorn the streets with such hangings as could be found, and to
witness the pomp of festive triumph, and hear the sounds of joy
and exultation. ♦BASENESS OF THE SUFFRAGAN BISHOP.♦ The suffragan
bishop of the diocese, a traitor who had fled from the town when it
took arms, and now returned thither to act as the instrument of the
oppressors, met Lasnes at the great door of the church, and conducted
him in procession, with the crucifix and the banner, to a throne
prepared before the altar, and near the famous idol, which had escaped
destruction. Then the wretch addressed a sermon to his countrymen upon
the horrors of war! “They had seen,” he said, “in their unhappy city,
the streets and market-places strewn with dead, parents expiring and
leaving their children helpless and unprotected, babes sucking at the
dry breast of the famished mother, palaces in ruins, houses in flames,
dead bodies heaped at the doors of the churches, and hurried into
common graves without any religious ceremony. And what had been the
cause of all this ruin? I repeat it,” said the villanous time-server,
“I shall always repeat it, your sins and your seditious spirit, your
forgetfulness of the principles of the gospel. These horrors have
ceased: and to whom are you indebted for this unexpected happiness? To
God in the first place, who raises and destroys monarchies according to
his will; after God, to the Virgin of the Pillar, who interceded for
us; and in the next place to the generous heart of the great Napoleon,
the man who is the messenger of God upon earth to execute his divine
decrees, and who is sent to punish us for our sins. Nothing can equal
his power except his clemency and his goodness! He has granted us the
inestimable favour of peace; oh that, at the expense of my tears and
my blood, I could render it eternal! It is fitting, O my God, that
for this great and unexpected mercy, this signal mercy, we should all
exclaim, _Te Deum Laudamus!_ We praise thee, O God!” Such were the
blasphemies which this hoary traitor uttered over the ruins of his
heroic city! It is not possible to record them without feeling a wish,
that some one of the noble-hearted Zaragozans, who at that hour of
bitterness were wishing themselves in the grave, had smitten him upon
the spot in the name of his religion and his country.
♦LANGUAGE OF THE FRENCH.♦
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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