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
magnitude of his offence, and the amount of the fine appropriated to
the subsistence of the army. All persons who served the cause of the
enemy, by pasquinades, by endeavouring to excite a want of confidence
in the chiefs, the people, or the army, or by raising disturbances
and riots, should be carried before the newly-appointed judge of the
police, who would pass judgment according to their crimes, and suitable
to the danger of the country; but before he imposed the punishment of
death, he should consult the captain-general. Every house was ordered
to be well supplied with vessels of water, in order to extinguish
fires; and the officers of the ward were charged to superintend this
important measure of preparation. Persons entering or leaving the city
were to be watched with care, because the enemy assumed the dress of
the Spaniards, and, greatly superior as they were, resorted to every
artifice. “All these measures,” said Palafox, “should be obeyed with
religious respect, because they are all directed to the good of our
country, which, in happier times, will recompense all the sacrifices
we make, ... sacrifices so acceptable in the sight of God, and of the
Virgin Mother of God, who is our celestial protectress.”
♦NONE OF THE INHABITANTS LEAVE THE CITY.♦
Three days were allowed for all women, all men above threescore, and
all boys under fourteen, to leave the city; a general order being
issued, that whithersoever they might go, they should be welcomed,
and provided for. But not one of the inhabitants left the place. The
sentiment of patriotism was as ardent in the women as in the men;
they thought it a worse evil to seek bread and protection apart from
their husbands and fathers than to abide the siege with them, and
triumph or perish together: and even if this sentiment had not been
so general and so strong, whither were they to betake themselves for
security in a land which was every where overrun or threatened by the
enemy’s armies? In no place would they have imagined themselves so
secure as in Zaragoza itself, which had been so wonderfully defended
and delivered, and which they believed to be invincible through the
protection of Our Lady of the Pillar, who had chosen it for the seat
of her peculiar worship. During the former siege prints of that idol
had been distributed by women in the heat of action, and worn by the
men in their hats both as a badge and an amulet. The many remarkable
escapes and deliverances which had occurred ♦SUPPOSED MIRACLES.♦ were
ascribed not to all-ruling and omnipresent Providence, but to the
immediate interference ♦MEMORIA DE LO MAS INTERESANTE, &C. 121.♦ of
the _Magna Mater_ of Zaragoza. Palafox himself had been trained up
with more than common care in the superstition of the place; he and
his brethren in their childhood had been taken every day to attend
mass in the Holy Chapel where the image was enshrined, dressed at such
times in the proper costume of the Infantes, as a mark of greater
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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