CHAPTER XX
I slept from three o'clock until daybreak, and in the morning we heardmass in the Coso. In the large balcony of a house called Las Monas atthe entrance of the Calle de las Escuelas Pias all the priests had setup an altar and celebrated there the divine office. By the situation ofthe building, it was possible to see the priests from anywhere in theCoso. It was a profoundly moving sight, especially at the moment of theelevation of the host; and when all knelt in prayer, the low murmur ofthe service could be heard from one end of the street to the other.
A little while after the mass was ended, I heard a large number ofpeople coming from the direction of the market,--an angry and noisycrowd. In the mob, and striving to quell its violence, were severalfriars; but it was a mob of men deaf to the voice of reason. Theywere yelling themselves hoarse, and as they came, they dragged alonga victim who was powerless to free himself from their grasp. Themaddened people took him to the place near the entrance of the Trenquewhere the gallows was; and in a few moments the convulsed body of aman was hanging from one of its ropes, and was jerked about in the airuntil it was lifeless. On the wood of the gallows an inscription soonappeared, which read,--
_An assassin of human kind, who kept back twenty thousand beds._
The wretch was one Fernando Estello, watchman of a storehouse offurniture. When the sick and wounded were breathing their last in thegutters and on the cold tiles of the churches, there was found a greatcollection of beds whose hiding the watchman Estello could not accountfor. The wrath of the populace was not to be restrained. I have heardthat he was innocent. Many lamented his death; but when the firing inthe trenches began again, no one remembered him more.
Palafox published that day a proclamation in which he tried to raisethe spirits of the soldiers, promising the rank of captain to the manwho should bring him a hundred recruits, threatening with the penaltyof death and confiscation of property the man who should fail to hastento the defence, or should leave the lines. All this showed greatdistress on the part of the commanding officers. That day was memorablefor the attack on Santa Monica, which the volunteers of Huesca weredefending. During the greater part of the night the French had beenbombarding the building. The batteries of the orchard were no longerserviceable, and it was necessary to take away the cannon, an operationperformed by our valiant men, exposed without protection to the hostilefire. This opened a breach at last; and, penetrating into the orchard,they tried to gain possession of that also, forgetting that they hadtwice been repulsed on previous days. But Lannes, exasperated by theextraordinary and unprecedented tenacity of the Saragossans, had givenorders to reduce the convent to powder,--a thing which was easier toaccomplish with the cannon and howitzer than to take it by storm. Atall events, after six hours of artillery fire, a large part of theeastern wall fell, and then the French showed their exultation, and,without loss of time, rushed forward to seize the position, aidedby the cross-fire from the Molino in the city. Seeing them coming,Villacampa, commander of the Huesca men, and Palafox, who had hurriedto the point of danger, tried to close up the breach with sacks of wooland some empty musket-boxes. The French, reaching the spot, made a mad,furious assault, but, after a brief hand-to-hand struggle, they wererepulsed. During the night they went on cannonading the convent.
The next day they decided to make another attack, certain that nomortal could defend that skeleton of stone and brick which everymoment was crumbling to the earth. They assailed it at the door ofthe reception-room; but during all the morning they did not conquer ahand's breadth of earth in the cloister.
The wall of the eastern side of the convent fell flat to the earthduring the afternoon. The third floor, which was very much weakened,could not hold the weight, and fell upon the second. The latter, whichwas even weaker, could not help letting itself go upon the first; andthe first, incapable of sustaining by itself the weight of the wholestructure above, fairly poured itself out over the cloister, buryinghundreds of men. It would have been but natural had the rest beenintimidated by such a catastrophe, but they were not. The French gainedpossession of one part of the convent, but not of all; and, in orderto gain the rest, they were obliged to clear a road through the ruins.While they were doing this, the men of Huesca who still survived,placed themselves in the stairway, and made holes through the floor, inorder to throw hand-grenades against the besiegers.
Fresh French troops were, however, able to reach the church. Theypassed over the roof of the convent, and spread themselves in theinterior; they descended to the cloisters and attacked the bravevolunteers. Hearing the noise of this encounter, those below pluckedup heart, redoubled their energy, and, with the loss of a great numberof men, succeeded in reaching the stairway. The volunteers foundthemselves between two fires, and although it was still possible forthem to get out by one of the two openings in the cloister, almost allof them swore that they would die before they would surrender. They allran, seeking for a strategic point which would permit them to defendthemselves to some advantage; but they were driven the length of thecloisters, and when the last gun-shot was heard, it was the signal thatthe last man had fallen. A few inside the building were able to get outby an underground door. Don Pedro Villacampa, commander of the Huescavolunteers, came out into the city that way, and when he found himselfin the street, he turned, looking about mechanically for his boys.
During this fight we were in the houses about the Calle de Palomar,firing upon the French detachment sent to assault the convent. Beforethe battle was over, we learned that defence was no longer possible inLas Monicas. Don Jos? de Montoria himself, who was with us, confessedit.
"The volunteers of Huesca have not borne themselves badly," he said."They are known to be good fellows. Now we must busy ourselvesdefending these houses on the right. I do not suppose that one is left.There goes Villacampa alone. Then are not those Mendieta, and Paul,Benedicto, and Oliva? Let us go. I see that indeed none are left inthat place."
In this way the convent of Las Monicas passed into the hands of theFrench.