Chapter 2

How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa

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Have I ever told you, my friends, the circumstances connected
with my joining the Hussars of Conflans at the time of the siege
of Saragossa and the very remarkable exploit which I performed in
connection with the taking of that city? No? Then you have
indeed something still to learn. I will tell it to you exactly
as it occurred. Save for two or three men and a score or two of
women, you are the first who have ever heard the story.

You must know, then, that it was in the Second Hussars--called
the Hussars of Chamberan--that I had served as a lieutenant and
as a junior captain. At the time I speak of I was only
twenty-five years of age, as reckless and desperate a man as any
in that great army.

It chanced that the war had come to a halt in Germany, while it
was still raging in Spain, so the Emperor, wishing to reinforce
the Spanish army, transferred me as senior captain to the Hussars
of Conflans, which were at that time in the Fifth Army Corps
under Marshal Lannes.

It was a long journey from Berlin to the Pyrenees.

My new regiment formed part of the force which, under Marshal
Lannes, was then besieging the Spanish town of Saragossa. I
turned my horse's head in that direction, therefore, and behold
me a week or so later at the French headquarters, whence I was
directed to the camp of the Hussars of Conflans.

You have read, no doubt, of this famous siege of Saragossa, and I
will only say that no general could have had a harder task than
that with which Marshal Lannes was confronted. The immense city
was crowded with a horde of Spaniards--soldiers, peasants,
priests --all filled with the most furious hatred of the French,
and the most savage determination to perish before they would
surrender. There were eighty thousand men in the town and only
thirty thousand to besiege them. Yet we had a powerful
artillery, and our engineers were of the best. There was never
such a siege, for it is usual that when the fortifications are
taken the city falls, but here it was not until the
fortifications were taken that the real fighting began. Every
house was a fort and every street a battle-field, so that slowly,
day by day, we had to work our way inwards, blowing up the houses
with their garrisons until more than half the city had
disappeared. Yet the other half was as determined as ever and in
a better position for defence, since it consisted of enormous
convents and monasteries with walls like the Bastille, which
could not be so easily brushed out of our way. This was the
state of things at the time that I joined the army.

I will confess to you that cavalry are not of much use in a
siege, although there was a