bors during the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth, passed the Cosso, by means of traverses, and prepared fresh mines under the University, but deferred their explosion, until a simultaneous effort could be combined on the side of the suburb.

"At the left attack, also, a number of houses, bordering on the Cosso, being gained, a battery was established, that raked that great thoroughfare above ground; while, under it, six galleries were carried, and six mines loaded, to explode at the same moment. But the spirit of the French army was now exhausted; they had labored and fought, without intermission, for fifty days; they had crumbled the walls with their bullets, burst the convents with their mines, and carried the walls with their bayonets. Fighting above and beneath the surface of the earth, they had spared neither fire nor the sword; their bravest men were falling, in the obscurity of a subterranean warfare; famine pinched them; and Zaragoza was still unconquered!

'

"Before this siege,' they exclaimed, was it ever heard, that twenty thousand men should besiege fifty thousand?' Scarcely a fourth of the town was won, and they, themselves, were already exhausted. We must wait,' they said, 'for reenforcements, or we shall all perish, among these cursed ruins, which will become our own tombs, before we can force the last of these fanatics from the last of their dens.'

"Marshal Lasnes, unshaken by these murmurs, and obstinate to conquer, endeavored to raise the soldiers' hopes. He pointed out to them, that the losses of the besieged so far exceeded their own, that the Spaniards' strength must soon be wasted, and their courage must sink, and that the fierceness of their defence was already abated but if, contrary to expectation, they should renew the example of Numantia, their utter destruction must quickly ensue, from the combined effects of battle, misery, and pestilence.

"These exhortations succeeded; and, on the eighteenth, all the combinations being complete, a general assault took place. The French at the right attack,

having opened a party-wall by the explosion of a petard, made a sudden rush through some burning ruins, and carried, without a check, the island of houses leading down to the quay, with the exception of two buildings. The Spaniards were thus forced to abandon all the external fortifications between St. Augustin and the Ebro, which they had preserved until that day. And, while this assault was in progress, the mines under the University, containing three thousand pounds of powder, were sprung; and the walls tumbling with a terrific crash, a column of the besiegers entered the place, and, after one repulse, secured a lodgement. During this time, fifty pieces of artillery thundered upon the suburb, and ploughed up the bridge over the Ebro, and, by mid-day, opened a practicable breach in the great convent of St Lazar, which was the principal defence on that side Lasnes, observing that the Spaniards seemed to be shak en, by this overwhelming fire, immediately ordered an assault; and, St. Lazar being carried, forthwith, all retreat to the bridge was thus intercepted, and the besieged, falling into confusion, and their commander, Baron Versage, being killed, were all destroyed or taken, with the exception of two or three hundred men, who, braving the terrible fire to which they were exposed, got back into the town. General Gazan immediately occupied the abandoned works; and, having thus cut off above two thousand men that were stationed on the Ebro, above the suburb, forced them, also, to surrender.

"This important success being followed, on the nineteenth, by another fortunate attack on the right bank of the Ebro, and by the devastating explosion of sixteen hundred pounds of powder, the constancy of the besieged was. at last shaken. An aid-de-camp of Palafox came forth, to demand certain terms, before offered by the Marshal, adding thereto, that the garrison should be allowed to join the Spanish armies, and that a certain number of covered carriages should follow them. Lasnes rejected these proposals, and the fire continued, but the hour of surrender was come. Fifty pieces of artillery, on the left bank of the Ebro, laid the houses on the

quay in

ruins. The church of Our Lady of the Pillar, under whose especial protection the city was supposed to exist, was nearly effaced by the bombardment; and the six mines under the Cosso, loaded with many thousand pounds of powder, were ready for a simultaneous explosion, which would have laid a quarter of the remaining houses in the dust. In fine, war had done its work, and the misery of Zaragoza could no longer be endured.

"The bombardment, which had never ceased from the tenth of January, had forced the women and children to take refuge in the vaults, with which the city abounded. There, the constant combustion of oil, the closeness of the atmosphere, unusual diet, and fear and restlessness of mind, had combined to produce a pestilence, which soon spread to the garrison. The strong and weak, the daring soldier and the timid child, alike fell before it; and such was the state of the atmosphere, and the disposition to disease, that the slightest wound gangrened, and became incurable. In the beginning of February, the deaths were from four to five hundred, daily; the living were unable to bury the dead; and thousands of carcasses, scattered about the streets and court-yards, or piled in heaps, at the doors of the churches, were left to dissolve, in their own corruption, or to be licked up by the flames of the burning houses, as the defence became contracted.

"The suburb, the greatest portion of the walls, and one-fourth of the houses, were in the hands of the French. Sixteen thousand shells, thrown during the bombardment, and the explosion of forty-five thousand pounds of powder, in the mines, had shaken the city to its foundations; and the bones of more than forty thousand persons, of every age and sex, bore dreadful testimony to the constancy of the besieged.

"Palafox was sick; and, of the plebeian chiefs, the most distinguished having been slain in battle, or swept away by the pestilence, the obdurate violence of the remaining leaders was so abated, that a fresh Junta was formed; and, after a stormy consultation, the majority

being for a surrender, a deputation waited on Marshal Lasnes on the twentieth of February, to negotiate a capitulation."*

Some doubt exists, as to the terms obtained. The French writers assert, that the place surrendered at discretion; the Spaniards say, the following conditions were obtained that the garrison should march out with the honors of war, to be constituted prisoners, and marched to France; the peasants to be sent home, and property and religion to be guarantied. On the twenty-first, from twelve to fifteen thousand sickly men laid down the arms which they could scarcely support, and this memorable Siege was terminated.

* Napier, History of Peninsular War, Book V. chap. iii.

GLOSSARY

OF WORDS AND PHRASES NOT EASILY TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE YOUNG READER.

[Many names of persons and places, terms of art, &c., which occur in this Volume, will be found explained in one of the places where they occur. For these, see INDEX.]

Aarau, (or Arau,) the capital of Aargau, one of the cantons (or districts) of Switzerland.

Aarberg, (or Arberg,) a town of Switzerland, in the canton of Berne, on the River Aar.

Aargau, (or Argau,) one of the cantons (or districts) of Switzerland, formerly a part of the cantons of Berne and Zurich.

Academy, the French, a literary society, in Paris, formed A. D. 1629. consisting of forty members, styled academicians. Its object is the cultivation of literature and criticism. The Memoirs of the Academy are collections of papers, on various subjects, contributed by its inembers, and published from time to time.

Acarnania, (now called Carnia,) a country in the northwestern part of ancient Greece, west of Ætolia, and bordering on the Ionian Sea. Accessor, (or, in Latin, accensus,) an officer, whose business it was to attend upon the judicial magistrates in ancient Rome; a messenger, pursuivant, or beadle.

Achaia, properly, a narrow district of the Peloponnesus, (now called the Morea,) lying south of the Gulf of Corinth, (now the Gulf of Lepanto.) The term was sometimes applied to the whole of Greece, and sometimes, as by Herodotus, (page 11,) to the southern part of Thessaly, called Phthiotis.

Achilles, one of the Grecian heroes, who fought at the siege of Troy, and who is celebrated in the Iliad of Homer. He was remarkable for his courage, and also for having been the bravest of all the Greeks in the Trojan war. He is said to have been, while an infant, dipped by his mother in the River Styx, which rendered him invulnerable, (or incapable of being hurt,) in every part except the heel, by which she held him. At the siege of Troy he received a wound in the heel, which caused his death. He severely wounded Telephus, King of Mysia, in battle, and it being declared, by an Oracle, that "the weapon alone, which had inflicted the wound, could cure it," Achilles applied the rust from the point of his spear to the sore, which is said to have given it immediate relief, and effected a cure. It is to this circumstance, that Pope Clement alluded, when, as mentioned on page 263, he compared Cardinal Colonna to "the lance of Achilles."

Actium, (now called Azio,) a promontory on the western coast of