The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1873-10-17
A DESPERATE DEFENSE.

Soon after Murat's cruel street
slaughter in Madrid, in May, 1908, half
the cities in Spain sprang to arms.
Foremost among these was Saragossa,
the capital of Arragon.
When the patriots rose against their
cruel invaders, the populace deposed
Gulhemi, the Governor, and chose as
their leader Jose Palafox, handsome
Arragonese nobleman, ga son of Sara
gossa," and an officer in the Spanish
royal body guard Lefebyre and nine
thousand French arrived on June Is,
1905. The houses were little fortresses
of solid stone, the streets tortuous and
narrow, and adapted for defense. In
the skirmishes outside. the town of
Palafox was victorious, and this success
reused the courage of Saragossa to the
highest point. a small party of daring
French cavalry penetrating into the
place were cut off to a man.
The Spaniards had some time to plant
some cannon before their gates, and
also on the Torero, hill outside the
walls. A French detachment which
tried to storm the Portillo gate was re-
pulsed with loss, the Spaniards not stay
ing to load their muskets after the first
volley, but closing on the French with
their knives and bayonets. Half the
detachment being cut to pieces, Lefe-
byre fell back, losing in the retreat four
hundred cavalry and twenty-seven bag
gage wagons.
But the storm only lulled for a mo-
ment. At the end of June the French
returned with reinforcements, and re-
occupied the key of Saragossa, the
Torero, at once, the officer in command
basely flying, leaving behind the tools
of the canal company, which were ex-
actly what the French engineers most
needed. But the Spaniards were not
easily daunted. They tore down all their
window curtains, turned them into sand
bags for the batteries, and placed guns,
defended by ramparts and trenches, be-
fore each of their nine gates. The mud
walls of the suburban gardens furnished
points of defense for the stubborn
Arragonese, who there found cover from
French bullets. Loopholes for muskets
and openings for cannon were pierced
everywhere. Houses that would pro-
tect the enemy were pulled down, and
olive gardens that would shelter the
French tirailleurs were remorselessly
rooted up. The women, as brave as
the men, formed themselves into parties
to relieve the wounded, and to carry wa
ter and food to the defenders OF the
batteries, while the children brought
the soldiers the cartridges made by the
monks. About the first day of June a
powder magazine blew up in the center
of the city, and reduced a whole street
- th,o &c confusion
the French opened destructive fire.
A sand-bag battery before the Portillo
gate received the brunt of the attack.
The French, on the Torero side, en-
tered and destroyed the beautiful con-
vent of Santa Engracia. The sand-bag
battery at the Portiflo gate was several
times destroyed by the French guns,
and bravely reconstructed under fire.
1t was at this spot and at this crisis that
heroine appeared. Augustine, the
= celebrated maid of Saragossa, was a
handsome itinerant lemonade seller, %
years of age. She had arrived with
food for the soldiers when the battery
had been swept clear OF every defender.
The people, daunted by the sight, hung
back. The brave woman instantly
rushed forward overthe dead and dying,
and snatching a lighted match from the
hand of a dead artilleryman, fired of a
twenty-six FOUNDER. Then jumping on
the gun, with disheveled hair and
stormy eyes, she swore to the Virgin never
to quit the gun alive while the siege
asted. The people, encouraged by
his woman's almost supernatural dar-
ng, rushed back into the deserted bat
cry, opened tremendous fire, and re-
pulsed the French attack. But the
.nemy closed in nearer and nearer. as a
nurderer's hand closes on victim S
hroat. Above the city the Elbro was
ordable, and below the city the French