Читать книгу The Works of Napoleon Bonaparte - Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - Страница 138

Table of Contents

"In vain you employ the name of the people. If you cannot find means to pacify them, it is because you yourselves excited them and misled them by falsehood. Assemble the clergy, the heads of the convents, the alcades, and if between this and six in the morning the city has not surrendered, it shall cease to exist. I neither will, nor ought to withdraw my troops. You have slaughtered the unfortunate French who have fallen into your hands. Only two days ago you suffered two servants of the Russian ambassador to be dragged away and put to death in the streets because they were Frenchmen. The incapacity and weakness of a general had put into your hands troops which had capitulated on the field of battle of Baylen, and the capitulation was violated. You, M. de Morla, what sort of a letter did you write to that general? Well did it become you to talk of pillage—you, who having entered Rousillon in 1795, carried off all the women, and divided them as booty among your soldiers. What right had you, moreover, to hold such language. The capitulation of Baylen forbade it. Look what was the conduct of the English, who are far from priding themselves on being strict observers of the law of nations. They complained of the Convention of Cintra, but they fulfilled it. To violate military treaties is to renounce all civilization—to put ourselves on a level with the Bedouins of the desert. How then dare you demand a capitulation—you who violated that of Baylen? See how injustice and bad faith ever recoil upon those who are guilty of them. I had a fleet at Cadiz. It had come there as to a harbor of an ally. You directed against it the mortars of the city which you commanded. I had a Spanish army in my ranks. I preferred to see it escape in English ships, and to fling itself upon the rocks of Espinosa, than to disarm it. I preferred having nine thousand more enemies to fight, to violating good faith and honor. Return to Madrid. I give you till six o'clock to-morrow evening. You have nothing to say to me about the people, but to tell me that they have submitted. If not, you and your troops shall be put to the sword."