Will Saragossa surrender? Death to him who says it!
Saragossa will not surrender. She will be reduced to powder. Of her historic houses, let not one brick remain upon another! Let her hundred temples fall, the ground beneath her open, pouring out flames; let her foundations be hurled into the air; let her roofs fall into the pits that are opened—but among the fragments and the dead there will always be one tongue left alive to say that Saragossa will never surrender!
The moment of supreme despair came. France was not fighting now, but mining. It was necessary to destroy the soil of the nation in order to conquer it. Half the Coso was hers, but Spain retreated only to the opposite pavement. By Las Tenerías and in the suburb on the left they had obtained some advantages; and their little mines did not rest for an instant.
At last—it seems like a lie—we became accustomed to the explosions, as before we had become accustomed to the bombardment. At worst we heard a noise like that of a thousand thunderclaps all at once. What has happened? Nothing, the University, the Chapel de la Sangre, the Casa de Aranda, such a convent or chapel exists no longer. It was not like living on our peaceful and quiet planet. It was like having the birthplace of thunderbolts for a dwelling-place, like being in a disordered world, where everything was heaving up and unhinging. There was no place to live, because the ground was no longer ground. Under every shrub or plant a crater was opening. And yet those men went on defending themselves against the crushing horrors of a never-stilled volcano and a ceaseless tempest. Lacking fortresses, they had used the convents; lacking convents, the palaces; when the palaces failed, the humble houses. There