Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

Plus, Pópuli’s maneuver merely demonstrated his impotence and frustration. Rather than denting people’s faith, the bombardment — by showing that Pópuli didn’t believe he could overcome the defenders — was a spur. Further — and something we didn’t know yet — Madrid had made it known that, because of his negligence, Pópuli was to be replaced. He’d never have the chance to ride victorious into Barcelona. Pópuli took his frustration out on the Barcelonans. The sustained flurries of missiles came in fifteen-minute intervals, precise and forbidding. So it was for months. Some streets took such a battering, you had to resort to memory to discern where you were.

Old Barcelona, always lighthearted, full of joy and cheer, now coming under aerial torment. Cannonballs that were the enemies of all intelligence, including the printing press: One fell on the offices of the city’s most venerable newspaper, the Diario del Sitio , killing its entire writing staff as well as the proprietors. Anti-religious cannonballs: One came through the rose window at the Church of Pi during a service, slaughtering the parishioners. Cannonballs, that is to say, that were nocturnal, blind, and deranged, because one also killed three of Philip’s agents as they were pinning lampoons to a wall. Poor boys, in quite a state they were. I came across a paintbrush attached to a wall — the point about this brush being that it was also attached to a hand, and that hand to half an arm. Up to the elbow was left. Its owner was putting up lampoons when the cannonball fell on his head. Anyway, the teams of cleaners didn’t hurry to take it down, leaving it as an example and a lesson to traitors.

All we could do was evacuate the Barcelonans to the beach or up to the mountain of Montjuic, the only places beyond the cannons’ reach. The minority went up to Montjuic — those who had servants they could send back down for provisions. So on the beach, an enormous encampment of exiles was established. First mattresses were laid out, and over those the most sturdy and welcoming tents. The feminine touch was evident in them. They always used their best linens, quilts, and curtains for the awnings — the most visible part of the tent. A kind of unspoken competitiveness broke out, roofs covered with damask silks and colorful cashmere. Around the tents, domestic furniture was placed, some of it baroque in style. It made sense that the owners brought their most precious belongings, so they could keep an eye on them. But what a contrast! Humble cooking fires in the sand, and around them oak tables with spiral legs, fine mirrors, wardrobes taller than a person, upholstered chairs, and even one or two up-to-date lady’s dressing tables, toujours à la mode .

The massive bombardment had something isocratic about it: In the face of such an onslaught, everyone became equal; where you came from and your social standing ceased to matter. The grouping together on the beaches, the immodesty of contact, provoked the opposite of Pópuli’s desire. These people, neighbors but now in a new sense, no longer separated by walls as before, came to form an open-air community. Forced together, they felt more unified than ever. The children ran in the sand, the women cooked together. Elderly men conversed, sitting smoking their pipes; there were not many male adults to be seen besides.

Between the beach and the city ramparts, the city was one of deserted streets and abandoned buildings. And what an unprecedented sight, these streets. The rumbling of the cannonballs opened doors. Many of the buildings’ damaged facades had dropped away like masks, exposing three or four storeys with furniture and beds still in place. People couldn’t carry everything, and so much unguarded wealth was a considerable temptation. The Red Pelts were nothing if not rigorous, though, and they placed guards on the streets with a license to kill.

One of the first looters to be caught was called Cigalet (a nickname, roughly translatable as “little chicken”). Following a summary trial, he was sentenced to hang — immediately, as an example to others. Cigalet was well known, making it a high-profile case: It so happened that the first person caught with his hand in the silver chest was also the city’s main executioner. His assistant, who was betrothed to Cigalet’s daughter, had to do the honors. Cigalet was far calmer about it than his future son-in-law. Walking up the scaffold steps, the prisoner joked with the crowd. They said encouraging things, lightly mocking him, halfway between irony and sympathy. “Remember your promotion is down to me,” he said as his son-in-law-to-be placed the noose over his head. What a scene! I wonder what the wedding night must have been like.

Poor Cigalet at least got a trial; subsequent looters were never even brought before a tribunal. There were stakes in three different places in the city — the looter would be tied to whichever happened to be nearest to the crime, then shot. No question, any city under siege is subject to extraordinary measures, but it was as though the Red Pelts’ regime and the bestiality of the Bourbons had become two wheels on the same axle.

Members of the Civil Guard were recruited from the lowest of the low. There wasn’t any choice, given that the honorable citizens were manning the ramparts as part of the Coronela militia. The Red Pelts enlisted the procurers, tricksters, tavern ruffians, masterless goons, back-alley cutthroats, and hallucinating drunkards. And these were the ones charged with upholding the law. The naval blockade had seen food prices soar — most looters were impelled not by greed but by hunger. It meant that, by government edict, criminals were given the right to execute those who were starving.

My dear vile Waltraud bids me not to erupt, but how can I not? Calling together these roving patrols, the Red Pelts appealed to order and public calm: the “Octavian peace,” they called it, in their most affected language. I’ll tell you now what that Octavian peace consisted of: The sky was tumbling down on our heads — in the most literal sense — and right until the last day, the patrols were standing guard at the homes of wealthy botifleros such as the ones who had deserted Mataró. When a skeletal child or an old toothless woman slipped in through a hole in the wall, trying to find food, there those killers were, armed by the government itself, tying the hungry to a post and shooting them dead. Bourbons rained down death from without, and Red Pelts from within. There you have it.

There is no such thing as a fortress fully covered by a roof. And fiery tempests were raining down on us from above. When it was all over, seven in ten of Barcelona’s houses were either in ruins or had holes punched through them by cannonballs. In just the first two months of the bombardment, in a city with a population of 50,000, precisely 27,275 cannonballs were said to have fallen. Every Barcelonan, therefore, was treated to half a cannonball each by Philip V.

I wonder to this day who the person might have been to keep such close count. I picture him at the top of a bell tower with tablet and chalk, impassive, bored, noting down the impacts with dashes and scores. Which will be where our proverb comes from: “A man who’s out of work counts cannonballs.”

Meanwhile, news reached us from the enemy lines. Pópuli was now to be replaced as commander of the besieging army. Strange though it may sound, this was the worst news possible.

To replace the useless Pópuli, Little Philip had asked his grandfather to send French reinforcements, including their best general. Guess who that was. Who else but the faithful, invincible marshal of Almansa, scourge of Louis XIV’s enemies: Who else but Jimmy.

According to our spies, he had already crossed the Pyrenees, the cream of the French army in tow. They were advancing slowly because of the poor state of the roads and because — pity for us! — of the heavy artillery they were bringing with them.