Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

In some of my lessons at Bazoches, I had noticed likenesses between swordplay and engineering. Certain Maganons aspired to the perfect fortress. I asked Bardonenche if he had ever thought about the existence of the perfect sword, the perfect deathblow, or the perfect swordsman.

He looked at me as though I were some prattler who had just asked about the mystery of the Holy Trinity. “ All my fights have been perfect,” was his indignant response. “As proved by the fact that I’m here to talk about my nineteen duels, which is more than can be said for my opponents.”

At any event, I had the consolation that we were on the same side, so I’d never have to face the ire of his blade.

We knew we were drawing closer to the Spanish-French army by the detritus that began to line the route. Difficult to credit the amount of dross left in the wake of a large troop. Unusable pots and pans, pieces of timber, broken carriage axles, pouches riddled with holes, dead mules, tattered apparel, frayed rope, horseshoes. The sun beat down on all manner of things.

We crossed La Mancha, turning west. We stopped for a couple of days in Albacete, a cold and unlovely place, and again set off. We camped for a night in one village, a thousand miles from anywhere, a hundred thousand fleas to every soul inhabiting it. I got drunk on a wine so contaminated that the bottom of the bottle had become a cemetery for insects. I swallowed them down and all. The following morning, when I was sleeping it off, Bardonenche came and woke me.

Before we set out, there was a local he wanted to speak with, and I was to act as translator. Where precisely was the Franco-Spanish Army of the Two Crowns? I asked, rubbing my eyes and not in the slightest bit interested.

“About to have quite a battle,” he said. “Marshal Berwick is in pursuit of the Allies, and the Allies are in pursuit of Berwick.” He pointed west. In the distance was a hill presided over by an old castle, and a settlement at the foot.

“What is the place called?” I asked, removing sleep from my eyes.

“Almansa.”

Thus Martí Zuviría, brazen Martí Zuviría, became involved in the greatest imbroglio of the age, the War of Spanish Succession. The largest war the world has ever known. Dozens of countries were drawn into it; it lasted a quarter of a century and had several continents as its theater. I’m no historian — I wouldn’t pontificate as to its causes — but it was certainly so vast, and its influence on my life so decisive, that I must at least sketch a general outline. To save your suffering, I’ll be brief.

In the year 1700, Spain’s Emperor Carlos II died. The man had been an aberration of nature, a slathering burden who, had he not been king, would have spent his days locked up in some monastery. His Castilian subjects called him “the Bewitched.” I’m not so pious, so what say we leave it at “the Loon”? He died childless — how was he supposed to go about begetting them? His mind was so far gone, he probably didn’t know that the radish between his legs had uses other than for pissing.

All monarchs are, by definition, loony — or end up that way. The only question is whether their subjects prefer the rule of someone with very limited mental functions or that of a nasty whoreson. When I was young, I erred on the side of the former, for at least they content themselves with eating pheasant and leave the people in peace. The Loon, for example, was heartily lamented in Castile but wildly popular in Catalonia. Why? Because he did nothing. His atrophied brain was a reflection of Castile and its congealed empire. The Catalans loved it. The less a monarch governs, and the farther away he stays, the better.

It was clear, long before he died, that this human offal of a king wouldn’t be leaving behind any heirs. Naturally, all Europe’s ears pricked up — all the carrion. A number of years afterward, I met a nobleman who had served in the Spanish embassy in Madrid at that time. He told me the court was so infested with spies, they even “looked into” the king’s undergarments! Tests proved conclusive: Carlos never ejaculated. And as the laws of nature state, where there is no semen, nor will there be any progeny.

For the French, it was a golden opportunity. If they could place one of their own on the Spanish throne after the Loon died, two historical objectives would be dealt with at a stroke: creating an alliance with their eternal enemy south of the Pyrenees; and indirectly, the main prize, bringing under its own aegis the decayed Spanish empire, stretching across Italy, the Americas, and a thousand far-flung places across the globe. That monster Louis XIV must have been rubbing his hands together with glee.

But as the saying goes, one thing leads to another. The Loon was part of the Austrian dynasty, the Hapsburgs, and they were there, too, circling the dying king with the same intentions as the French vultures.

By the time Carlos the Loon gave up the ghost with an unhappy gurgle, things were already well and truly a mess. The Beast put forward his grandson, Philip of Anjou, and Austria’s Emperor Leopold proposed his son, Archduke Charles, as the future Carlos III of Spain.

Anjou made the English and the Dutch extremely uneasy. If Spain and France joined together (for Little Philip obviously would be nothing more than a puppet controlled by the Beast), the balance of power would tilt. The Spanish empire was something akin to a dying man covered in pustules, and France the local braggart. The Beast had turned France into an autocratic tyranny with a huge stockpile of armaments, unprecedented in the modern world; it did not bother to hide its goal of world domination. Which led England, Holland, and of course, the German empire to declare war on France. The fact that Portugal and the House of Savoy also formed an alliance showed the Beast’s menace — the only reason China didn’t send regiments to get involved was because it was a long way to travel, and hiring a boat rather expensive.

As I said, the greatest imbroglio of the century, and all because of some unsoiled undergarments. How did it not occur to anyone to send a stud into the queen’s room one night and let them go at it, then decree that the child was the Loon’s? What that would have saved us, caray!

So, as I said, all the armies of Europe joined the fray. On the borders of Germany, the French and Dutch were going at it hammer and tongs. And in Spain, what truly caused the dispute?

Before I continue, a necessary but brief digression to explain the Spanish Affair, which has a complicated aspect for foreigners like you, my dear vile Waltraud. That aspect simply being: There was no such thing as Spain.

If Caesar described Gaul as divisible into three parts, he might have said of the Hispania existing after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire that it was divided into three strips, each stretching north to south.

One of these vertical strips is Portugal, occupying the Atlantic portion, as any map will show you. The widest strip is Castile, in the center. And then there is one more strip of land, invisible on the maps of today, along the Mediterranean coast. This, more or less, is the Catalan crown. (Or was; nowadays we are nothing).

Though all these kingdoms were Christian, each had distinct dynasties, languages, and cultures. Histories of their own. The mutual suspicion was such that they were constantly at war. No strange thing. Catalonia and Castile had opposed mentalities. Apart from Saints’ Days, they had nothing in common. Castile was rain-fed; Catalonia, on the Mediterranean coast. Castile, aristocratic and rural; Catalonia, middle-class and shipowning. The Castilian landscape had produced oppressive signories — there is an anecdote from medieval times that I can half remember, possibly apocryphal, but which explains the thing well.