Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

After the victory at Zaragoza, the Allies paused to decide what to do next. They were in a place called Calatayud, and the council of war that met there was made up of nine generals from a variety of nationalities. The Portuguese, naturally, were keen to keep going and join up with Portugal; Lisbon and Barcelona would be united through the two armies physically joining. Other generals wanted to take control of the north. If they could take Navarre, they argued, they could seal the border with France, and Philip would be cut off from reinforcements from his grandfather. Charles was having doubts. But now In-a-Trice Stanhope intervened. Navarre, to the north? Portugal, to the west? What the devil were they talking about? He had arrived with the express mandate to place Charles on the throne as Carlos III of Spain and return home. And that was precisely what he intended to do. Apparently, he thumped the table at this point: Either the army marches to Madrid, or he and his piss-beers go straight back home. So, Madrid it was!

The pro-Austrian army was never such a precise military machine as in the lead-up to Zaragoza. As for the troops, nobody had seen such a ragtag army since the days of Hannibal. After spending whole months with them on marches and roads, I can tell you I came to know them very well.

The English officers were true gentlemen, while to a man, the rank and file were louts, the worst in Europe. In the Portuguese forces, it was the other way around: The soldiers were a delight, always shy and obedient, but under orders from officers who acted like slave traders. Among the Dutch, there were two categories of soldier: the drinkers, and then the bad drinkers.

The attitudes of the different national groups toward one another could be defined as “let them have a drink, but don’t let go of the bottle.” The English looked down on the Portuguese with infinite contempt. They took them for worse than the Spanish, which is saying something. As for the Portuguese, as you can imagine, they had different ideas. If the English were so rich and such know-it-alls, they asked themselves, why did the final victory never follow?

Well, it looked like it was finally coming now, because that autumn, in 1710, the Allied army was making its juggernaut advance on the heart of Castile. Now, you might be wondering how the capital defended itself against the Allied army. The answer is very simple: It didn’t.

On September 19, two English dragoons reached the outskirts of Madrid. They were astonished to learn that between them and the city, there was no opposition in place, not so much as a single scraggy battalion of conscripts. I was just as astonished as that pair of dragoons. So there wasn’t going to be a fight? No, there would be no such thing. Not a single shot fired! Had we ridden across half the peninsula for this? When the city was in sight, Zúñiga explained to me that Madrid was not a fortified city. It was just surrounded by a ring of masonry whose only purpose was to drive traffic toward the customs posts that charged a levy on products entering the city. Good work, Zuvi!

While Charles was preparing his triumphal entrance into Madrid, Zúñiga and I got in ahead of the troops. My first impression of Madrid was that it was a bare, charmless city, all its streets empty. I was wrong. We did not know yet that Little Philip, when he had withdrawn from the capital, had been followed by up to thirty thousand courtiers and supporters. He hadn’t left them much choice: Any nobleman or adviser who didn’t follow him in his flight would have been considered a traitor to the blessed Bourbon cause.

The best lodgings we were able to find were in the attic above a tavern. The ceiling sloped down so steeply that to move about where it was lowest, we needed to crawl on our hands and knees. And the furniture was no more than a couple of straw mattresses, two washbasins, and a window. Well, we couldn’t complain. We had entered Madrid before the mass of the army. To celebrate his return to his home city, Zúñiga took me to one of the most popular taverns, and as we were putting away a few jars, the innkeeper heard us talking.

“But really, gentlemen,” he said, “it is possible you don’t know? The Allies are about to enter Madrid.” He glanced left and right as though afraid we were being overheard. “Ten days ago, all French subjects received the order to leave the city. Where were you? How could you not have known? There’s not much love lost between the Allies and the French!”

Zúñiga and I exchanged a glance. The innkeeper, it seemed, had mistaken my Catalan accent, taking me for a Frenchman. Diego shrugged as if to say, Well, why disabuse him?

“Oh, damn,” I replied, “I was sure my accent would go unnoticed.”

“Oh no, not at all!” said the innkeeper. “And you might find yourself in a real pickle.”

“The real pickle,” I interrupted him, “is that I cannot leave Madrid. Actually, I’ve only just been sent here. You do understand, don’t you?”

I let him come to his own conclusions. People like you to think them cleverer than they actually are. Finally his eyes lit up: What I have here, he must have thought, is a spy for King Philip.

It was only then that I added: “Hush! The city will be filled with Austrians in a flash. And our arrival was so hurried that we have not resolved the matter of our lodgings.”

And so, thanks to the patriotism of this innkeeper, we got ourselves a free bed and a roof over our heads in the attic. Once we had settled in, we caught up with the latest news on the situation. According to what we were told, Little Philip had decided to add to his arsenal a weapon unknown in modern warfare: the cunt.

The innkeeper explained it to us in the most confidential of tones: “When it became clear that Madrid was sure to fall, the government brought in all the sickly whores from Castile, Andalucia, even Extremadura. Bodies in thrall to the most invisible and contagious of ailments. Thus, they hope to inflict thousands of casualties upon the Allies. However much you may want to, be sure not to come anywhere near the tarts!”

Madrid is not the most beautiful capital one might hope to visit. Its streets spread out in an arbitrary fashion, a horror for any engineer. The uneven ground robs buildings of their perspectives, and their facades are of an ugliness that frankly defies belief. Public decoration is at a minimum. Madrid has no ancient relics, though this is a failing that one can excuse given that it is a new city. It was not until the court was established here (which happened only a century before the arrival of Longlegs Zuvi) that this little one-horse town began to assume the grand position of capital. What one cannot excuse, however, is that, being a new city, it was extended with no advance planning, streets improvised on sloping ground, narrow, dark, and winding. I’m telling you, when it was being built, Madrid’s engineers must have been off erecting fortresses in the Caribbean. The streets are absolutely filthy, and the road paving, where there is any, is poorly kept, broken up, and sticking out. According to the Madrileños themselves, the worst torture the Inquisition could conceive of would be to put the offender in a carriage and send him rolling over this city’s cobblestones.

But I am giving a one-sidedly glum impression of Madrid. My senses, sharpened in Bazoches, got even more excited when confronted with something new, and given that this novelty was an entire city, my eyes and ears were experiencing a feast. Yes, my studies in Bazoches had made my visit to Madrid an exploration. To a good student of le Mystère , everything shines, and everything is lit by close observation. Natives and foreigners united to praise the Madrid skies. The air was always fresh; its light in winter was sweet and beautiful, while in summer, unlike in the Mediterranean Barcelona, its sun never hurt your eyes. Your typical Madrileño was a lover of all chilled drinks, which obliged him to load up a thousand beasts of burden stocked with snow. In Barcelona, the trade in ice was a lucrative one; in Madrid, it made millionaires. There is no more pleasant way to waste one’s time than strolling along the banks of the city’s river, the Manzanares, with a little sweetened ice in your hand, admiring the beauties. On the whole, the marriageable young women will sit there like flowers, chaperoned by relatives, under a parasol, showing off the latest fashionable attire. The young gallants who walk past slow their pace and offer compliments, which are met with a little wave, or a snub, or a wave that is also a sort of snub.