Part 7
A curious relation exists, hitherto unnoted in English narratives, in which a monk of Bussaco gives a minute account from day to day of the events there from the 20th September 1810 until after the battle on the 27th, and the artless details of the good man are more personally interesting perhaps than the broad facts of the great battle itself. He tells that, on the 20th September, an orderly of Lord Wellington came to the monastery, and: “As soon as the door was opened to him he said, ‘I want to see the monastery, ha! ha! ha! To-morrow at two o’clock the commander-in-chief is coming here. He slept last night at Lorvão, and the French have already arrived at Tondella....’ The prior was told, and he showed the orderly the monastery and chapel, ordering the best lodging-chamber to be cleaned and got ready for the general, and the orderly, after drinking a little wine, galloped back to Lorvão.”
[Illustration: THE PORTA DA SULLA, BUSSACO.]
Early next morning the whole wood, the hermitages, the monastery, and the chapel were filled with English officers, fifty officers being quartered in the monastery itself. Wellington arrived at midday, and when the prior showed him the best guest-chamber, swept and garnished for his use, he refused it, “although it was the best,” because it had only one door, and another apartment with two doors had to be found for him. Whilst this lodging was being prepared and cleaned, the general rode out of the domain by the gate on the north side and inspected the whole position from the highest point of the ridge to the east, on the bare granite crest of which he fixed his own position for the day of the battle. Standing upon this spot there spreads below the steep slopes in the foreground an undulating plain, some five miles across, with Caramulo mountains on the other side. Through this broken plain Massena was forced to march in order to turn or cross the Bussaco mountains, and proceed on his road to Coimbra, Lisbon, and Oporto. When he learnt that the English general had decided to risk everything by making a stand there with forces inferior to his own he at first refused to believe it, for constant success had made him think that his troops could do anything; and if Wellington were beaten here, then annihilation would await the English, and Portugal would follow Spain in bowing to the yoke of France. But if Wellington does take the risk, said Massena, “_Je le tiens! demain nous finirons la conquête de Portugal, et en un pen de jours je noyerai le léopard_.” Ney, Junot, and Regnier in vain counselled Massena not to fling his men away upon attacking such a tremendous position as that of Bussaco, and urged him to retire and await reinforcements from France; but Massena laughed at their wise fears, and decided to storm the height. “_There is only the rearguard of the English there_,” he said; “_if the whole army is there so much the better, the good luck of the darling of victory will not abandon him_.”
Every cell and every corner of the monastery and dependencies were full of English troops, “except Father Antonio of the Angels’ cell, which no one would have, as it was filled with all sorts of old rags, rubbish, and old iron he could pick up, and the monks had to sleep anywhere.” On the 26th September the French were seen on the mountains opposite and upon the plain below, where skirmishing was constant between advance-guards. The north-east wall of the domain was partly demolished and crowded with English troops, whilst batteries of artillery topped the crest of the ridge, and Crawford’s corps held an outlying spur that projects into the plain from opposite the north gate (Porta da Rainha) of the wood. Lord Wellington rose very early on the morning of the 27th, and to the dismay of the monks ordered his baggage to be sent out of the wood towards Coimbra. It was not for flight, as the monks feared, but prudence, and after breakfast the great general rode out and took his stand upon the top of the ridge of Bussaco, overlooking the long valley. His own troops were to a large extent hidden behind the crest of the hill, and occupied the whole length of the mountain from beyond the Mondego on the north-east to the monastery on the west, Crawford’s position on the projecting spur on the English left flank making the position at that end practically semicircular; this left flank consequently enfiladed with its artillery the face of the declivity upon whose crest Wellington’s centre was stationed. On the extreme right of the English, on the other side of the Mondego, General Hill was in command, with the Portuguese under General Fane; but the whole of the rest of the Anglo-Portuguese army was posted upon or behind the long crest of Bussaco, the extreme left under General Crawford being thrust forward upon the projecting spur. At six o’clock on the morning of the 27th September, under cover of a heavy mist, two desperate attacks were delivered upon the centre of the English position. That on the right of the centre was led by Regnier with incredible dash and bravery, but with terrible loss to the French. A whole division of Frenchmen at one point here finally struggled to the summit of the ridge, and the eagles planted on the granite crest proclaimed to Massena that the victory was won. But the 88th and 45th regiments were in reserve behind the crest, and at the captured position gallant Picton was in command. Like an avalanche the two regiments, with a Portuguese battalion, advanced along the ridge with fixed bayonets at the charge. With irresistible impetus they swept all before them. The French division was hurled helter-skelter down the precipitous declivity with hideous ruin and devastation. All the face of Bussaco at that point was sown with the dead and dying, the French loss exceeding four thousand, and the legions of the Darling of Victory experienced the bitterness of their first defeat. This awful carnage took place at some little distance to the right of where Wellington stood on the summit of the ridge though well within sight, and a similar attempt, but with even less success was made still nearer to him on his left; whilst a stubborn and sanguinary struggle took place upon the spur on the extreme English left occupied by Crawford and Packe, upon one point of which now stands the obelisk commemorating the battle.
[Illustration: BUSSACO’S IRON RIDGE.]
The English and Portuguese under English officers vied with each other in stubborn bravery, and the moral result of Bussaco was tremendous, though the material advantage was small. From that hour of defeat the legions of the Emperor knew that they were not invincible, and the sun that was to set at Waterloo first turned its meridian when Massena’s gallant infantry were hurled headlong down the hill. By a masterly piece of strategy Wellington, the day after the victory, sent off a division to occupy Coimbra, and when defeated Massena by a circuitous route arrived in the neighbourhood of the city he found himself forestalled, though the English shortly after evacuated it and fell back. The lines of Torres Vedras finally frustrated the French, but Bussaco was the turning-point of victory.
The monkish diarist has many poignant little stories to tell of the horrors into which the monastery was plunged during and after the battle. The wounded were everywhere, but were packed especially close in the little unfinished chapel outside the walls of the wood opposite Crawford’s position, now a commemorative chapel where many relics of the fight are shown.
At midnight on the 28th an English officer hurried to the monastery and reported that Massena was retreating and endeavouring to reach Coimbra by another road. The night was dark and the rain fell heavily, but Wellington rose from his bed, and at once gave orders for the English army to march upon Coimbra. Like magic the monastery and wood—even the great mountain itself—was freed from armed men, and before midday nothing was left but the débris of battle and the dead and wounded. The monk who tells his simple tale says that they managed to give beds in the monastery to most of the English officers during their stay, “and a general who was in the bishop’s chapel had a tablecloth, two brass candlesticks, and a great copper jar for water, and also some napkins. All of this,” he adds, “was lost.” “To Lord Wellington,” he continues, “we gave the best napkins we had, four dozens of candles, and everything that the other officers were continually asking for. Even to the common soldiers and the people who came for refuge, we gave salt and all we could. We gave out a lot of wine, bread, cheese, oil, and other things for the troops, and when Lord Wellington was leaving he sent word to the prior that he would pay for what had been supplied, if he would tell him the amount. The prior replied that he asked for nothing but peace. This monastery of ours lost very heavily by the troops. Nearly everything we provided for the beds and tables of the officers disappeared, and not a thing of any value was left.... Besides this they stole all the oranges in our two orchards, they forced the door of the storehouse and took all the bread and wine they chose, with a basket of eggs, and a comb of honey, and many other things. Indeed they acted just as badly or worse than the French.”
And so, after the short agony, the wave of war and horror swept away from Bussaco, leaving only the memory behind; and the sacred wood was abandoned to the white-robed monks:—
“The Carmelite, who in his cell recluse Was wont to sit, and from a skull receive Death’s silent lesson, wheresoe’er he walked, Henceforth may find his teacher. He shall see The Frenchman’s bones in glen and grove, on rock And height where’er the wolves and carrion birds Have strewn them, washed in torrents bare and bleached By sun and rain, and by the winds of Heaven.”
[Illustration: THE BATTLE MONUMENT, BUSSACO.]
It is all forgotten now, and nothing matters much, I mused, as I wandered up the dark avenue of cypress, yew, and pine that leads to the low three-arched façade of the old monastery. Before the quaint little one-storey porch, faced with designs of coats-of-arms, flowers, and scrolls in black and white mosaic, stands an ancient cross, and within the entrance is the tiny cloister and church that alone remains of the monastery. I wandered into the dim cloister full of thoughts of Bussaco’s baptism of blood, though it was all quiet and peaceful now in this humble retreat. At each corner of the cloister stands a dismantled altar, faced with coloured tiles of Talavera majolica, and the walls between the windows are hung with mouldering and tattered canvases of dead and gone Carmelites—saintly men whose bones lie beneath our feet and in the little green enclosure formed by the cloister. Around the walls on three sides are the doors of the cells, each door covered, as are the timbers of the cloister, with rough cork bark, which adds to the appearance of antiquity. One picture attracted my attention, a poor defaced painting, faded by time and weather, representing at full length a white-clad monk holding a skull in his left hand, and in his right a scroll. Something noble and dignified in the appearance of the face attracted me, and I tried to decipher the almost effaced inscription on the scroll. It was difficult, but at last I read that the monk was the “Reverend Father, Fray Luis de Jesus,” who in the world had been called the Marquis of Mancera, when the seventeenth century was young. And beneath the name this distich ran:—
“A morte me fas deixar O que me podia danar.”
As I pondered on this curious couplet, “Death makes me leave What might me grieve,” in the shadowy cloister, there came towards me a phantom of the past. It was an old, old man dressed in brown undyed homespun, short jacket, and breeches of a bygone fashion, and the universal black knitted stocking nightcap of the Portuguese peasant. He hobbled out of the cell where the great duke had slept the nights before the battle; and as he came slowly towards me, supported by a long staff, he courteously doffed his cap, and wished me good day. He was, he told me, ninety-three years old, but his eyes were still bright and his skin clear, and I fell into discourse with the ancient, as we rested together upon a bench in the darkling cloister, through the end door of which a bright splash of orange sunlight sent shimmering waves into the dimness.
Yes! _graças à Deus_, he was well, notwithstanding his great age, and he dwelt, past work now, with his son, a sort of foreman on the domain, in the double cell which had been that of the prior of the monastery. He was born in a neighbouring village, and had never been far away. He had witnessed the expulsion of the monks and the building of the beautiful palace that had pushed aside the pathetic abode of penitence, humility, and patience. In his prime he had known and talked to many of those who had witnessed the great battle on Bussaco’s slopes, and he told me artlessly, and in his quavering treble, how all down the slope, upon which I saw him the next day, the dead and wounded Frenchmen had lain thickly, with their arms, drums, and big shakoes scattered around them; how the poor wretches, crying in their agony for a draught of water, were refused by the country people, who hated so bitterly the invaders of their fatherland; how the good monks strove their hardest, succouring the wounded, French, English, and Portuguese alike, and reverently burying the dead in consecrated ground.
As the old man spoke, quietly and gently, telling at first-hand the story of nearly a century ago, my mind went back to another old man whom I had known when I was little more than a child, who himself had fought in this battle; but to my eager inquiries for details had little of satisfaction to impart. But, somehow, the mere fact of having known an actor in the scene, however inarticulate, and now to be speaking upon the spot with one who had all his life heard direct from those who witnessed it the story that made his countryside for ever famous, brought nearer to me the vivid vision of long ago. Bussaco fight to me for a brief space was real, as Salamanca and Vitoria never can be, and I feel that for one half hour I have lived in the time when the giants of the world contended for mastery.
Outside the cloister the dream vanished. The lofty white tower with its golden globe, emblem of Portugal’s princely pioneer of extended empire, spoke of another age and aroused other memories: peace, luxury, and security reigned now supreme in this ancient abode of austerity, and no invader of the land was possible. The far-spread forest wafted its balsamic breath to me, and the myriad leaves softly whispered in the sensuous breeze, as if that awful day of the 27th September 1810 had never dawned upon the sacred wood. Bussaco is beautiful enough to live in the present without its one cruel memory, gently pensive occasionally at the thought of the stern, sad, anchorites who laboured to make it perfect for the glory of God. But to Englishmen—aye, and to Frenchmen and Portuguese too—there must come at least once during their stay a rousing bugle blast that calls their souls to arms and bids them honour their glorious dead who stood and fell so gallantly upon Bussaco’s granite ridge in the long long ago.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTER, BUSSACO.]
V COIMBRA, THOMAR, AND LEIRIA
The morning was sparkling, the sky without a fleck, and the air like draughts of nectar, as I slowly descended from the monastery and hotel of Bussaco, through the lovely umbrageous “valley of ferns” to the “Gate of Grottoes,” in the south wall of the wood, where I had directed a carriage to await me and carry me to Coimbra, fifteen miles distant. I was loath to leave this exquisite spot, which art and nature have conspired to make perfect; the fairy glens, the unrivalled prospects from the heights, the spacious magnificence and homely comfort of the guest-house—but I had already exceeded my allotted time, and other places called me.
[Illustration: ON THE SUMMIT OF BUSSACO, THE CRUZ ALTA.]
Our road lay downward for a mile or two, through a beautiful country of pines and gorgeous stretches of purple heather in full bloom; and here and there long trellised vineyards, with the red bronze of the vine-leaves adding a splash of colour to the scene. As we wound down and along the plain, there always towered above us, as it seemed right overhead, the “Cruz Alta” of Bussaco amidst the trees at the highest point of the wood, near where the wall limited the greenery; and soon the whole of the long, sharp hog’s-back of granite ridge, standing clear and distinct from surrounding mountains, tremendous in bulk, is seen from the plain. It was hard to realise that only yesterday I had stood, without fatigue or trouble, upon that giddy height of the Cruz Alta, which looked from here as if an eagle alone might reach it.
Patient ox-teams toil along, led by small boys in black nightcaps, gravely courteous to the stranger, and black-eyed solemn children play soberly by the wayside and take no heed. Soon we pass through the big, poor-looking village of Pampilhosa, and leave the pines and heather behind us; for here down in the valley olives, cork trees, ilex, and vines abound, with figs, pears, and apples, in orchards nestled round the white cottages. Aloe hedges, with the big, fleshy lancet leaves of silver-grey, show that we are in a sub-tropical land, and patches of succulent sugar-cane for cattle fodder grow brilliantly green against the maize and millet fields; whilst all along the wayside the light-leafed poplars rear their straight shafts, heavily burdened by masses of purple grapes and flaming vine leaves, the only sign of autumn, though October is now upon us.
As we near Coimbra, though it is not much past noon, we meet many groups of handsome country women, with, as usual, heavy burdens upon their heads, returning home from the weekly market in the city. Barefooted they go invariably, with their fine broad shoulders, full bosoms, classical faces, and broad, low brows, their gay kerchiefs on head and bosom, and their fine eyes gazing straight forth with modest dignity; and mentally I deny assent to the boast of Guimarães that its maids and matrons reign supreme in buxom grace, for those of Coimbra need bow the head to none on earth. All around the city are gently rounded undulating hills covered by olive orchards, and as the road tops one of them we see the picturesque old capital beneath us upon its steep slope, the broad Mondego at its foot, and beyond the river a high green ridge crowned by an immense white convent.
In the ancient times, as the Christian monarchs wrested from the Moors one territory after another, and drove the Crescent ever farther south, the capital of Portugal followed the victorious standard, and Guimarães soon had to cede its place to Coimbra, which remained the capital from the time of the first Affonso (Henriques) in the twelfth century until the extinction of his dynasty in the fourteenth, and occasionally later. Coimbra is crowded with memories of the heroic times, of combats with the Moors, and of deeds of violence and blood perpetrated within its walls; and in its quaint crowded streets are corners that can hardly have changed since the Affonsos and Sanchos here held their court—the Arco d’Almedina leading out of the principal street, Rua do Visconde da Luz, for instance, and the quaint renascence palace, incorrectly called the palace of the martyred Maria de Telles, in the Rua de Sub-Ripas.
But to the famed Church of Santa Cruz, all that remains intact of a vast Augustian monastery, the pilgrim’s steps first turn. It stands in an open place at the end of the Rua do Visconde da Luz, sunk several feet below the present level of the street, and the magnificent Manueline, or Portuguese renascence front is spoilt by a mean and hideous detached portico, in front of the real doorway, with its fine carved figures and capricious canopies. The lower part of the octagonal tower is much damaged, and the delicately carved decorations destroyed; but enough remains of the upper part to prove the magnificence with which King Manuel in the beginning of the sixteenth century rebuilt the sepulchre of the earliest kings. In this church, of which the interior, lined with pictorial blue tiles, is now reduced to eighteenth-century aridity, with the exception of the roof and chancel where the magnificent tombs with recumbent figures of Affonso Henriques and his son, King Sancho, shame the tastelessness of the later work, a dramatic scene was once enacted. Both these first kings of Portugal had worn the habit of St. Augustine, and were lay members of this monastery where their bones were laid. In order to establish his right to the patronage of the foundation, King Manuel, in 1510, rebuilt the church and monastery in the exuberant and gorgeous style associated with his reign; and when the time came to restore the bodies of the kings to the new sepulchres prepared for them, Manuel caused the mummified corpse of Affonso Henriques to be clad in royal robes and kingly crown, enthroned before the high altar of Santa Cruz, and there receive the homage of his subjects as if still alive. The pulpit of the church, the work of Jean de Rouen, though stripped now of its side pilasters and famous canopy, is one of the most splendid examples of early French renascence; but the richest treasure of the church is a splendid early triptych, in the mysterious style of the so-called Gran Vasco (who is a mythical painter), in which the early Flemings are imitated exactly by apparently Portuguese hands. This triptych, which should be compared with the “Fountain of Life” described in the chapter on Oporto, and also with the famous “St. Peter” at Vizeu, is signed “Vellascus,” and represents in its three panels the “Ecce Homo,” the “Calvary” and the “Pentecost,” with the exquisite finish and glowing colour of Van Eyck and Memling. The cloisters of the church are a beautiful specimen, as is much of the exterior of the church itself, of the peculiar Manueline renascence Gothic, of which I have so frequently spoken, the motives being the capricious intertwining of cordage and branches, spiral bossed mouldings, exuberant pinnacles, and pendent floreated ornaments on the interior lines of arches and vaultings. Of this style the Bussaco palace-hotel is a notable modern specimen, and in a later chapter I propose to treat in some detail the other examples inspected during my trip. By the side of Santa Cruz, separated from it by a road formerly spanned by a high bridge, lies a splendid massive tower, and a huge block of the old monastic buildings now turned into a squalid barrack, so often the fate of the profanated religious houses in Portugal, whilst behind the church and cloister lies another large portion also turned to secular uses.
[Illustration: A STREET IN COIMBRA.]