Napoleonic Literature
Lord Blayney's Narrative
Volume I, Chapter XXII
From Segovia to Valladolid . . . . Convoy of bread . . . . German Baron . . . . Santa Maria de Neva . . . . French servant deserts . . . . Moorish palace . . . . Convoy attacked . . . . German insolence . . . . Val de Stillas . . . . Wretched accommodation . . . . French cruelty . . . . English prisoners escape.

On the morning of January 2, I quitted Segovia some time before the Convoy, and accompanied only by my batt-man Pierre, who was charged with the care of the mules, and who was much terrified from the number of French killed the night before, expecting every moment to share the same fate. We rode along the bank of the river, having the walls of the town, which are very high, on our left, and the castle, situated on a rock, affording a romantic view. We soon came up with the convoy, whose march was much retarded by waggons loaded with bread, sent from Madrid, and intended for Massena’s army in Portugal, of which two hundred out of the original five hundred were already lost from various accidents. The country we passed through was rather hilly, and now covered with snow, so that I could not well distinguish the nature of the soil; but it appeared to have been formerly cultivated. At a late hour we reached Santa Maria de Neva, an uncomfortable town. Here I found the quarters assigned me occupied by a German colonel, whom I soon discovered to be my old acquaintance, Colonel Baron de Faustein, Chamberlain to the Emperor, and Colonel of the regiment of Baden. With great politeness he offered me the choice of three tolerable apartments, besides which there was a good kitchen, and plenty of accommodation for the servants. The Baron soon putting himself at ease en déshabille, took post in the chimney corner with his pipe; and certainly was a most extraordinary figure, his thin body being wrapped up in flannel. He wore immense mustachios, and had on a large curious nightcap; so that he extorted a laugh even from the solemn gravity of our Spanish host. As we were dependent for our supper on what the Baron’s stock afforded, we both began to prepare our repast, he undertaking to compose a soup of pork, rice and eggs, while I manufactured a hash, and fricassied the fragments of a turkey. During my employment in this momentous business, we drank plentifully of snaps of brandy, and when I laughed at the grotesque figure of the Baron, which there was no resisting, he thinking I was laughing at our employment, joined heartily in it, while sympathy acted upon his man Frederick, and by a kind of merry contagion, all the persons present, amounting to ten or twelve, resembled the picture of “all in good humour.” At our repast our solemn host joined us, and he falling fast asleep, I could not resist the pleasure of blacking his face with a burnt cork, which set the Baron in so loud a roar of laughter, that it actually woke the Spaniard, who, in his turn, thinking there must be some good joke, but ignorant that it was at his own expense, laughed also; and thus these two caricatures amused each other, to the entertainment of us all.

Before I went to bed I visited the cattle, suspecting that they night be neglected, and found that they had neither been cleaned or fed, nor their saddles taken off, and that Monsieur Pierre had appropriated the sheet of my favourite mare to cover himself. On sending for him, I received a most insolent answer to my remonstrance, and knowing I could get no other redress, I revenged myself pugilistically; a kind of art the French are totally unacquainted with, and very averse to. He decamped next morning, and left me to take care of the cattle myself; for though I had another servant, he had an antipathy to horses and dogs, neither of which he would approach.

January 3. On quitting Santa Maria de Neva, the country we passed through was very, romantic, the soil rich, and retaining the marks of cultivation; but now a waste. The villages we saw were composed of wretched mud hovels, and the peasants universally drest in coarse brown frieze, and both themselves and their habitations seemed equally miserable. In several of these villages all the doors and windows were closed, nor did we see a single soul in them.

The convoys had been often attacked in this part of the country, and we were therefore now ordered to keep in close order. At last we reached the Moorish palace of Las Navas de Colla, most beautifully situated on the banks of a river, and commanding an extensive view of a very rich country. Accompanied by M. Crochard, I went forward to view this building. We observed that it had been fortified, and, from its position, must have been impregnable before the use of cannon. It is surrounded by a ditch, crossed by a drawbridge, so crazy, that we passed it with some difficulty. The place is of considerable extent, and retains all its Moorish ornaments, the floors being of fine mosaic, and the ceilings richly gilt and grotesquely painted. Indeed, it seemed that neither expence nor art had been spared to render it magnificent according to the Moorish taste, which was so different to ours, that their mode of life, as described by historians, resembles romance.

While examining the palace, a heavy firing announced the convoy’s being attacked by the brigands, who, it appeared, were composed of the inhabitants of the village, of which we had seen the windows and doors closed, and who had concealed themselves until the convoy had arrived at a bridge, crossing the river, which was very winding, and bounded on each side by steep hills. In this spot they attacked the rear of the convoy, and I had a complete view of the affair from the summit of the hill. A detachment of the 10th hussars charged the brigands, and troops were sent in various directions. This skirmish cost the French eight hussars and two waggoners killed; some soldiers, twelve horses and four loaded carts taken, on one of which was the Paymaster’s military chest. These brigands were commanded by a German captain, who had deserted with his company from Santa Maria de Neva, of which he had been commandant. Their number did not exceed two hundred, while the convoy was upwards of twelve hundred; a proof of the daring spirit of the Spanish peasantry! Every individual Frenchman, however, according to his own word, would not have hesitated to attack the whole party; indeed, nothing could be more disgusting than these fellows’ continual gasconade. After this affair, we passed through a very hilly and sandy track, and as our horses were in wretched condition for want of forage, we proceeded very slowly, added to which the breaking down of several bread waggons, retarded us still more. One of the officers requested me to ride forward and inform an officer of the 10th chasseurs of this accident, and to tell him, that as it was necessary to break up the case, his people might have as much bread as they pleased. This message I delivered in pure kindness, and without any signs of satisfaction in my manner; nevertheless it put the officer in a violent passion, which he expressed both in his language and gestures. He was a German, and, as I have already observed, the inferior German officers in the French service are any thing but gentlemen.

Late at night we reached Olmeda, an insignificant town, and next morning proceeded, through a very sandy country, by very deep roads, to Val de Stillas, where I was billetted at the house of a poor old man, whose habitation consisted only of two apartments, one of which was occupied by himself and son, and the other was half unroofed. There was neither chair, stool, nor table, and but one earthen pot, in which I boiled a few onions and some mutton I had brought with me, and which made a mess sufficient for myself and servants, as well as the old man and his son; a treat indeed to them, for they had not tasted flesh for a twelvemonth! We washed down this homely repast with agua ardiente. Our table, at which we all set indiscriminately, was a board I had procured in the village, and our seat a bank of earth. My bed was the uneven mud floor, wet from the rain, which poured in through the roof; and I had no other covering than my clothes on my back, which were likewise very wet from the day’s rain. Notwithstanding my situation, I slept as soundly as if on a bed of down; nor was this the first time that I enjoyed a sweeter repose, thus exposed to the inclemency of the weather, than in a splendid apartment, surrounded by luxury, but at the same time annoyed by sameness and want of occupation.

During the night, a wretched old man sought refuge in the house, and informed us that his son had just been murdered, and himself desperately wounded by the soldiers, who had torn the roof off his hovel to make a fire. It is impossible, without having witnessed it, to form an adequate idea of the horrors inflicted on the Spanish peasantry by the French soldiers; over whom, in consequence of their being generally in long arrears of pay, and often in total want of provisions, their officers have scarce any control. In the morning we found that the peasants had, during the night, gone off with the bullocks which were to draw the bread-waggons, and the bread was in consequence heaped up on the outside of the village, without covering; and a heavy rain coming on, it must have been soon totally destroyed. Thus Marshal Massena, for whose army it was intended, was disappointed of this expected and greatly wanted relief.

January 4. The day being wet, the march of the convoy became very irregular, for as there are two roads leading to Valladolid, the first division took one, and the second the other; so that when the bugle sounded a halt, one party, not hearing it, pushed on, and arrived at Valladolid long before the division that remained with the commanding officer. From the irregularity of the march, many of the English prisoners effected their escape; indeed, latterly, no great pains were taken to prevent them, and seldom any inquiry was made on their disappearing. Close to the town, at the meeting of two roads, we were greeted with the spectacle of a man’s head stuck on a pole.

(If you surfed directly to this page, please go to the Napoleonic Literature Home Page to see the wealth of information that's available on this website.)