Let us listen to him as
he tells the story in his own way and from his own point of view.
You must know, my friends, said he, that it was toward the end of
the year eighteen hundred and ten that I and Massena and the
others pushed Wellington backward until we had hoped to drive him
and his army into the Tagus. But when we were still twenty-five
miles from Lisbon we found that we were betrayed, for what had
this Englishman done but build an enormous line of works and
forts at a place called Torres Vedras, so that even we were
unable to get through them! They lay across the whole Peninsula,
and our army was so far from home that we did not dare to risk a
reverse, and we had already learned at Busaco that it was no
child's play to fight against these people. What could we do,
then, but sit down in front of these lines and blockade them to
the best of our power? There we remained for six months, amid
such anxieties that Massena said afterward that he had not one
hair which was not white upon his body.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108