And the Catalans? Surely you’re joking! Neither Charles nor the English deigned to inform the authorities in Barcelona. As you can imagine, even the Red Pelts would have expressed some outrage! And so our Miquelets went on dying in the mountains, our citizens went on paying exorbitant taxes to support a war they could never conclude, and all the while our own king was digging our grave. Diplomatic negotiations move slowly, all the more so when you’ve got a world war involved, and between 1711 and 1713, the Catalans kept on fighting, like dumb pawns, for a king who had already sold them out to their executioner.
I can’t help a brief digression here. The chroniclers have written that Pepito died from smallpox, a story I’ve always thought sounded rather fishy. There’s no such thing as a single victim of smallpox; either you’ve got an epidemic or there’s no smallpox. Imagine the coincidence that it should be Pepito, of all the people in Vienna, who was the only person to contract the illness.
Relations between the two brothers had been sour for some time. Out of fraternal solidarity, Pepito had been spending vast sums on a distant war, and he was as fed up with the conflict as all the other chanceries in Europe. According to what I heard from an old Viennese courtier, the final letters that Pepito sent Charles took this tone: “My dear brother Karl, enough of this endless war! So the Catalans love you and the Castilians hate you? Well, how would this be for a solution—how about Philip as king of the Castilians and you as king of the Catalans?”
The fact that this option was not merely a comment between brothers but an official policy was demonstrated by the fact that all the Austrian newspapers published the proposal as a definitive solution. Charles didn’t think the idea was the least bit funny, and he sent the next letter to his brother via an agent who put arsenic under his fingernails. Smallpox! What do you think, my dear vile Waltraud? Did he kill him like Cain killed Abel? Well, shut up, then, your opinion isn’t worth a damn anyway.
Where were we? Oh yes, Charles being named the new emperor of Austria. He packed his bags and raced over to Vienna for the coronation ceremony. He left his little queen—now also the empress of Austria—back in Barcelona as a pledge of eternal fidelity to the Catalans.
I say it again: An excess of civilization transforms upright people into simpletons. Because it was quite clear that Charles was never coming back and that the queen—who, to tell the truth, had been left as a political token—would use the first opportunity she got to follow him. She spent a year in Barcelona, yawning her way through the opera. And then, when the time looked right, a very goodbye to you! What still gives me shivers, and riles me no end, is the reason that the old tart gave for leaving. In her own words, she needed to go, owing to “the great matter of the hoped-for succession.” In other words, that great matter was urging her to open her legs to her Charles, which was much more important than the destiny of an entire nation.
Now, would you like to guess what the Red Pelts did when Charles’s little queen announced her noble reasons for leaving us in the lurch?
They let her go without a word of complaint! Those very men, the Red Pelts, the gents of the noble ruling class! The only card that a nation without a king might be able to play; the final guarantee that an entire country would not be disemboweled alive. And they waved it goodbye with full honors! The entire government went off to the docks, and the only thing they cared about was getting a place near the queen so as to be seen during the farewell.
Let me tell you what they should have done! They should have sent a sealed letter to Vienna swearing that we were going to put Her Majesty in the room with all the rats, and that she wouldn’t change her petticoat until Charles had worked European diplomacy to achieve every political, diplomatic, and military guarantee that Catalonia would remain free and safe. But that was not how it happened; the Red Pelts were too civilized for that. The world was going to slit our throats, and they were busy fretting about powdering their wigs!
With his hands free now, Charles signed the ominous Treaty of Evacuation with the Bourbons. According to its terms, the Allies were to withdraw all the troops they still had on the peninsula, that is, in Catalonia, which was the only territory under their control. From then on, things happened fast. When the queen fled to Vienna, the post of viceroy of Catalonia was filled by an Austrian soldier, Marshal Starhemberg.
It was on Starhemberg’s shoulders that the burden fell of carrying out the most heinous and monumental mass execution in recent times. Early in 1713, the drama was ready to come to a head, all the cogs in the machine set for the sky to fall in. All that was needed was for the lever to be activated. And Starhemberg was that lever.
The Beast and the Allies had formalized their agreement behind the scenes. The messenger arrived in Barcelona: Starhemberg should order and direct the evacuation of all Allied troops from Catalonia. Dutch, Germans, and Portuguese boarded the English fleet anchored at Barcelona. Didn’t this mean handing over this most faithful of countries to slaughter and butchery? Of course it did. And so what? It is not in the interest of England to preserve the Catalan liberties. Nor their lives.
Just imagine the astonishment of the Barcelonans when the news was made public. At first no one wanted to believe it. A wave of fatalism silenced every soul. On streets and in taverns, the inevitable was being discussed, and drunks sang the most gruesome ditties:
The Portuguese have signed the deal!
The Dutch will soon comply.
The English up and left us here . . .
It’s time for us to die.
The walls of Barcelona were covered in posters, some of them of the very blackest humor:
The Comedy of Evacuation
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Spain, as the friar’s ass; our freedoms, as a toilet brush; slavery in a number two role; and all the Allies playing the part of shit.
The positions, titles, and boons that Charles had signed lost all their value overnight. There was one clown who would go around ringing a bell, throwing confetti over passersby, shouting: Es venen senyories a preus d’escombaries! Titles for sale, at the price of wastepaper!
The thing is, sarcastic humor has always helped people keep control of their fear. One day I ran into Nan and Anfán very close to our home, in the popular Plaza del Born, where they were acting as street performers. The dwarf was performing in the nude—if you don’t count the funnel on his head—like a deformed Adam. He had bent his left leg back as though he were one-legged. He had tied a ham bone to his knee, extending the apparently mutilated leg. From the front, he looked like a creature with a pig’s leg and trotter. He was using a penknife to scratch the bare bone in search of the last little bits of flesh. He was feigning terrible pain, and as he swallowed the minuscule pieces of ham, he seemed to be weighing the pleasure he got from tasting it against the torture he was inflicting on himself. Meanwhile, Anfán walked among the spectators, holding out an open bag, asking for contributions, and singing a little rhyme that was very popular in those days: Entre Carlos tres i Felip cinc, m’han deixat ab lo que tinc! Between Charles number three and Phil number five, they’ve left us with barely enough to survive!
Ah, laughter, that great outlet for fear, which buries it but does not drive it away. Because the third phase is terror.
Terror arrived in the city like the plague, brought in by travelers. Everyone fleeing from the interior of Catalonia converged at Barcelona. And whenever they came in through the city gates, the Barcelonans would pounce on them, questioning them about what was happening inland. They always gave the same answer: “All the horizons are on fire.”
And it was true. If a place did not surrender at once, it was blasted by cannon fire and attacked by the cavalry. The Bourbon columns that had followed the Allies in our retreat were not content with riding into the towns and cities. They demanded that the mayors come out to meet them and offer their submission.
Terror can play out in opposing reactions. Submission to the threat, most commonly. But sometimes, just occasionally, i
t incites a mood as uncommon as it is dangerous: collective rage.
The last columns of Allied soldiers retreating toward the coast were no longer being begged to stay; the civilians threw stones at them. The height of indignation came when proof emerged that there was treachery in addition to desertion—not only were they going, but as they beat their retreat, the Allies had handed the keys to cities and strongholds to the Bourbon commanders!
In the closing days of June 1713, Barcelona was seething with indignation. People are not stupid; they know full well whom to blame for their misfortunes. Hundreds of furious people gathered outside the residence of Viceroy Starhemberg and stuck chicken talons and feathers to the door. They were wrong in one respect: Starhemberg was no chicken, nothing of the kind, just as executioners are neither cowardly nor brave; they are simply despicable.
The Red Pelts came to ask him for an explanation as to why the Allies were retreating, why they were abandoning defenseless cities to such a cruel enemy, and finally, what Charles meant to do to prevent the execution of an entire population who had been faithful to him ever since the war started.
Starhemberg’s answer should go down in the history of cynicism: “My finest feelings and affection are with you, Excellencies.”
And he left. That same afternoon he climbed into his coach, leaving through the back door, on the pretext that he was off on a hunting party. He never came back. The truth was that he had gone to join the Allied troops who were about to embark at the mouth of the Besòs River, to the north of the city. The English fleet was there to prevent trouble in case of altercations in the port of Barcelona. Our loyal allies!
They say that Starhemberg did not even resign his post as viceroy. It’s hard to imagine any greater ignominy. Even men condemned to death are allowed to receive extreme unction.
And while our allies were departing, leaving us on the palisades, and the Bourbon columns made their implacable approach toward Barcelona, what did the Red Pelts decide to do? Nothing. Even as Starhemberg was packing his bags, up till the very last moment, they were still sending him dispatches for signature. According to their twistedly legalistic logic, that Austrian vulture was still viceroy. The machinery of state really ought to keep up appearances. The fact that Starhemberg was in league with the enemy, that he was handing over our homes and our freedom, well, heavens, that hardly seemed important!
Among the Allied regiments boarding ships were a few Catalans, though not many, who in their day had been enlisted in Charles’s imperial army. They weren’t Miquelets, halfway between hell and the law, merely men who wanted to make careers in a regular army. They knew exactly what was going on. They weren’t at the heart of government, they didn’t have daily dealings with the executive and their elevated politics, and yet they understood what was up and to whom they owed their fidelity. Right up until the final day, there were men who abandoned the ranks of the Allied forces, even some who leaped overboard from ships to head for Barcelona. Starhemberg exceeded mere rigor, ending up in cruelty: He gave orders that deserters should be executed, when the truth was that throughout the whole war, he had been quite unenthusiastic in his pursuit of deserters. And so our most generous young lads were left hanging from trees, dotting the path of retreat, and all the while the Red Pelts were bowing down before these boys’ murderer.
Toward the end of 1713, the Red Pelts decided to call the Catalan parliament. They were so disconcerted at the situation that the session could be summarized in one single point: How to face the Bourbon advance, submit or fight?
I should clarify that our parliament was divided into three groups, or branches: One was made up of the nobility; the second represented the common people; and the third, inevitably, consisted of the cockroaches from the Vatican.
As for you, woman, you are not to interrupt me or correct me when I pick on the priests! I’m perfectly aware of what I’m saying, and I’m going to speak my mind.
I am not saying that all priests are bad people. It’s not that. During the siege, you could see certain priests who were thinner than cypresses, fragile as glass, still and impassive as they faced enemy fire. With no earthly possessions but their cassock, they had bullets buzzing past their ears and they remained imperturbable on their knees, administering the sacrament to the dying on the front line. Their bishops, however, were like the Red Pelts, but black. You need only to look at the behavior of the cardinal and bishop of Barcelona himself, the wretched Benet Sala.
On the first day of discussion, the secretary to the parliament asked the ecclesiastical branch their view. As theirs was the smallest group of the three, it seemed logical that this should be cleared up before the others. Their answers were evasive. Not a yes, not a no. They just contended theological abstractions, according to which war is itself a bad thing, and when it breaks out between Christians, the good Lord weeps blood.
A fine bunch of Philistines! To the best of my knowledge, the Vatican has blessed dozens of wars, and they have never been too bothered that people have died in them. What was more, up till now, for thirteen long years of world war, it had never for a moment occurred to them to think that war was a very unpleasant thing. And then came the knife in the back.
Benet Sala had a good pretext for leaving Barcelona. Around that time, he had been called to Rome. And in one of those ruses so very typical of the Vatican, he had coordinated with Starhemberg to set sail the same time as the Allied forces.
Suddenly, the Barcelonans found themselves abandoned by the army who had been protecting their bodies and, simultaneously, by the shepherd who was meant to be caring for their souls. Naturally, Benet’s aim was to demoralize the very Christian people to whom he owed spiritual service, so that they would waver, surrender, and go into the slaughterhouse as docile as lambs. When I die, I hope to be able to have a few words with Benet Sala. Because I have no doubt we will both roast in the cauldron of Pere Botero, that devil of legend, but I can swear that Sala will also be drowned in it, strangled by yours truly in the soup.
Meanwhile, in the city, emotions were running higher and higher. What happened next is hard to explain.
Religious expression has always been a good outlet for feelings of powerlessness. The streets were filled with processions praying for the city’s salvation. They were an absolute nuisance, making trouble under our window day and night. While they were no more than murmuring crowds at first, their excitement grew with the city’s. The procession that caused the greatest impact was the one made up of the dozen young women who went off on pilgrimage to the holy mountain of Montserrat in a quest for divine intervention. (Montserrat is a very curious mountain to the northwest of Barcelona. It looks like a blunt-edged handsaw, at the summit of which is kept a strange virgin with black skin.)
Call me an unbeliever, but processions made up of pretty young women with tight-fitting bodices do seem rather better attended than the ones with people in hoods flagellating themselves. That vision, at a certain moment, prompted a thought in the minds of the people: “Well, actually, now that we think about it, why do we have to put up with girls this delightful going off to be sacrifices?” And in that way, religious processions were transformed into proclamations of rejection of the surrendering of the city. Eventually, the cries for the city’s saint, Saint Eulalia, were transformed into a clamor against Philip V.
And good old Zuvi? What was he up to while all these civic convulsions were going on?
What I was interested in, in those days, was reviving the legal case concerning my inheritance. I had plenty of free time and often stopped by the lawyers’ offices. The only thing that occurred to me that might speed up the case was talking to Casanova himself—he was the lord and master of that office. Nothing doing. Casanova was never to be seen there, and his employees just dizzied me with dispiriting circumlocution. That Señor Casanova had a senior political position now and couldn’t offer me his support, that the courts were overflowing with all this unrest, that this, that that, and the other. Other times the
door wouldn’t open the whole day, so chaotic was everything. When that happened, I’d be in a filthy mood. When I was arguing with some pettifogging junior, I could always rail at him and get some of it off my chest, even if it did no actual good. But what can you do with a closed door? If they gave me a good brigade of sappers, I could storm a twenty-bastion fortress in twenty days. But the house of a lawyer? There was no point in even trying.
“Hey, Martí, want to see something fun?” Peret said one day.
The debates in parliament had started, and Peret had invited me to attend.
“You’re planning to go in?” I said scornfully. “There’s a triple guard on the door; the Plaza de Sant Jaume is full of hotheads. Can’t you hear?”
Through our windows, we could hear the howling of the indignant people as they gathered there.
“Just follow me and keep quiet. And put your Sunday clothes on.”
I had nothing better to do, so I followed him. It took us some time to get there, because Sant Jaume was indeed overflowing with a noisy mob. They weren’t revolutionaries, exactly; they weren’t crowding up against the doors and the guard. Their eyes were on the balcony. The people didn’t want to topple the government, they wanted to be led. Their cry was: “The Crida! Publish it! Publish the Crida!”
By the Crida, they were referring to the legal call to arms. Only the Crida had the sacrosanct power to call up Catalan adults in defense of the country, and anyone who rose up without its support found himself reduced to a Miquelet—that is, an outlaw, however patriotic his intentions may have been. That was why it was so important that it be published according to legal procedure. And the raison d’être of the Red Pelts was, naturally, to prevent it.
Victus Page 31
