Zumalacarregui's change of political principles cannot be called ratting, for it brought him neither employment nor promotion, and the insurrection of 1820 found him still a captain. In 1822, however, he obtained the command of a battalion under Quesada, then an absolutist, against the constitutionalists; and his admiration of the French army, with which he upon that occasion acted, impelled him, upon the restoration of tranquillity, to study the military profession scientifically. His peculiar talent lay in the training and organizing troops; and, in order to benefit the more extensively by his skill therein, Eguia, whilst war-minister, removed him from regiment to regiment. He was lieutenantcolonel of the regiment of Estremadura, when the decided attachment of the royalists to Don Carlos compelled Queen Christina to court the liberals, ultras as well as moderates, in order to insure her daughter's succession, and thus to give that party the ascendency at court. By them Zumalacarregui was arrested; and, though subsequently liberated, he resigned his commission, and retired to Pamplona, there to live in narrow circumstances with his wife and children, three little girls. And here, perhaps, we may best insert a short description of the man. He was, we are told, of middle height, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, and of stooping carriage. His dark grey eyes had a singularly intense gaze, and his jaw and chin resembled Napoleon Bonaparte's. In character he was stern and thoughtful; abrupt and laconic in conversation; haughty to superiors, good-natured to inferiors; and so profusely generous, that his wife durst not trust him with money, because, notwithstanding their own wants, his purse was emptied by the first poor soldier or even beggar who asked his charity. To her remonstrances he would reply," To give is to be like God." At this period the Carlists secretly invited Zumalacarregui to join in an insurrection, the object of which was to seat Don Carlos prematurely upon his brother's throne; but he, like Don Carlos himself, refused to rebel against his liege lord. Upon the death of Ferdinand VII. the viceroy of Navarre offered him the rank of brigadier-general in Isabel's service, which he refused upon the same ground, considering Don Carlos as the lawful heir in preference to a female. He was now closely watched, and, during the first northern insurrection in favour of that prince, he made no attempt to join the Carlists, probably from reluctance to expose his family to the resentment of the queen's partizans. It was not till the treacherous seizure and execution of Don Santos de Ladron, Oct. 15, 1833, when, a few disorderly guerrillas only remaining in arms, the insurrection seemed crushed and the Carlist cause desperate, that Zumalacarregui felt the emergency to be such as imperatively required the running of every risk. His wife is said to have nobly encouraged her anxious husband by professing confidence of her own and her children's safety; and on the 31st of October he effected his escape from Pamplona. Señora Zumalacarregui soon afterwards found it expedient to fly herself with her two elder daughters to France, where she was confined by the police; and her infant, which she was obliged to leave at nurse, was seized by Rodil. Zumalacarregui had scarcely joined the insurgents ere he was proclaimed_commander-in-chief, and the appointment was confirmed by Don Carlos, when communicated to him. This is not the place for a detail of his military exploits; and the nature and brilliancy of his short career may be sufficiently appreciated from a brief statement of the relative condition of the parties at the moment of his assuming the command, of his consequent plan of conduct, and of its results. The queen-regent was mistress of about 130,000 disciplined and well-officered troops, with all the organized resources of the kingdom. Don Carlos had but a few guerrillas, scarcely any arms or ammunition, no preparations, no equipments; his strength was in the disposition of the Basques, prompt to rise at his call, even mothers were willing to risk their last surviving son for the prince, who, when Ferdinand's ministers proposed an infraction of the Basque rights, had opposed the attempt as illegal, and prevented it. Under these circumstances, Zumalacarregui's task was to create a Carlist army and to destroy the queen's, arming and equipping his own from the spoils of the enemy. To effect this, he fought whenever he could do so without disadvantage, sometimes without a second charge for his muskets. His knowledge of the country, and the favour of the peasantry, enabled him everywhere to surprise the Christinos. He lay concealed with his men till every shot was certain to tell; then fired, and rushed out with fixed bayonets upon the amazed and disordered foe. He thus gradually created an army of nearly 30,000 men, well armed and trained, whose attachment to, and confidence in him, were unbounded. He destroyed 50,000 of the queen's troops, defeated five of her best generals, two of whom were his own former commanders, Mina and Quesada, and wrested sixteen fortified towns from their hands. The massacres of prisoners laid to his charge were in him only dreadful acts of retaliation. He now thought himself equal to a dash upon Madrid; but Don Carlos insisted upon first taking Bilbao, where he expected to find money for paying his troops; and, at the siege of Bilbao, whilst reconnoitring the place, Zumalacarregui was shot in the leg, of which wound, in a very few days, he died, at Ormaiztegui, in his brother's arms. It is said that his adversary Mina, upon hearing of his death, exclaimed, " It will be long ere Spain sees his fellow!" Turn we now to the tragedy. The author has added little or no story to the real history, seeking merely to illustrate and develop the character of his hero, the feelings of the different parties engaged in the contest, the difficulties of generals commanding troops chiefly volunteers, and the horrors of civil war; which last he renders more impressive by the slight deviation from fact of giving Zumalacarregui a grown-up daughter, whose affianced lover is a Christino in Bilbao. The play is opened by this lady, Doña Isidora, in a monologue, of which we extract the beginning. "Doña Isidora. Torn from my quiet solitude I stand To scatter death amidst a host of brothers. Zumalacarregui joins his daughter, and asks, My daughter, did the roar of war affright thee? Zum. Child, A haughty word is eas'ly spoken, harder Fate's blows defying, inaccessible Th' external foe, and that, more dangerous, The next scene is one of argument between Zumalacarregui and a Christino, the friend of his youth, from which we extract some lines of the former's, containing the pith of the Basque sentiments-the cause of Isabel is less ably advocated. "Thou speakest of the weal of generations On laws. Have we not our old rights, to which Ye're but a foreign nation's apes. So to maintain him on his tottering throne, On that side, by the people's hatred, threatened. A father midst his children lives, alone, The conversation is interrupted by Sagastibelza, a wild, sanguinary, and powerful chief, who comes with the priest Domingo to insist upon the slaughter of all prisoners in the camp, in re VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVIII. FF venge for the apprehended murder of his own son, then a prisoner in Bilbao. Obtaining no answer, he is going forth to execute his purpose, when Zumalacarregui authoritatively speaksAnd you, priest, what would you? I? I am a minister "Remain here, general! * * Forced are our cloisters, and their pious inmates Like savage forest beast, from vale to mountain. In the life-blood of these ungodly sinners; The heathen monarch Agag, with sharp blade In Gilgal, at the altar of the Lord, 6 Slew, and thus spoke, As women of their children 'Thy sword has robbed, so childless shall thy mother 'Be amongst women.'* This will I achieve Despite the hardened Saul, who, God's commands Resisting, spares his people's enemies. (Significantly) Ev'n therefore was Saul's kingdom taken from him." While Zumalacarregui, after quietly giving his orders, is reasoning with Sagastibelza, the troops of that chief are brought in by Domingo, to enforce compliance by threats more forcible. Zumalacarregui calmly disregards them. "Zum. The God I worship, priest, said Mine is vengeance.' When possible. Thou fling'st religion's cloak Over base passions, and thy thirst of blood Glutt'st, in the name of God the Merciful. (To the mutineers.) But you, seduced, blindfolded men, lay down Your general's unshackled resolution. (They hesitate.) (The arms fall rattling on the ground. * In reading this, and subsequent yet more startling adaptations of the very words of texts of Scripture to the language of the stage, the reader is requested to bear in mind that this practice is, in Germany, so general, and deemed so unobjectionable, that it must be considered as proving in the author a really pious disposition rather than any irreverence, or "damnable iterations." |