Abrantes

“ Even more important than Peniche was Abrantes, the one great crossing-place of the Tagus above Lisbon where there was a permanent bridge, and free communication by good roads between Beira and Alemtejo. It lies at the point where the road from Spain by way of Castello Branco crosses the road from north to south down the Portuguese frontier, from Almeida and Guarda to Evora and Elvas. An invader who has advanced towards Lisbon through Beira has it on his flank and rear, equally so an invader who has advanced on the same objective from Badajoz and the Guadiana. ”

“ He found, to his surprise, that there was no road suitable for wheeled traffic along the Tagus valley, but only a poor track running along the foot of the mountains to Castello Branco, the sole Portuguese town in this part of the frontier. The march from Alcantara to Abrantes proved even more trying than that from Ciudad Rodrigo to Alcantara. It was through a treeless wilderness of grey granite, seamed with countless ravines. The rain continued, the torrents were even fuller than before, the country even more desolate than the Spanish side of the border. ”

“ This broad belt of upland, one long series of defiles for an invader, is some hundred miles broad, and does not cease till Coimbra, on the one side, or Abrantes, on the other, is reached: only then does the plain-land begin, and the country-side become fertile and thickly peopled. ”

“ On the other side, Abrantes was threatened by the insurgents of the valley of the Zezere; and the Spaniards, under Galuzzo, crossed the Guadiana at Juramenha, and occupied that place and Campo Mayor. Kellerman’s head-quarters were at Elvas; a great, although confused body of men menaced his position, but, supported by the strength of the town and Fort La-Lyppe, he easily maintained himself. Avril remained unmolested at Estremos, and Evora, held by a small garrison, was tranquil; but the neighbourhood of Setuval was in commotion; the populace of Lisbon was unquiet ”

“ There's a bit of a square, to be sure, or Praça, as they call it, but that's not worth mentioning. The fact is, I often thought that the town of Abrantes was like a big dunghill in the middle o' Paradise.
“We halted here about a month, during which time Gainer was always looking afther this young girl; and faith! he hadn't much throuble to find her any day, for she was just as fond of looking afther him. ”

“ Ten thousand British bayonets and sabres could have done much more. As to the food and supplies, Cradock was arguing in the old eighteenth-century style, as if a British army was bound to move with all its baggage and impedimenta, its women and children. If he had chosen to ‘march light,’ and to take the route through the fertile and well-peopled Estremadura, he could have reached Abrantes or Almeida or any other goal that he chose. ”

“ While a front of battle was thus presented, the rear was cleared of all the hospitals and heavy baggage; workmen were day and night employed to restore the fortifications of the strong places, and guns, ammunition, and provisions were brought up from Abrantes, by means of the animals and carts before employed in the siege of Badajos. ”

“ When we get within the Portuguese frontier, we find a road parallel to the last, from Almeida by Guarda to Abrantes, also a difficult route, but like it in perpetual use: usually, when the French marched from Salamanca [p. 79] to Alcantara, Wellington moved in a corresponding way from near Almeida to Abrantes. This road runs along the basin of the Zezere, though not down in the trough of the river, but high up the hillsides above it. Spanish and Portuguese roads, as we shall see, generally avoid the river banks and run along the slopes far above them. ”

“ If, at this time, the Portuguese force had been assembled at Alcantara, sir John Cradock would have supported them with the British brigades, at Abrantes and Castello Branco; but not a man had been put in motion, and he, feeling no confidence either in the troops or in the promises of the regency, resolved to concentrate his own army near Lisbon. General Stewart was, therefore, directed to destroy the bridges of Vilha Velha and Abrantes, and to fall back to Sacavem. ”

“ The town itself is a poor place.
As regards the country through which we had passed being adapted for a railway, there was no doubt that a good line could be made through it, although at considerable expense; the difficulty was how to cross the main ridge which separated the valley of the Guadiana from that of the Tagus. It certainly was most desirable to connect Abrantes with Elvas, but the descent from it to the Guadiana valley was too rapid ”

“ Portugal, at this juncture, deserted by her government and by her pitiful king, who fled to Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, fell easily into the power of a French army, under Marshal Junot, who was thereupon created Duke of Abrantes, a town on the Portuguese frontier.
All Europe cried aloud at these lawless proceedings, and the Spaniards, so long our enemies, with our old allies the Portuguese, were alike filled with fury and resentment. The peasantry flew to arms, and the provinces became filled by bands of guerillas, brave but reckless ”

“ O’Neil, however, gave a very unfavourable account of it, for a few miles beyond Abrantes the Tagus passes through a deep chasm, hemmed in on both sides with steep, precipitous granite rocks, swarming with eagles, and wild and desolate to a degree. There were scarcely any inhabitants save a few shepherds, clad in goat-skins, who lived in small cottages stuck in the clefts of the rocks, or built upon some small patches of ground close by the margin of the river, with a few vegetables and fruits growing round them. ”

“ The distance from Almeida to Abrantes is more than a hundred and eighty miles, the greatest part is a mountain pathway rather than a road, and the French were obliged to gather their provisions from the country as they passed; now, to forage, to fight several actions, to pursue active peasants well acquainted with the country so closely as to destroy them by thousands, and to march [164] a hundred and eighty miles over bad roads, and all in seven days, is impossible.
The whole French army was now concentrated ”

“ A march through the Alemtejo and the passage of the river at any place below Abrantes would, therefore, render all the frontier positions useless; and although there were no enemy on the borders of the Alemtejo itself, the march from Ciudad Rodrigo by Perales, Coria, and Alcantara, and thence by the southern bank to the lowest ford in the river, would be little longer than the route by the valley of the Mondego or that of the Zezere. For these reasons the frontier of Portugal must be always yielded to superior numbers. ”

“ The vanguard of the French reached Abrantes on the afternoon of the 23d, and Junot arrived the next morning. The generals entered that city with all the cattle which they had been able to collect on the way, like border-men returning from a foraging party, and the booty was sold for104 their emolument. ”

“ The fact is, however, not that Balzac created la femme sensible de guarante ans, as is stated by Philarete Chasles, so much as that two women of forty, Madame de Berny and Madame d'Abrantes, created him.
This affection savored of vanity in both; she was proud that at her years she could inspire love in a man so much younger than herself, while Balzac, whose affection was more of the head than of the heart, was flattered—it must be confessed—in having made the conquest of a duchess. ”

“ All witnesses except the captious Sismondi bear testimony to the devotion with which Rocca nursed his wife in her last illness. Silent, pallid, sad as a phantom itself, he sat day by day beside her bed. According to Madame d'Abrantes, she never looked long at him without feeling that she might still live. The sense that her existence was necessary to him seemed to inspire her for a moment with the courage to take up anew the increasing burden of her days. ”

“ On that day the head of the British army had entered Plasencia, and was only 125 miles from Madrid. It is impossible to give any better testimonial than this simple fact to the way in which the insurgents and the guerrillas served the cause of the allies. Wellesley [p. 456] had been able to march from Oporto to Abrantes, and from Abrantes to Plasencia, without even a rumour of his advance reaching Madrid. All that Joseph had learnt was that there was now an allied force of some sort behind Alcantara, in the direction of Castello Branco. ”

“ Richard Stewart, with the two battalions that had been at Abrantes, also came in to the capital, and all the British troops were concentrated by the beginning of February, save the 40th regiment, which still lay at Elvas. Having thus got together about 10,000 men, Cradock, with almost incredible timidity, began to draw them back to Passo d’Arcos, a place behind Lisbon near the mouth of the Tagus, from which embarkation was easy. ”

“ Now the pass of Vilha Velha is prodigiously strong for defence, and the distance from Abrantes to Castello Branco being nearly the same by Niza as by the other bank of the river, the march of troops was yet much accelerated, for the road near Vilha Velha being reconstructed by the engineers, was excellent. ”

“ It will be remembered that as early as the beginning of November [5] he had sent across the river Fane’s Portuguese cavalry and a battalion of Caçadores, who were directed to watch the road along the further bank, to prevent any trifling force of French from crossing in search of provisions, and to keep open the communications with Abrantes. As long as Masséna was threatening the Lines of Torres Vedras, there was no danger that he would throw anything more than a raiding party across the Tagus; he would want every man for the great assault. ”

“ The king had scarcely expired, before the ministers and officers of state assembled, according to ancient custom, to examine and publish the royal testament. As this was a new era in the history of Spain, and as general anxiety prevailed to know the new sovereign, the palace was crowded with people of all ranks, and the antechamber filled with the foreign ministers and principal courtiers, all eager to receive the earliest intelligence. At length, the folding doors being thrown open, the duke of Abrantes appeared, and a general silence ensued to hear the nomination. ”

“ From Abrantes to Estremos and Elvas, and from the former to Setuval, the lines of communication were short, and through an open country, suitable for the operations of the cavalry, which was all quartered on the south bank of the Tagus. Thus, without breaking up the mass of the army, the harbours were sealed against the English, and a great and rich tract was enclosed by posts, and rendered so pervious to the troops, that any insurrection could be reached by a few marches, and immediately crushed. ”

“ The Spanish Commissary-General Lozano de Torres [734] occasionally sent up a small consignment of flour from Caceres and Truxillo, but it did not suffice to give the army even half-rations. It was to no purpose that at Abrantes provisions abounded at this moment, for there was no means of getting them forward from Portugal [735] . The enemy lay between the army and its base dépôt, and there was no transport available to bring up the food by the circuitous route of Villa Velha and Portalegre. Even so early as August 8 Wellesley began to write that ‘a starving army is actually worse than none. ”

“ No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want of good police regulations, and the French general conferred an unmixed benefit on the inhabitants by giving more effect to Novion’s plans; yet so deeply rooted is the prejudice in favour of ancient customs, that no act of the duke of Abrantes gave the Portuguese more offence than his having the streets cleansed, and the wild dogs (that infested them by thousands) killed. ”

“ These were Peniche and Abrantes. The former is a very strong isolated sea-fortress, on a projecting headland in the Atlantic, forty miles north of Lisbon. It commands several good creeks and landing-places, suitable for the embarkation and disembarkation of troops, and is nearly impregnable, because of the narrowness of the isthmus connecting it with the mainland. Placed where it is, just in the rear of the position which an enemy must take who is meditating an attack on Lisbon, it offers unique opportunities for making incursions on his rear and his communications. ”

“ Nothing more than the leave to quit Lisbon in Junot’s wake should have been secured to them, unless the Junta of Regency gave its consent. The seventeenth article is even more objectionable: a considerable portion of the bureaucracy of Portugal had been weak and criminal enough to acquiesce in the French usurpation, and to make themselves the tools of the Duke of Abrantes. It was natural that their countrymen should feel deeply indignant with them; and their lot was likely to be so hard that it was but rational and humane to give them leave to quit the kingdom. ”

“ It may be remarked, by the way, that nothing in all the geography of Portugal seems more astonishing than that there should not be a fourth alternative road, one down the long valley of the Zezere, which, running in a straight line from Belmonte to Abrantes, looks on the map as if it ought to be a main artery of communication, and seems to indicate the obvious road to Lisbon from Almeida, since a straight line drawn between these points would run along the river for some forty miles. ”

“ The approaching rainy season renders the advance of an enemy into Portugal very difficult, and confines our defence to particular posts. The British army is, I believe, going into cantonments about Elvas, Badajos, etc., etc. Ours between Abrantes and Coimbra. The former in a very good state of defence commands the Tagus and secures our right, while we are in reach of all the passes of Muradal, etc., and within reach of the Douro if necessary. ”