Have I ever told you, my friends, the circumstances connected with my joining theHussars of Conflans at the time of the siege of Saragossa and the very remarkable exploitwhich I performed in connection with the taking of that city? No? Then you have indeedsomething still to learn. I will tell it to you exactly as it occurred. Save for two or three menand a score or two of women, you are the first who have ever heard the story.You must know, then, that it was in the Second Hussars-called the Hussars ofChamberan-that I had served as a lieutenant and as a junior captain. At the time I speak ofI was only twenty-five years of age, as reckless and desperate a man as any in that greatarmy.It chanced that the war had come to a halt in Germany, while it was still raging in Spain, so the Emperor, wishing to reinforce the Spanish army, transferred me as senior captain tothe Hussars of Conflans, which were at that time in the Fifth Army Corps under MarshalLannes.It was a long journey from Berlin to the Pyrenees.My new regiment formed part of the force which, under Marshal Lannes, was thenbesieging the Spanish town of Saragossa. I turned my horse's head in that direction, therefore, and behold me a week or so later at the French headquarters, whence I wasdirected to the camp of the Hussars of Conflans.You have read, no doubt, of this famous siege of Saragossa, and I will only say that nogeneral could have had a harder task than that with which Marshal Lannes was confronted.The immense city was crowded with a horde of Spaniards-soldiers, peasants, priests-allfilled with the most furious hatred of the French, and the most savage determination toperish before they would surrender. There were eighty thousand men in the town and onlythirty thousand to besiege them. Yet we had a powerful artillery, and our engineers were ofthe best. There was never such a siege, for it is usual that when the fortifications are takenthe city falls, but here it was not until the fortifications were taken that the real fightingbegan. Every house was a fort and every street a battle-field, so that slowly, day by day, wehad to work our way inwards, blowing up the houses with their garrisons until more thanhalf the city had disappeared. Yet the other half was as determined as ever and in a betterposition for defence, since it consisted of enormous convents and monasteries with wallslike the Bastille, which could not be so easily brushed out of our way. This was the state ofthings at the time that I joined the arm