These are stories by no means few and far between; the whole history of the race is full of such.  We read of one town and garrison of eight thousand souls, abandoned by their king, starved, and without clothes or ammunition.  Reduced at last to two thousand naked men, they stood in the breach to be slain to a man by the conquering Turk.  Conqueror only in name, after all; for he who conquers is he who lives in history for a great action, and whose undaunted courage fires other souls long after he is at rest.

“But all this is very ancient history, of the days of Spain’s greatness; now she is a decadent nation,” says the superficial observer.  The column of the Dos de Mayo on the Prado of Madrid, with its yearly memorial mass, shows whether that spirit is dead, or in danger of dying.  The second of May is well called the “Day of Independence”; it was, in fact, the inauguration of the War of Independence, in which Spain gained enough honour to satisfy the proudest of her sons.  The French had entered Madrid under pretence of being Spain’s allies against Portugal, and Murat, once settled there to his own perfect satisfaction, made no secret of his master’s intention to annex the whole peninsula.  The imbecile King, Charles IV., had abdicated; his son, Ferdinand VII., was practically a captive in France.  The country had, in fact, been sold to Napoleon, neither more nor less, by the infamous Godoy, favourite of the late King.

A riot broke out among the people on discovering that the French were about to carry off the Spanish Infantes.  The blood of some comparatively innocent Frenchmen was shed, and the base governor and magistrates of Madrid allowed Murat to make his own terms, which were nothing less, in fact, than the dispersion of the troops, who were ordered to clear out of their barracks, and hand them over to the French.  The two artillery officers, Daoiz and Valarde, with one infantry officer named Ruiz, and a few of the populace, refused, and, all unaided, attempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French army of invasion!  The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards of the old type.  Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was shot.  On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now sacred to their memory.  Thus was the torch of the Peninsular War lighted.  As one man the nation rose; the labourer armed himself with his agricultural implements, the workman with his tools; without leaders, nay, in defiance of those who should have led them, the people sprang to action, and, with England’s help, the usurper was driven from the throne of France, and finally caged in St. Helena.  But it is never forgotten that Spain—­these two or three sons of hers preferring honour to life—­has the glory of having been the first to oppose and check the man and the nation that aspired to tyrannise over Europe.