Page:Napoleon's Addresses.djvu/114

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110
NAPOLEON'S ADDRESSES.

Summons to M. de Morla to Surrender Madrid, Dec. 3, 1808.

"In vain you employ the name of the people. If you cannot find means to pacify them, it is because you yourselves excited them and misled them by falsehood. Assemble the clergy, the heads of the convents, the alcades, and if between this and six in the morning the city has not surrendered, it shall cease to exist. I neither will, nor ought to withdraw my troops. You have slaughtered the unfortunate French who have fallen into your hands. Only two days ago you suffered two servants of the Russian ambassador to be dragged away and put to death in the streets because they were Frenchmen. The incapacity and weakness of a general had put into your hands troops which had capitulated on the field of battle of Baylen, and the capitulation was violated. You, M. de Morla, what sort of a letter did you write to that general? Well did it become you to talk of pillage—you, who having entered Rousillon in 1795, carried off all the women, and divided them as booty among your soldiers. What right had you, moreover, to hold such language. The capitulation of Baylen forbade it. Look what was