St. John’s day—Arrival of the “little succour”—Assaults on St. Michael—Death of the grand master’s nephew—Assaults from the 2d to the 16th of August—Attack on the bastion of Castile—Conduct of La Valette—His visit to the infirmary—Repulse of the Turks—Appearance of the succours—Hasty embarkation of the Turks—Fresh landing, and engagement with the Christian army—They leave the island—State of Malta after the siege—Building of the city of Valetta—Death of the grand master—Conclusion.
St. John’s day—Arrival of the “little succour”—Assaults on St. Michael—Death of the grand master’s nephew—Assaults from the 2d to the 16th of August—Attack on the bastion of Castile—Conduct of La Valette—His visit to the infirmary—Repulse of the Turks—Appearance of the succours—Hasty embarkation of the Turks—Fresh landing, and engagement with the Christian army—They leave the island—State of Malta after the siege—Building of the city of Valetta—Death of the grand master—Conclusion.
It was the festival of St. John; there was a pause in the fierce cannonade which had so long thundered in the ears of the inhabitants of Malta, and the bright midsummer day shone over the waves, whose dancing brightness told no tale of the ghastly procession they had borne on their surface the night before. The morning had been ushered in with a religious ceremony,—the solemn burying of the martyrs of St. Elmo, as the people loved to call them; and over the grave La Valette addressed his followers, and bade them keep true to so bright and noble an example. “What more can we desire than to die for the faith of Christ? in His service we are omnipotent.” Then, turning to the women, he bade them dry their tears, and keep St. John’s day with their accustomed joy. And so they did, flocking to the churches, and kindling through the streets those huge bonfires that in every Christian land, from Norway to Spain, light up the night which celebrates the Precursor’s birth.
On the 16th of June, the same day on which the first assault-general had been made on St. Elmo, four galleys had set sail from Messina, having on board the force designated by the Maltese historians as the “little succour.” Certainly, after its despatch had been so long talked of, it might seemlittleenough, consisting as itdid of only 700 men and forty knights; not enough to replace those who had fallen in the siege. However, it arrived on the 29th; and little as it was, it numbered some of the first warriors of the day, among others Parisot, the grand master’s nephew. They had no small difficulty in passing the Turkish fleet, and landing at Citta Vecchia, and were heartily welcomed, though, as La Valette again wrote to the viceroy, nothing less than 12,000 men would suffice for the necessities of the siege. Meanwhile a Greek slave was despatched as envoy to the grand master from the pasha, proposing conditions of honourable capitulation; but La Valette desired him to be conducted through the fortifications, and shown the deep ditch that surrounded the counterscarp. “This,” said the knight who escorted him, “is the place we intend to surrender to your master; but there is room enough to bury him and his Janizaries.”
Disappointed in his attempts at negotiation, Mustapha prepared to push the siege with all vigour. Not a moment had been lost in pursuing the necessary operations; and the blockade was soon complete both by sea and by land. Early in July the encircling batteries, mounted with sixty or seventy heavy pieces of cannon, poured their converging fire on the towns and fortresses and the shipping that lay at anchor in the Port of the Galleys, and the roar of that artillery sounded like the mutterings of distant thunder on the coast of Sicily; but the chief point of attack was the castle of St. Michael, situated on the promontory, or island, as it is often termed, of La Sangle. The pasha determined to assault it not only by land but by sea. To effect this, without exposing his vessels to the guns of St. Angelo, it was necessary to carry boats overland across the peninsula on which St. Elmo had stood. The manœuvre was successfully accomplished; and no less than eighty vessels were thus transported across the heights in the sight of the astonished Christians, and launched on the waters of the basin. But La Valette was equally prompt in adopting measures of defence; and to opposethe passage of the Turkish flotilla, erected with almost incredible labour,—for the work could be carried on only by night,—a strong palisade at the southern extremity of the harbour. This led to bloody combats, half on land and half on water, nay, ofteninthe water itself, in which the dexterous Maltese swimmers, stripped naked and armed only with a short sword, at length completely routed the bands of Turkish axemen who were sent to destroy the works.
Not to weary our readers with the repetition of the same bloody details, it is enough to say that St. Michael proved as hard a task for the besiegers as St. Elmo. Dragut, as has been said, had fallen in the former conflict; but his place was supplied by the corsair Hassan, Beyler Bey of Algiers, who had landed at the head of 2500 men. As son of the famous Barbarossa, and son-in-law of Dragut, he claimed the honour of leading the assault against St. Michael. The pasha placed 6000 men at his command, and with these, early on the morning of the 15th of July, he assaulted the fortress from the land; while the old corsair, Candelissa, a Greek renegade, with the Algerine squadron, attacked the inner harbour of the galleys. With the sound of tambours and blasts of trumpets he directed his course towards the palisades; before him, in a shallop, going the imaums and the marabouts, clad in their dark-coloured robes, reciting aloud passages from the Koran, and screaming out prayers to heaven and curses on the Christians. But these soon dropped aside, and the flotilla of boats came on, the chiefs conspicuous in the midst, with their gaily-streaming mantles and glittering arms. The struggle was long and obstinate: it continued for five hours, during which the Turks made incessant attempts to scale the parapets, and at one moment succeeded in planting their standards on the ramparts. But, fired at the sight, the Christians rushed upon the foe with redoubled vigour; the Admiral Monté put himself at their head; their long swords swept the ranks of their assailants; with pikes and poniards theythrew themselves into the thick of the fray;—there also might be seen Brother Robert, a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other, exhorting the Christian combatants to fight for the faith of Jesus Christ and die in its defence. But even valour desperate as theirs might have been fruitless against such overwhelming odds, had not the grand master, whose eye nothing seemed to escape, by means of a floating bridge which he had thrown across the Port of Galleys, despatched reinforcements at the very moment of need. Then, too, was beheld a strange and an inspiring sight: a troop of boys, 200 strong, issued from the town, armed with slings; shouting “A rescue-rescue, victory!” they let fly a shower of stones on the heads and in the faces of the foe; at the same instant De Giou, commandant of the galleys, charging at the head of the new succours, drove every thing before him, and forced back the infidels with frightful slaughter. The wildfire glared over their falling masses, and there was a hurried scramble to the boats, and plunge after plunge into the water; but even then the batteries played on them without ceasing; the port was filled with dead and dying, and crimsoned with blood. In vain they who could not reach the boats begged for mercy on their knees; the terrible shout rang in their ears, “Remember St. Elmo!” To all their cries for quarter the only answer was, “St. Elmo’s pay!”
Ere this victory was accomplished the pasha had despatched a powerful reinforcement, which, avoiding the palisades, steered its course more northernward; but here it became exposed to one of the batteries of St. Angelo, which, sunk low down, almost beneath the level of the water, had remained concealed; and now, as the enemy advanced within range of its shot, suddenly opened a terrific discharge upon them, which shattered nine out of the ten barges in which the troops were being transported to the scene of action; and in an instant the surface of the harbour was covered with splinters of wood, severed limbs, mutilated bodies, and such few of the survivors as were still left to strugglein the waves: the remaining boat turned and fled back to shore. Meanwhile Hassan had fared no better at the breach than had Candelissa at the bastion. Again and again he strove to pierce the barrier of mail that defended the chasm in the walls; his troops threw themselves upon the little host of warriors only to recoil with thinned and disordered ranks; and when their bastion was cleared of assailants, and the defenders were at liberty to succour their comrades at the breach, the infidels were swept as by a whirlwind from the ruined wall, and the victory of the Christians was every where complete. Of the six or seven thousand Moslems who had taken part in the two attacks not more than half that number returned to camp. The besieged had to lament the loss of 200 fighting men, among whom were the brave commander Zanoguerra, and Frederic de Toledo, son of the Viceroy of Sicily. But their confidence rose with their success; and La Valette, with all his knights, and the entire population of the borgo, went in procession to the great church of St. Lawrence, to adore the God of armies, and to suspend above the altar the banners of the infidels in token of thanksgiving.
Mustapha, now at last understanding the determined valour of the men with whom he had to deal, resolved to level the defences to the ground before attempting a renewal of the assault. After still further extending and strengthening his batteries, he opened a tremendous fire on the bastion of Castile, as well as on that part of the borgo which was nearest to it; and such was the crushing effect of the ponderous balls discharged from the Turkish mortars that the quarter of the town exposed to that unintermitting storm of stone and metal was speedily reduced to ruins, and numbers of the inhabitants were killed. La Valette, however, was as inventive of resources as was the pasha of engines of attack: his eye and hand were every where; no man knew when he took repose; by night as well as by day he might be seen, now superintending the operations he had ordered, now himself performing many of the most laboriousduties of the common soldier, exhibiting the while the same unchanged tranquillity in his countenance and mien, which inspired all who beheld him with like resolution and courage. And yet, amidst his indefatigable toils, he never failed every day to betake himself to the church of St. Lawrence, there to implore the blessing of Heaven on the Christian arms, and its protection of those to whom all human aid appeared to be denied. Forcing the Moslem slaves to aid in the work of defence, he caused a barrier of masonry to be thrown across the streets so broad and solid as to serve for a protection to the citizens; while on the side of the port he rendered all approach impossible by sinking barges laden with heavy stones not far from shore. Nor were the inhabitants less active on their part, but in all things showed themselves worthy of their beloved commander. Men, women, and children were continually engaged in constructing gabions, manufacturing fireworks, preparing stones and other missiles to hurl upon the besiegers’ heads, and, above all, in repairing the breaches and fortifying the shattered walls. Nor all this time did they neglect to avail themselves of the aids which religion offered, but cultivated in themselves those pious dispositions which should enable them to gain the plenary indulgence which the Pope had granted to all who took part in this holy warfare.
Among other warlike devices the pasha at length contrived a sort of raised bridge by which the troops should be enabled to reach the battlements safe from the destructive fire of the garrison. Alarmed at the sight of this structure, the Christians endeavoured to set fire to it by night; but, after two failures, were obliged to defer their attempts till day. The enterprise was full of danger, and was intrusted by the grand master to his nephew Henry de la Valette, or, as he is elsewhere called, the CommanderParisot, from his lordship of that name. Parisot was accompanied by his dear friend and brother-in-arms Polastra, and a small number of soldiers. Throwing cables round thebridge, they endeavoured by main force to pull it to the ground; but being wholly exposed to the enemy’s view, a severe fire was soon directed on the spot. The two young knights, observing their men beginning to falter under the heavy cannonade, sprang intrepidly forward, and advanced alone to the foot of the bridge; but scarcely had they reached the spot when a volley of musketry laid both dead upon the ground. Instantly the Janizaries rushed forward to secure their bodies, in the hopes of gaining the reward offered for the heads of the Christian knights; but the soldiers, guessing their intention and reproaching themselves for their cowardice in not following the knights, rallied at the sight, and advanced to dispute the possession of the bodies. After a violent conflict the Christians succeeded in carrying off the remains of the two gallant officers, and bearing them to the fort, whence messengers were sent to La Valette to acquaint him with his nephew’s death. Parisot was a favourite with the whole order,—thebeau idealof a young cavalier,—but to none dearer than to the grand master himself. Nevertheless he received the news with that high and generous spirit which always distinguished him, and only raised his eyes to heaven and thanked God for granting his nephew so glorious an end, and himself a sacrifice to offer which had cost him something. Some of the brethren would have condoled with him on his loss, but he stopped them: “Every one of my knights,” he said, “is equally dear to my heart, for all are my children: the loss of Parisot does not move me more than that of Polastra. And, after all, what does it matter? they have but gone a little while before us. So now to your duty, and let me hear no more about it:” nor was he ever heard to speak of his loss again to mortal ear. Nevertheless he bade them take him to the spot where the two young knights had fallen; and, after inspecting the bridge and its position, he planted a cannon on the wall opposite to it, which opened so effectual a fire as entirely to destroy the dangerous erection.
The besieged had now to sustain a double attack; for whilst the pasha and the Bey of Algiers continued the attempt on the fortress of St. Michael, Piali, the admiral of the fleet, led the assault on the bastion of Castile to the eastward of the borgo; and at the same time eighty of the largest armed galleys kept the sea, to prevent the landing of the daily-expected succours from Messina. The assault of the 2d of August was among the most desperate yet attempted: the pasha animated his soldiers by his presence and his threats, and with his own hand slew two Janizaries who had retreated before the swords of the knights. But he fought against men resolved to conquer. Even women and children presented themselves to defend the breach, and rendered no contemptible assistance to the garrison. While the knights and men-at-arms poured withering volleys of musketry on the assailants as they rushed forward to the breach, the Maltese launched down heavy stones and pieces of timber, and discharged torrents of scalding pitch and streams of wildfire on their heads; and when the storming columns had scaled the ruined walls they found themselves opposed by an inner barrier of newly-raised intrenchments, behind which stood a living and still more impenetrable rampart in the persons of the brethren of St. John. Great was the confusion and slaughter among the infidels: stunned by the incessant and increasing violence of the fiery hurricane that beat upon them, and entangled among the sharp-pointed spikes with which the ruins had every where been thickly planted, their disordered ranks reeled and broke as though the earth were quaking beneath their feet, and, in spite of all their leaders could do, turned and fled precipitately to their trenches, leaving the breach encumbered with their dead. Again and again, refreshed and reinforced, the Turks returned to the assault, and as often recoiled before the terrible prowess of the Christian chivalry, until at length, as the day wore on, and all his resources had been tried in vain, the pasha gave the word to retire; and fromboth bastion and fortress his baffled hosts withdrew in discomfiture and dismay.
Assaults again upon the morrow, and on each succeeding day, but with the same result; and then came the intelligence that 160 vessels and 15,000 troops were assembled in the ports of Sicily and about to sail. Mustapha was well-nigh in despair; but knowing that a failure and abandonment of the siege would entail certain disgrace at the hands of Solyman, he resolved on an extraordinary effort—an assault-general, made by relief-parties of his troops, and kept up without cessation till the physical strength of the exhausted garrison must perforce be worn out; and this was accordingly fixed to commence on the 7th of August.
He chose the hour of noon, when, in that burning climate, the knights would, he judged, be unfit for great exertions. The morning, too, passing in comparative quiet, was calculated to throw them off their guard. Suddenly, in the midday stillness, the explosion of a mine, and the cries from the wall of “Castile! Castile!” drew all eyes to the spot thus indicated. Floating over the bastion, they beheld a huge red banner, with its gilded pole and black horse-tail; and the alarming rumour spread rapidly through the city that the bastion was in the possession of the enemy. A few moments more and the infidels would have been in the heart of the town. Brother William, a chaplain of the order, ran instantly to seek the grand master, whom he found standing, as was his wont, in the great square unarmed. “My lord,” he exclaimed, “Castile is lost! and the borgo will soon be in the hands of the enemy; you will surely retire to St. Angelo.” La Valette, without a gesture of surprise, took his helmet from his page’s hands, and a lance from the nearest soldier: “Come, gentlemen,” he said to the knights surrounding him, “we are wanted at the bastion; let us die together:” and, regardless of the entreaties of his followers that he would not needlessly expose his person, he hurried to the spot. The alarm-bell was rung, a crowd of citizensrallied round him, and at their head he fell upon the Turks. A terrific struggle ensued, and the life of the grand master seemed in momentary peril. Mendoza, who stood by his side amidst a heap of slain, implored him to retire; he even knelt at his feet, conjuring him not to expose a life, on the preservation of which hung the only hopes of the city and the order; but La Valette answered him by a gesture of his hand: “Do you see those banners,” he said, pointing to the Turkish standards, “and ask me to retire before they are trampled in the dust?” Then, heading the attack, with his own hand he tore them from the ramparts, and planting himself among the pikemen who defended the breach, remained there till, after a long and bloody contest, the enemy had retreated. So soon as all immediate danger was over he bade his attendants prepare him some accommodation in this bastion, which he intended thenceforth to make his residence. He believed that the enemy had withdrawn only to return under cover of the night; and in reply to the knights who opposed his design he only answered, that at seventy years of age he had nothing better to hope for than to die in the midst of his children, and in defence of the faith.
The Christians kept strict watch and ward; and, as La Valette expected, darkness had no sooner fallen than the infidels, knowing that no time had been given for throwing up new intrenchments, ran swiftly to the breach, while the whole scene was suddenly lighted up by incessant discharges of artillery, and by thousands of fiery missiles that came flaming and darting through the air. They had hoped to surprise the garrison exhausted by the day’s encounter, and sunk in profound repose; but they found the walls ready manned to receive them, and were met by such volleys of well-directed musketry, and by such a renewal of those deadly showers, the effects of which they had so well learnt to dread, that neither the threats nor the blows of their infuriated chiefs could urge them to the charge; and the broken routed columns rushed back as they had come, andabandoned the attempt. The Christians, in their joy at the hard-earned victory, forgot not Him from whom it came: in the morning aTe Deumwas sung in public thanksgiving; and, if it were not performed with all the solemnity usual in the order of St. John, at least it was accompanied (says the chronicler) with tears of grateful devotion and of true contrition from the eyes of many a man as well as woman in the assembled crowd.
During the bloody assaults of the long days that followed, La Valette and his pike were ever in the front of the defence; severely wounded, he concealed his hurt, and by his words and example inspired soldiers and citizens with the same ardour that animated the knights themselves. The fight became too close for musketry; it was hand to hand, with pike and poniard, renewed every day, and scarcely ceasing even during night: for the design of the pasha was to do by the whole city as he had done by St. Elmo, and make himself master of the place simply by the annihilation of all its defenders. Proclamations went through the Turkish camp that the city was to be sacked, and every living soul destroyed, with the exception of the grand master, who was to be carried in chains to Constantinople. La Valette heard of this boastful threat: “Yet,” he said to his knights, “it will hardly be as the pasha thinks; sooner than suffer a grand master of the order of St. John to appear before the sultan in chains, I will take the dress of one of my own pikemen, and die among the battalions of the infidels at their next rush upon the breach.”
Meanwhile the condition of the besieged grew every day more desperate; their numbers reduced by half, and the survivors wounded, and well-nigh dying of fatigue; powder failing, and the ramparts all ruined and shattered by the cannon; breaches every where, and some so large that thirty men abreast could ride through them, dismount and mount again with ease; whilst in many places there rose over the walls enormousmounds, erected by the Turks, and furnished with cannon, which entirely commanded the quarters of the city against which they were directed. Every invention of military skill known to Turkish science was tried in turn by the pasha, and failed: his mines were countermined; his movable towers were burnt and destroyed; a huge machine which he caused to be constructed, capacious as a hogshead and filled with all manner of combustibles, and which was launched by engines on to the rampart of the bastion, was thrown back upon its constructors, and, bursting in its fall, dealt terrific havoc around.
At length, on the 20th of August, a letter was thrown into the borgo, and brought to the grand master, who opened it in the presence of his council, and found but one word, “Thursday;” which he rightly interpreted to be a warning from some friendly hand to prepare for a new assault on the 23d. In fact, it was the last effort of Mustapha, who found that, whatever might be his own resolution, the spirits of his troops were fast giving way under their repeated failures; and it was only when the emirs and chief officers of the army offered to make the assault alone, that the Janizaries and inferior troops could be induced to move. La Valette, who foresaw that a great struggle was at hand, and felt that he had no means of meeting a general attack with his reduced numbers, proceeded to the infirmary, and addressed the wounded knights. “I am likewise wounded,” he said, “yet I continue on duty; so also do others who have never left the walls. It remains to be seen whether you whom I see around me are content to be massacred in your beds, rather than to die like men upon the parapets; for to that crisis are we come.” Such an address had the effect he intended. “Death on the breach!” burst from the lips of all. La Valette answered their shout with a pleased and approving smile; and distributing them among the various quarters where their presence was most needed, he felt well assured that the sense of wounded honourwould wring from them a resistance so long as life remained.
The walls during those three days were strangely manned: wounded men, with arms and heads bound up in bloody cloths; women, with casque and cuirass, assumed to deceive the enemy with the appearance of a garrison, the skeleton of which alone was left; guns worked by feeble children,—sometimes the strongest and best fit to fight of all the forces that were there. The assault one day lastedtwelve hours,—the bloodiest and fiercest that had yet been made; the enormous platform, or “cavalier,” as it was called, which rose above the parapet afforded such a position for the Turkish musketeers, that no one appeared on the walls but he fell instantly under their deadly aim. Nothing silenced their fire; and night alone brought a brief respite, which was employed by the grand master in assembling a council of his knights to determine what steps should be taken in the deplorable condition to which they were now reduced. The majority of the grand crosses and dignitaries of the order were for abandoning the outworks, and retiring with what strength they had left to the castle of St. Angelo, where they might hope to hold out till the arrival of the succour; but to this plan La Valette would not for a moment consent. He rejected it with as much horror as though he had been required to surrender the city to the infidels; for, good and Christian veteran as he was, he well knew that St. Angelo, though capable of receiving the troops and fighting men, could offer no protection to the women and defenceless citizens, who, in case of such a resolution being taken, must be given up to the fury of the enemy: St. Michael and its brave defenders must also be abandoned to their fate. “No, brethren,” he said, addressing the assembly, “we will all die together, and on our walls, as becomes our profession, if first, by God’s blessing, we do not drive these Turkish dogs from thence.”
So the day dawned on a fresh scene of battle; theTurks, maddened to frenzy, seemed callous to musketry and stones and boiling oil, and gaining rampart after rampart, stood at length with nothing to separate them from the Christians who held the city but a stockade of wood, behind which the garrison was drawn up; but beyond that they could not pass. As to the bastion of Castile, La Valette had declared his resolution of remaining in it to the last; and calling in almost all the forces which garrisoned St. Angelo, he caused the wooden bridge which connected it with the borgo to be sawn asunder, thus cutting off the possibility of retreat. On the last day of August, the pasha made an attempt on Citta Vecchia, leaving Piali to continue the assault on the borgo and St. Michael. Mesquita, a brave Portuguese, commanded there; and on the news of the enemy’s approach, dressed up his walls with banners and pikes, women again assuming their casques and muskets, and crowding to the ramparts; for indeed the place was almost wholly without defenders, yet a warlike aspect was so well sustained, that no real assault was attempted. In fact the siege was drawing to its close: ammunition was failing; twenty-five days’ provision was all that remained in the Turkish camp; a dysentery, the result of the great heat, bad food, and constant exposure, was carrying off large numbers every day; the troops were disheartened, and the garrison, as it seemed to them, invincible; and when, on the 4th of September, the sails of the Sicilian galleys were seen on the broad horizon, nothing more was needed to complete the discomfiture of the infidels.
The succour so long promised consisted of about 11,000 men, 200 being knights of the order, with whom were associated a number of volunteer adventurers of the best blood of Spain, Italy, and France, eager to join in a defence whose fame had now spread through Europe, and bade fair to surpass in glory even that of Rhodes. At the first news of their approach a kind of consternation seized the two pashas, and they resolved on a hasty embarkment of their troops. Without waitingto ascertain the strength of the force opposed to them, they made every preparation for retiring; the garrison which had been posted at St. Elmo was called in, the artillery was abandoned, and a precipitate retreat commenced. As morning broke on the 8th of September, the festival of Our Lady’s Nativity, the weary watchers once more dragged themselves to the walls. Taught by bitter and repeated disappointments, they had put no trust in the reported sight of those distant sails, and treated the talk of the Sicilian succours as a delusive dream; no news had yet reached them of the landing of the troops, which had, indeed, taken place on the preceding evening, in a distant part of the island, the forces being then in full march upon the town. Nothing, therefore, was looked for by the garrison, now reduced to six hundred feeble men, but a renewal of the long struggle which had lasted without interruption for so many weeks. Yet, though exhausted in body, their confidence and courage were unshaken; leaning from the ramparts, they even defied their enemies to the assault, shouting to them to come on, and do their worst, without waiting for the sunrise. There was no answer, only a clang of arms that seemed dying away in the distance. “Heard you that?” suddenly exclaimed one of the men; “surely those were the Janizary trumpets sounding from the shore. And down there yonder, beneath the walls, what can be the meaning of those marshalled troops defiling from the trenches towards the camp? Either my eyes are blinded by long watching, or the infidels are in retreat.”
The strange news spread quickly from mouth to mouth, and La Valette, as soon as he was convinced of its truth, ordered a sortie to be made from the walls and the intrenchments of the enemy to be destroyed, as a precaution in case of their return; for indeed the whole thing seemed inexplicable, and, as he suspected, might be nothing but a feint to conceal some deep design. Women and children worked with right good will at the task of destruction; and before nightfall the complicatedworks of the Turkish engineers presented a spectacle of utter confusion. A party was also despatched to take possession of the abandoned fortress of St. Elmo; and the infidels, from the decks of their vessels, had the chagrin of seeing the banner of St. John floating once more over those hardly-contested walls. They could hear, too, the sonorous peal of the church-bells, silent for three months, except to give out martial signals or notes of alarm; but which now burst merrily forth from every tower and steeple, to celebrate at once the birthday of the Mother of God and the unhoped-for deliverance of her clients. Never sounded sweeter music to human ears than that which once more summoned the faithful to Mass; and doubtless the Rhodians who might be found among the population were not slow in attributing their happy fortune to the intercession of Our Lady of Philermos.[46]La Valette headed the people in a procession to the great church of St. John, where with hearts flowing over with joy, they gave thanks to God and His blessed Mother for the mercy so signally vouchsafed. Nor was it long before the certainty of the good news was ascertained, and its cause explained by intelligence of the arrival of the Sicilian troops.
Meanwhile the pasha had scarcely entered his vessel when he was overwhelmed with shame at the thought of having abandoned the city at the first rumour of relief. The whole Christian forces scarcely numbered half his own; and it seemed as though by an able movement he might easily crush the new-comers, and regain his position before the town, which he well knew was at its last extremity. To land again, after havingbut just completed so hurried an embarkment, had certainly a foolish look about it; but the council of war agreed it was the only measure that could retrieve the honour of their arms; and so, despite the unwillingness of the troops, they were once more put on shore, and marched in the direction of the Christian forces. The two armies came up to one another in the neighbourhood of Citta Notabile, and an engagement immediately took place. The Sicilians were commanded by Ascanio de la Corña; while the knights who accompanied them were led by Alvarez de Sandé, who led the attack with characteristic ardour. The Turkish soldiers, dispirited and fatigued, scarcely made a show of resistance; but at the first charge turned and fled to the Port of St. Paul, where the Bey of Algiers, with 1500 men, was waiting to cover their retreat to the boats. The unfortunate pasha, endeavouring in vain to rally the fugitives, was hurried along with his cowardly troops, and twice narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Christians. The Sicilians followed the pursuit as though it had been a stag-hunt; and in their thoughtless impetuosity threw off their cuirasses, and broke their ranks, to enable them the more speedily to overtake the flying enemy,—an imprudence which was near costing them dear: for on arriving at the place of embarkation, they were met by the Bey of Algiers, who charged them with great fury, and would have carried off a number of prisoners but for the timely arrival of De Sandé. Then the Turks no longer preserved even the form of a retreat; there was a general rush to the boats, the Christians pursuing the infidels even into the sea, where great numbers of the enemy were slain, or perished in the waters. This victory put the last stroke to the discomfiture of the pasha, and before sunset the sails of the Moslem fleet were seen sinking on the eastern horizon.
Such was the end of this memorable siege, which had lasted four months; the last of which may be said to have been little else than one continuousbattle.[47]It is said that when the news of the result was brought to Solyman, he tore the letter to fragments and trampled it under his feet, repeating the exclamation of Mahomet after the failure of his Rhodian expedition,—“My arms are invincible only in my own hands,”—and swearing to return in person the ensuing year, and put every Christian in the island to the sword. Nevertheless he thought it prudent to adopt a different policy to that usually practised by Ottoman sovereigns towards their officers, with whom failure was the certain forerunner of a disgraceful death. Following the precedent he had set himself after the retreat from Vienna, he proclaimed through Constantinople that Mustapha had met with a brilliant success, that he was bringing captive all the knights who had survived the slaughter; but that, as the Maltese rocks were unfit to maintain a garrison, the Ottoman clemency had been content with the destruction of the fortifications; so that should the Christian corsairs have the audacity to return, they would be at the mercy of his fleets, and would not fail to be again speedily “exterminated.”
Whatever may be thought of the truthfulness of the sultan’s proclamation of victory, there can be but little question that Malta, after the raising of the siege, resembled nothing less than a fortified city, and rather bore the resemblance of one which had been dismantled and destroyed. Full 200 knights, and more than 9000 soldiers and citizens, had perished during the three months of conflict; and at the moment when the enemy retired not 600 men of all ranks or classes were to be found within the city-walls. On the other hand the loss of the Turks was computed at 30,000 menamounting to nearly three-fourths of the original besieging army.
There was a joyful meeting between the Christian forces; for the chief and officers of the newly-arrived troops lost no time in proceeding to the borgo, where they were received by La Valette and his companions as their deliverers. Yet a proud and honest satisfaction was felt by the gallant defenders of the city, as they thought that they had won the victory for themselves; for the enemy’s fire had slackened, and his assaults had grown feebler every day, and he had fled from the walls ere certain intelligence had reached him of the landing of the succours. It was an affecting scene which was then witnessed in the ruined streets of the borgo. “The knights,” says Vertot, “embraced one another with a loving tenderness: but when they called to mind the loss of so many brave and illustrious men; when they looked around them and beheld the shattered state of the city, the walls and ramparts all shaken and destroyed, guns dismounted and houses overthrown, and saw, moreover, the pale and emaciated countenances of the inhabitants, the knights, and the grand master himself, with matted hair and beards, their dress dirty and disordered,—for many had never laid aside their clothes for months,—and the greater part of them covered with wounds, and with arms and heads bound up and bandaged, and the traces of suffering and privation on the faces of all,—none could restrain their tears at the touching spectacle; and while some wept in remembering their misfortunes, others shed tears of joy to think that Malta had at any rate been saved at last.”
The borgo received the new name ofVittoriosa; and a plan already occupied the mind of La Valette for securing the island against any fresh attacks, by laying the foundations of a new city whose defences should be impregnable. As to the joy which the news of the Christian success spread through Europe, it was of a nature impossible to describe. “At Rome,” saysVertot, “the day on which the news was announced was kept as a high festival; all public business was suspended; the courts of justice and the shops were closed; only the churches were open, and the people ran in crowds to thank God for the happy event.” As Innocent VIII. to D’Aubusson, so Pius IV. to La Valette made offer of the cardinalate; but the grand master in his humility declined the dignity, begging it might rather be bestowed on his brother, the Bishop of Vabres, for that he had himself grown old in the profession of arms. But, indeed, honours poured in upon La Valette on every side; and money too, to help forward the erection of the new capital. There was need of expedition, for rumours thickened fast of another armament in preparation at Constantinople for the last trial at “extermination;” and a singular dispensation for continuing work on all Sundays and festivals was granted by Pope Pius V. for the rapid completion of a city which was to be the bulwark of the Christian world. The first stone was laid on the 28th of March 1566, by the grand master in person, and bore the impress of a golden lion on a bloody field, which was his family device. “But,” says a modern writer, “it was Europe rather than the order, which gave to the young city the name ofLa Valetta.”[48]
Every year, on the 8th of September, the memory of the great deliverance was renewed by a solemn religious ceremony within the church of St. John: the victorious standard of the order was borne to the altar by a knight in the helmet and armour of the ages of Crusade,—for to Jerusalem was the lingering look of the Hospitallers still directed with a fond and sorrowful regret,—and by his side were carried the sword and poniard of La Valette, whose portrait was on that day publicly exhibited to the people. As the processionpassed into the church, and the standardwas laid at thefoot of the altar, the action was proclaimed by flourishes of trumpets and salvoes of artillery from the forts. Mass was said by the prior of the order; and while the gospel was being read the grand master held aloft the hero’s sword unsheathed, as though to notify to all Christendom, and to all the enemies of the faith, that the Knights of St. John were ever ready to do battle for the Cross.
The grand master did not long survive his triumph, or live to see the completion of his city; he received a stroke of the sun on a hot day in July, while engaged in his favourite diversion of hawking, and expired on the 21st of August 1568, retaining his consciousness to the last. “O my God!” he was heard frequently to exclaim, “send me one of Thy blessed angels to help me in this last hour.” A cloud of darkness gathered for a while over his soul, and he seemed wrestling for the first time in his life with the emotion of fear: he, who had met so many dangers with such serene intrepidity, and who slept with a pet lioness in his bed-chamber, trembled for a moment before the approach of death; but very soon the trouble passed, and a sweet tranquillity again appeared upon his countenance, as, devoutly pronouncing the names of Jesus and Mary, he departed without a struggle. He was buried in the chapel of Our Lady of Philermos within the church of St. Lawrence; but his body was afterwards removed to the new church of Our Lady of Victories, whose foundations he had himself begun as an offering of thanksgiving to the holy Mother of God.
With the siege of Malta our sketch of the order of Hospitallers, or rather of its struggles with the power of the Moslems in defence of Europe and of Christendom, must conclude. Its galleys continued to maintain their supremacy over the infidels on all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and bore a distinguished part in the victory of Lepanto, a notice of which will be given inanother page. After an existence of six centuries the order of St. John still preserved its sovereign character, up to that period when, in common with almost every other of the ancient institutions of Europe, it was swept away before the conquering arm of Buonaparte. Even now it may be styled dethroned rather than extinct;[49]and its restoration at some future day is at least no more visionary a dream than that which looks forward to the recall of other exiled and abeyant dynasties.
As a religious order it has one great claim upon our respect, namely, in having preserved to the last hour ofits existence the spirit of its original institute unchanged and unabated. In 1606 we find the Knights on the shores of Tunis still faithful to their old instinct of hospitality. A terrible tempest was destroying their galleys, and as they beat upon the rocks the Moors were on the watch to massacre those who escaped from the waves. Then did the Provençal, Vaucluse de Villeneuf, uphold the glory of his ancient name; and that of his order: “for,” says Goussancourt, “though he might have escaped in the galleys among the first, yet he chose to remain with the sick and wounded, carrying them on his shoulders, which was the cause of his being taken.” And down to a very late date we find the record of many whose noble confession of the Christian faith whilst in captivity won them the crown of martyrdom under most cruel tortures. The religious spirit was never wanting; and perhaps no more beautiful account of a Christian death-bed could be found than that given in a letter from the Père de la Croix, rector of the Jesuit College at Malta, in which he describes the last moments of two knights who died of their wounds received in a sea-fight on Saragossa in the year 1635. One of these, whom he calls “my good penitent the Chevalier Serviens,” was reckoned the most accomplished gentleman of his day. Such a term had unhappily in the seventeenth century a far different signification to that which would have attached to the words in earlier times; and yet the old meaning had not been forgotten among the Hospitallers of the Cross. Before departing on the enterprise in which he met with his death, Serviens had prepared himself by a general confession; “and his death,” says the good father, “was one which the most austere religious might well have cause to envy.” The other knight, who was wounded in the same fight, and died in the same room with his comrade, was La Roche Pichelle. “He was truly a saint,” writes the rector; “and to my knowledge had studied the interior life of perfection for four years, and that to such good purpose that he had outstrippedmany a Capuchin and Jesuit father in the progress he had made. These two friends lay side by side, assisting and consoling one another: they agreed together that whichever survived the longest should offer all his pains for the relief of his companion’s soul; and that the one who died first should in like manner offer all his prayers that the other might make a happy death. A little before his departure, Serviens called to his comrade, and asked him if he were ready to go, saying several times, ‘Let us go, let us go together;’ then he repeated theSalve Regina, and saluted his good angel; and at last took the crucifix in his hand, and repeated the prayerRespiceas it is wont to be said in Holy Week. When he had ended, he grasped my hand,” continues the rector, “saying, ‘Farewell, my father;’ I told him he should try to expire with the holy names upon his lips; whereupon he kissed his scapular, and ejaculating the names of Jesus and Mary gave up his soul to his Creator.”
Nor could the religious spirit of the order have been as yet decayed, when we find the edifying spectacle it presented in 1637, bringing back to the bosom of the Church a descendant of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in the person of Prince Frederic of Hesse. In the course of his travels through Italy he arrived at Malta, where he took such delight in the sight of so many young knights of all nations gathered together and living in perfect harmony and religious discipline one with another, that, returning to Rome, he implored the holy Pontiff, Urban VIII., to receive him into the true fold; after which he solicited and received the habit of St. John.
Again, in 1783, we find the Knights of Malta exhibiting their unalterable constancy to that sublime vocation which made Goussancourt declare, that “this order containeth within itself the perfection of all kinds of charity.” During the horrors of the great earthquake which destroyed the city of Messina, their generous and extraordinary exertions on behalf of the sufferersearned them a higher title to fame than was ever won on battle-field or on breach.
In the regret, therefore, with which we view the extinction of an institution whose name has been illustrious for so many ages, there mingles nothing of the contempt sometimes called forth by the fall of a dynasty which has derogated from its ancient fame. It was high-minded and chivalrous even amid the anarchy and confusion of the reign of terror. La Brilhane, the last ambassador of Malta at the court of France, was warned that his life was in danger. “I am under no apprehensions,” he loftily replied; “the moment is come at last, when a man of honour who faithfully performs his duty may die as gloriously on the gallows as he could ever have done on the field of battle.” And we can find no fitter words in which to give the epitaph of his order.