If I remember right, this great day was July 4 or 5, and it was hot as hell. The spokesman for the pro-submission band was one Nicolau de Sant Joan. Before he started speaking, he was already being applauded. He urged people to be quiet. Solemnity was one thing, at least, he wasn’t short of.
“When strength is lacking, the natural thing is to consider the moral impossibility of resistance against power. Christian law and the law of nature both teach us, and persuade us, not to expose to the ultimate rigors of war our temples, those people of vulnerable age, those people whose lives are devoted to God. The fury of military license is no respecter of churches; nor does it have consideration for those of tender years; nor does it leave intact the sanctuary of virginity.”
At this point he was interrupted by a loud laugh. “Nor do we! Bring us a virgin, and we’ll show you how it’s done!”
It was Peret, of course. His impertinence, so inappropriate at that moment, confused Sant Joan. The Red Pelts were none too happy. “Rascals! Rebels! Silence!”
Sant Joan resumed his speech. “Our country finds itself between Castile and France; the ports to the sea, shut off by the French navy. As for the English, who have handed us over, we should feel apprehension and legitimate misgivings. So I ask you: Where does the king, our lord, have an army naval force superior to those two powers to bring us assistance? And even if they did arrive, what sums of money could he allocate to our aid, considering the war under way on the Rhine?”
“What we need are fewer rich people lining their pockets, and more cojones, you dunderhead!” shouted Peret. There were plenty of people behind him: “Boooo, boooo!”
“Enough! Rascals, rascals! Out of the hall! Out!”
Those words came from the Red Pelts’ claque, who were stamping their feet and waving their arms around. To the Red Pelts, common people were little better than riffraff who served only to get in the way between their office and the wise decisions they made. But they forgot that not everyone of their class thought the same way. And among them, sticking out like a beacon anchored in a desert, was one Ferrer. Emmanuel Ferrer.
Ferrer was a member of the minor nobility, but very popular because of the way he had distinguished himself in the administration of the city. This human rat addressing you now may have as much the makings of a hero about him as a horseshoe, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recognize those qualities, in all their magnitude, when they appear over the horizon. Ferrer lived a comfortable, peaceful life; he was wealthy and he was happy. He had nothing to gain from voting for resistance, and everything to lose. As soon as he spoke, he would have committed himself openly to one side, and when the Bourbons arrived, they would come after him with all their despotic bile.
When his turn came, Ferrer stood up and said: “I have a question: Is Catalonia any different now from what she used to be? Do our laws and privileges not give us the ability to oppose the Castilians who want unjustly to oppress us? What reason does the Bourbon have for oppressing us so severely, wanting to make our open and free people into a nation that is subjugated and enslaved? So who could possibly agree to Castilian vanity and violence being enthroned over the Catalans, that we should serve in the same ignominy they force upon the Indians?”
“You’re all crazy, irresponsible!” replied those on the side of the Red Pelts. “You’re going to bring our whole nation to ruin!”
I should like to be impartial. I would never say that the noblemen who voted to submit were all corrupt. By no means. There were more than reasonable justifications for not offering resistance. We had been abandoned; we were being attacked by the entire might of the Two Crowns, the French and Spanish empires combined. Voting for a negotiated solution, however little we might expect from such a thing at this point, did not necessarily imply serving Little Philip.
Ferrer invoked the name of the king of Portugal, a kingdom that was fearful of following the Catalans down the same route and who surely would help us; if we resisted, Emperor Charles wouldn’t be able to wash his hands of us without his international prestige being tarnished. England had signed a long-standing agreement; the Catalan ambassadors were traveling around all the courts of Europe arguing the case for a people who wanted nothing more than that most basic of rights: survival.
He was interrupted several times. Ferrer remained deaf to the voices of friends and enemies alike. He went over Catalonia’s history, of the pernicious dynastic alliance with Castile, and continued: “For all these reasons, let us at once take up arms and raise our flags, let us enlist soldiers without a moment’s delay. May the Fidelísimos Brazos Generales, our three honorable branches, use all the authority that God has placed in their hands; may they immediately draw up manifests to make our justice and our proceeding absolutely clear to all of Europe, and let our enemies discover to their cost that the spirit and honor of the Catalan nation has not declined a jot.”
Deep down, though, not even Ferrer was very hopeful. It was such a desperate play that it could almost have been mistaken for a noble suicide.
“May our nation meet her end with glory,” he went on, “for a glorious end is worth more than accepting demands and violence the likes of which even the Moors were never guilty of.”
My dear vile Waltraud interrupts me here, raising her great head like a cow who can’t find her pasture and asking, again and again, what my own opinions were at that time. They were not of the least significance, but very well, I shall summarize them.
My point of view sought to be as dispassionate as possible, and this was it: Both sides were right. To submit would mean losing the liberties that had ruled us for a thousand years, being transformed into one more province of Castile and its empire, sharing its people’s yoke, suffering merciless repression. Resisting, as the Red Pelts kept proclaiming, meant ruin and massacre. We were faced with a choice between two options, each as bad as the other.
There was a vote. Submission won. By a sizable majority. Ferrer gave a leap, went over to the secretary with the small bell, and insisted that his name be noted, that there be a specific record of his vote against. It was like signing his own death warrant. When the Bourbons arrived, that would be evidence enough to hang him. And yet other nobles got to their feet and went to follow Ferrer’s example!
I was amazed. Why would people do such a thing?
We ought to examine the other side of the coin, too. Just as admirable or even more so, strange though it may seem. Because there were noblemen like Francesc Alemany, Baldiri Batlle, Lluís Roger, or Antoni València, whose consciences led them to vote for submission, and so they did. Later, things would take a turn. And they fought. They followed the will of the majority, setting aside their personal opinions in favor of the general good. Waltraud asks me why I have tears in my eyes. I can tell you: because these men, who never chose resistance, fought unfaltering for a long year of siege. They acted in support of other people’s ideas, even those people who were opposed to them. And at dawn on September 11, 1714, they sacrificed their lives. All of them. I can see València now, attacking a wall of bayonets, saber in hand, swallowed up by a sea of white uniforms.
To give you some idea of the significance of the resolution, I’d say that the noblemen’s branch of the parliament was similar to that of the English lords. More important than the number of votes, it had an intangible moral weight, and it was very common that the people’s branch simply ratified their decisions.