JК
Sharpes Escape :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 181 из 283A handful of telescopes were saved, for such things were valued, but the larger instruments, too long to carry, were destroyed, while an unparalleled set of finely ground lenses, cushioned by velvet in a cabinet of wide, shallow drawers, was systematically broken. One room was filled with chronometers, all being tested, and they were reduced to bent springs, cogwheels and shattered cases. A fine assembly of fossils was pounded to shards and a collection of minerals, a lifetime's work carefully catalogued into quartzes and spars and ores, was scattered from a window. Fine porcelain was shattered, pictures torn from their frames and if most of the library was spared that was only because there were too many volumes to be destroyed. Some men nevertheless tried, pulling rare books from the shelves and tearing them apart, but they soon got bored and contented themselves with smashing some fine Roman vases that stood on gilded pediments. There was no sense in it, except the anger that the soldiers felt. They hated the Portuguese and so they took their revenge on what their enemy valued.
Coimbra's Old Cathedral had been built by two Frenchmen in the twelfth century and now other Frenchmen whooped with delight because so many women had taken shelter close to its altars. A handful of men tried to protect their wives and daughters, but the muskets fired, the men died and the screaming began. Other soldiers shot at the gilded high altar, aiming at the carved saints guarding the sad-faced Virgin. A six-year-old child tried to pull a soldier off his mother and had his throat cut, and when a woman would not stop screaming a sergeant cut her throat as well. In the New Cathedral, up the hill, voltigeurs took it in turns to piss into the baptismal font and, when it was full, they christened the girls they had captured in the building, giving them all the same name, Putain , which meant whore. A sergeant then auctioned the weeping girls, whose hair dripped with urine.
In the church of Santa Cruz, which was older than the Old Cathedral, the troops found the tombs of Portugal's first two kings. The beautifully sculpted sepulchers were wrenched apart, the coffins shattered and the bones of Alfonso the Conqueror, who had liberated Lisbon from the Muslims in the twelfth century, were hauled from their winding cloth and thrown across the floor. His son, Sancho I, had been buried in a white linen shift edged with cloth of gold, and an artilleryman ripped the shroud away and draped it about his shoulders before dancing on the remnants of the corpse. There was a gold cross studded with jewels in Sancho's tomb and three soldiers fought over it. One died, and the other two hacked the cross apart and shared it.
Coimbra's Old Cathedral had been built by two Frenchmen in the twelfth century and now other Frenchmen whooped with delight because so many women had taken shelter close to its altars. A handful of men tried to protect their wives and daughters, but the muskets fired, the men died and the screaming began. Other soldiers shot at the gilded high altar, aiming at the carved saints guarding the sad-faced Virgin. A six-year-old child tried to pull a soldier off his mother and had his throat cut, and when a woman would not stop screaming a sergeant cut her throat as well. In the New Cathedral, up the hill, voltigeurs took it in turns to piss into the baptismal font and, when it was full, they christened the girls they had captured in the building, giving them all the same name, Putain , which meant whore. A sergeant then auctioned the weeping girls, whose hair dripped with urine.
In the church of Santa Cruz, which was older than the Old Cathedral, the troops found the tombs of Portugal's first two kings. The beautifully sculpted sepulchers were wrenched apart, the coffins shattered and the bones of Alfonso the Conqueror, who had liberated Lisbon from the Muslims in the twelfth century, were hauled from their winding cloth and thrown across the floor. His son, Sancho I, had been buried in a white linen shift edged with cloth of gold, and an artilleryman ripped the shroud away and draped it about his shoulders before dancing on the remnants of the corpse. There was a gold cross studded with jewels in Sancho's tomb and three soldiers fought over it. One died, and the other two hacked the cross apart and shared it.