Calle de Palafox

The name recalls José de Palafox y Melci (Zaragoza, 1775 - Madrid, 1847), the soldier who became a symbol of Spanish resistance to the Napoleonic invasion. In May 1808, as the French advanced on the Ebro valley, the people of Zaragoza stormed the Captaincy palace and proclaimed Palafox ruler of the city, though he was barely thirty-two. Under his command, Zaragoza withstood two sieges. The second, in 1809, was a catastrophe of hunger, typhus, and bombardment, with tens of thousands dead before the surrender. From those months comes the phrase stitched to his name. When the besiegers offered capitulation with a curt note, “Peace and capitulation,” the city’s answer was just as brief: “War to the knife.” Captured after the fall, he spent years imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes; back in Spain, he received the title of Duke of Zaragoza. His remains rest today in the Basilica del Pilar.