The value of Goya’s war images is largely determined by their plausibility. This makes them visual referents for what happens in war. Neither their status as narrative nor the esteem in which they are currently held depend on whether or not they reflect lived experience, but at that time it must have imbued them with added value. Obviously, Goya could not have seen many of these events with his own eyes without risking his life, so we must conclude that he carried out an intellectual reconstruction on the basis of contemporary testimony. But it is equally certain that it is sometimes possible to consider these prints personal narratives of what he had seen, and the present work is the finest example of such an objective representation. Beginning with its title, I saw it, the image becomes a visual document of a witnessed event with Goya as its scribe, and this is reinforced by the following print, whose title reads: And this as well (Disaster 45) (G02375). Goya did much the same in one of the most dramatic prints from his Tauromaquia, adding I saw it to the handwritten title of his depiction of The Death of the Mayor of Torrejón. Regardless of whether this was mere narrative artifice, Goya may well have seen what is presented here, as the flight of the civilian population before the advance of French troops was customary during the war years. Contemporaneous artists never showed these scenes in their prints, perhaps because they did not serve to commemorate any kind of heroism, however Goya found them especially interesting, and he went so far as to dedicate five consecutive prints to them (Disasters 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45), thus presenting yet another facet of the people’s suffering. These works also contain elements that appear throughout the series, including a woman risking her own life to protect her children from impending danger. She is presented in a positive manner, in a luminous space that contrasts with the intensely defined figures in the shadows to her left, which are rendered with red chalk in the drawing, and etching in the engraving. A detailed analysis of both figures in the drawing reveals critical aspects of the population. Goya contrasts the woman and her children with society’s ruling class, those who first fled, leaving the defenseless population behind: the Church, represented by a priest; the landowners and municipal authorities, symbolized by the figure accompanying the clergyman. In his drawing, Goya characterizes the priest as an obese coward carrying the treasured ecclesiastical ornaments on his head. In the print, he makes the point even clearer by replacing the bundle on the priest’s head with a bag of money on his lap. Clergyman fleeing in panic also appear in earlier prints from this series, where members of diverse religious orders are shown traversing the countryside, escaping either the French advance or the disentailment decreed by the government of Joseph I. While the Disasters are characterized by the marked presence of human figures -they tend to occupy almost the entire composition, isolated from the minimally defined spaces around them- the background landscapes occasionally play a relevant role in defining their contexts. The present drawing and print are fine examples, calling for mention of the place from which the people are fleeing: a country house on the right, over which the ruins of a characteristic medieval castle preside. The latter’s barely erect towers somehow constitute a further allusion to the association of war with destruction (Text drawn from Matilla, J. M.: Yo lo ví, in: Goya en tiempos de Guerra, Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 298).