LITMIR.BIZ

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the black puddings." Had the pig lived one day more, or had there been no black puddings, I should certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should not have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers of Oropeza.

      Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the constituent assembly abolished the ancient division of France into provinces, and substituted its division into departments, than in traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The inhabitants of these three provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved with my instruments from one station to another. The Valencians, in particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling, inconsistent people. They were in the habit of saying to me, "En el reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres mugeres, las mugeres nada"; which may be translated thus: "In the kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are women, and women nothing."

      On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call them "schuros."

      Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at which his compatriots showed themselves so offended:

      "I do not know," said he, smiling cunningly at me, "whether I dare answer you." "Go on, go on," I said to him, "I can hear anything without being angry." "Well, the word schuros means that, to our great shame, we have sometimes been governed by French kings. The sovereign, before assuming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words lo Juro! As he did not know how to pronounce the J he said schuro. Are you satisfied, señor?" I answered him, "Yes, yes. I see that vanity and pride are not dead in this country."

      Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the class of individuals of both sexes destined to look after herds, appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry. The songs by which they endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European nations to which I have had access. I never recollect without surprise, that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain there squatting on the ground. When the storm was over and I came out from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of the rest:—

      A los que amor no saben

      Ofreces las dulzuras

      Y a mi las amarguras

      Que s'e lo quo es amar.

      Las gracias al me certé

      Eran cuadro de flores

      Te cantaban amores

      Por hacerte callar.

      Oh! how much sap there is in this Spanish nation! What a pity that they will not make it yield fruit!

      In 1807, the tribunal of the Inquisition existed still at Valencia, and at times performed its functions. The reverend fathers, it is true, did not burn people, but they pronounced sentences in which the ridiculous contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to go through all quarters of the town astride on an ass, her face turned towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a sticky substance, partly honey, they told me, to which adhered an enormous quantity of little feathers, so that to say the truth, the victim resembled a fowl with a human head. The procession, whether attended by a crowd I leave it to be imagined, stationed itself for some time in the cathedral square, where I lived. I was told that the sorceress was struck on the back a certain number of blows with a shovel; but I do not venture to affirm this, for I was absent at the moment when this hideous procession passed before my windows.

      We thus see, however, what sort of spectacles were given to the people in the commencement of the nineteenth century, in one of the principal towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university, and the native country of numerous citizens distinguished by their knowledge, their courage, and their virtues. Let not the friends of humanity and of civilization disunite; let them form, on the contrary, an indissoluble union, for superstition is always on the watch, and waits for the moment again to seize its prey.

      I have mentioned in the course of my narrative that two Carthusians often left their convent in the Desierto de las Palmas, and came, though prohibited, to see me at my station, situated about two hundred metres higher. A few particulars will give an idea of what certain monks were, in the Peninsula, in 1807.

      One of them, Father Trivulce, was old; the other was very young. The former, of French origin, had played a part at Marseilles, in the counter-revolutionary events of which this town was the theatre, at the commencement of our first revolution. His part had been a very active one; one might see the proof of this in the scars of sabre cuts which furrowed his breast. It was he who was the first to come. When he saw his young comrade march up, he hid himself; but as soon as the latter had fully entered into conversation with me, Father Trivulce showed himself all at once. His appearance had the effect of Medusa's head. "Reassure yourself," said he to his young compeer; "only let us not denounce each other, for our prior is not a man to pardon us for having come here and infringed our vow of silence, and we should both receive a punishment, the recollection of which would long remain." The treaty was at once concluded, and from that day forward the two Carthusians came very often to converse with me.

      The youngest of our two visitors was an Aragonian, his family had made him a monk against his will. He related to me one day, before M. Biot, (then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get cured of his fever,) some particulars which, according to him, proved that in Spain there was no longer more than the ghost of religion. These details were mostly borrowed from the secrets of confession. M. Biot manifested sharply the displeasure which this conversation caused him; there were even in his language some words which led the monk to suppose that M. Biot took him for a kind of spy. As soon as this suspicion had entered his mind, he quitted us without saying a word, and the next morning I saw him come up early, armed with a light gun. The French monk had preceded him, and had whispered in my ear the danger that threatened my companion. "Join with me," he said, "to turn the young Aragonian monk from his murderous project." I need scarcely say that I employed myself with ardour in this negotiation, in which I had the happiness to succeed. There were here, as must be seen, the materials for a chief of guerilleros. I should be much astonished if my young monk did not play his part in the war of independence.

      The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that religion was, with the Carthusian monks of the Desierto de las Palmas, not the consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of superstitious practices.

      The scene with the gun, always present to my mind, seemed to make it clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his passions, would be capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear mass, I met this monk, who, without saying a word, conducted me by a series of dark corridors into a chapel where the daylight penetrated only by a very small window. There I found Father Trivulce, who prepared himself to say mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, an instant before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these exact words: "We have permission to say mass with white wine; we therefore make use of that which we gather from our own vines: this wine is very good. Ask the prior to let you taste it, when on leaving this you go to breakfast with him. For the rest, you can assure yourself this instant of the truth of what I say to you." And he presented me the goblet to drink from. I resisted strongly, not only because I considered

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