Memoir ofArmand Carrel. 131 



England, indeed, then gave Mina and his heroic followers all the 

 support which resolutions at public meetings could convey ; but the 

 government of the country lent them no assistance, while that of 

 France sent an army to put them down. The noble efforts of the 

 Spanish constitutionalists were thus checked in the bud, and every 

 vestige of freedom again disappeared from their unfortunate country. 

 Tyranny, however, was not re-established without a struggle, in 

 which the Legion Liberate Etrangere fully bore its share. But all 

 the heroic efforts of Mina and of this brigade were unavailing; and 

 the Legion, after two sanguinary engagements at Barcelona and 

 Llera with the French troops, were obliged to capitulate on the 

 field of battle, after having there lost two-thirds of its number. In 

 these engagements Carrel especially distinguished himself, exhibit- 

 ing a far higher degree of military knowledge than most of those 

 who had assumed ranks superior to his own ; and it was not until all 

 the French, who formed part of the Legion, had been included in 

 the capitulation on the same terms as the other foreigners and 

 Spaniards, that he consented to lay down his sword. 



The principal terms of this capitulation were, that the troops 

 should be prisoners-of-war, their officers retaining all the baggage 

 which they were possessed of previous to the action ; those who 

 were foreigners were to be treated in the same way as the Spanish 

 constitutional forces, to whom an amnesty had been granted, while 

 the general of the French troops especially undertook to obtain from 

 his king pardon for all the Frenchmen who were in the Legion. 

 This capitulation, as far as it related to its subjects, was afterwards 

 shamefully broken by the French government, which not only refused 

 to ratify the terms of its general, but ordered Carrel and the rest of 

 his countrymen to be tried by a court-martial for carrying arms 

 against France ! for such was the designation which the ministry 

 gave to the conduct of men whose only crime was supporting the 

 cause of liberty in another country, and who had the misfortune to be 

 obliged by their duty, and the improper intervention of the French 

 government, to draw their swords against their own countrymen. 



The proceedings of this court-martial were marked by that gross 

 injustice and oppression, by which trials of this description, and 

 indeed of every other, were then, and are still, characterized in 

 France. In that country the judges, instead of being the dignified 

 and impartial dispensers of justice, degrade themselves by insulting 

 and browbeating their prisoners. Their conduct more resembles 

 that of a counsel for the prosecution than of an upright judge. They 

 appear to be the mere minions of the government; and were equally 

 so on the occasion of the court-martial on Carrel and his comrades 

 in the days of Louis XVIII., as'they were in the more recent civil 

 trials of Fieschi with his associates, and Alibaud, for their attempts 

 on the life of Louis Philippe. We mention together the subjects of 

 these different trials, not because they have the slightest connexion 

 with each other, (for Carrel committed no crime), while the offences 

 of the others were of the deepest dye. Still less do we allude to it 

 with the view of palliating the atrocious conduct of the assassins ; 

 but we are of opinion, and we feel assured that every Englishman 



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