134 Memoir of Armand Carrel. 



intrusive familiarity at a distance, and he soon made his abandoned 

 fellow-prisoners feel that, though an inmate of the same cell with 

 them, he was not their associate. Thus left alone with the small 

 library which his poverty had enabled him to bring with him origi- 

 nally from France, and which, though he had lost all his other pro- 

 perty, he had contrived to preserve amid his various vicissitudes, he 

 unconsciously laid the foundation of that knowledge and of those 

 resources with which he was so soon to astonish the world. His soli- 

 tude was less irksome than could be supposed, if we may judge by 

 the following affecting extract of a letter of his at this time, written 

 to a friend when he was transferred to Toulouse, to await the deci- 

 sion of the Court of Revision to which he had appealed. 



" When it was necessary that I should be removed to Toulouse, 

 General Rottemburg demurred in granting me a favour which is 

 not usually denied even to the greatest criminals, namely, the privi- 

 lege of being conveyed at my own expense ; and had it not been for 

 the intercession of some of the most distinguished inhabitants of 

 Perpignari, I should have been conducted from brigade to brigade 

 loaded with irons. At Toulouse, rigours before unknown were en- 

 dured by me ; but after eight days' suffering, a change took place 

 in the conduct of General Barbat, who commanded there ; he re- 

 lented ; and my situation has since been supportable and even happy ; 

 since sad experience has taught me, that it is happiness to see the sun 

 and inhale an atmosphere fit for breathing." 



The time now approached, when the fate of Carrel and the few of 

 his associates who like him had preferred death to dishonour, was to 

 be determined. The government had on one pretext or another 

 always postponed the reference of the appeal to the Court of Revision; 

 but, as the affair could no longer be protracted, this court was at last 

 commanded to meet for the purpose of hearing it. The trial of 

 Carrel came on first; as it was intended to make an example of him, 

 in consequence of his having refused to receive a pardon on condi- 

 tion of confessing himself a deserter, a monstrous falsehood and 

 humiliation to which he would not for a moment listen. He was also 

 himself anxious on this account, that he should be tried first; and he 

 had expressed a hope, that his death might be considered as an atone- 

 ment for his companions in misfortune. But the trial was not 

 destined to havejso gloomy a termination. The high Court of Revi- 

 sion was composed of officers who would not sacrifice their sense of 

 justice even to the wishes or the dictates of the government ; and 

 Carrel made such a splendid defence, that the tribunal without a 

 moment's hesitation pronounced his acquittal, the very gens-tfarmes 

 who guarded him being so led away by his eloquence that they threw 

 down their arms to applaud him. This latter circumstance affected 

 Carrel deeply ; and it may be doubted whether among all the tributes 

 of applause which were afterwards paid to his eloquence by men of 

 far higher rank, he cherished any half so cordially, as the rude and 

 almost involuntary acclamations of these unsophisticated soldiers. The 

 trial of the other prisoners was not proceeded with. The great 

 essay of the government to render a court of justice but a mockery, 

 and its officers the minions of their will, had been directed against 



