1G2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



baviug come liere aud iiifiiuged 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 fiimily had 

 made him a monk against his will. lie related to me one day, before M. 

 Biot, (then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get 

 cured of his fever,) some i)articulars 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 alight 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 1 employed myself with ardor in this negotiation, in 

 which I had the happiness to succeed. There were here, as must be 

 seen, the materials for a chief of gucrilleros. I should be much aston- 

 ished if my young monk did not play his part in the war of indepen- 

 dence. 



The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that reli- 

 gion was, with the Carthusian monks of the Desierto de las Valmas^ not 

 the consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of super- 

 stitious practices. 



The scene with the gun, always i^resent to my mind, seemed to make it 

 clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his i)assions, Avould 

 be capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, 1 had a very disagree- 

 able 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 him- 

 self to say mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, 

 an instant before the consecration. Father Trivulce, turning toward 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 as- 

 sure 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 it indecent to give this invitation in the middle 

 of the mass, but because, besides, I must own I conceived the thought 

 for a moment that the monks wished, by poisoning me, to reveng 

 themselves on me for M. Biot having insulted them. I found that I was 



