AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 1G5 



toward me, had now no words but those of rudeness and distrust. 

 There occurred on the pier where the mistic was moored a riotous 

 movement, which Vacaro assured nie was directed against me. "Do 

 not be uneasy," said he to me; "if they shoukl penetrate into the ves- 

 sel, you can hide yourself in this trunk." I made the attempt, but the 

 chest which he showed me was so small that my legs were entirely out- 

 side, and the cover could not be shut down. I understood perfectl.y 

 what that meant, and I asked M. Vacaro to let me also be shut up in 

 the castle of Belver. The order for incarceration having arrived from 

 the captain general, I got into the boat, where the sailors of the mistic 

 received me with emotion. 



At the moment of their crossing the harbor, the poi^ulace perceiv^ed 

 me, commenced a pursuit, and it was not without much ditnculty that 

 I reached Belver safe and sound. I had only, indeed, received on mj^ 

 way one slight wound from a dagger in the thigh. Prisoners have 

 often been seen to run with all speed /ro/« their dungeon; I am the 

 first, perhaps, to whom it has happened to do the reverse. This took 

 place on the 1st or 2d of June, ISOS. 



The gov^ernor of Belver was a very extraordinary personage; if he is 

 still alive, he may demand of me a certificate as to his i)riority to the 

 modern hydropathists. The grenadier captain maintained that pure 

 water, suitably administered, was a means of treatment for all illnesses, 

 even for amj)utations; by listening very patiently to his theories, and 

 never interrupting him, I won his good opinion. It was at his request, 

 and from interest in our safety, that a Swiss garrison replaced the 

 Spanish troop which, until then, had been employed as the guard of 

 Belver. It was also through him that I one day learned that a monk 

 had proposed to the soldiers who went to bring my food from the town, 

 to jiut some poison into one of the dishes. 



All my old Mnjorcan friends had abandoned me at the moment of ray 

 detention. I had had a very sharp correspondence with Don Manuel 

 de Vacaro, in order to obtain the restitution of the passport of safety 

 which the English admiralty had granted tons. M. Kodriguez alone 

 ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me every consolation 

 in his power. 



The excellent M. Eodriguez, to while away the monotony of my 

 incarceration, remitted to me, from time to time, the journals which 

 were then published at different parts of the Peninsula. He often sent 

 them to me without reading them. Once I saw in these journals the 

 recital of the horrible massacres of which the town of Valencia — I make 

 a mistake, the square of the hull-fights — had been the theater, and in 

 which nearly the whole of the French established in this town (mor<j 

 than three hundred and fifty) had disappeared under the pike of the 

 bull-fighter. Another journal contained an article bearing this title, 

 "Eelacion de la ahorcadura del Seiior Arago e del Seuor Berthemie" — 

 literally, "Account of the Execution of M. Arago and M. Berthemie." 



