1828.] Don Alonso. 15 
touching his hat, and advancing from the post at which he had continued 
immoveable, descended so far from his future dignity as to ask, first humbly, 
then more loudly, for his perquisite as ostler. On my refusal, his mother 
followed me with imprecations: she took care to call me cursed Frenchman ! 
in the hope of exciting the mob against me. Some dragoons then hastened to 
hold my stirrup as I mounted. A brigadier offered me an escort through 
the mountains, infested, he said, with banditti and wolves. The ornaments 
on their helmets were broken; and their clothes were ragged. The diversity 
of materials, colours, and fashion, increased their uncouthness ; some wore old 
tattered French. uniforms, stripped from. the dead ten years before. These 
miserable defenders of a great nation, when they saw that I did not accept 
their proposal of escorting me, informed me that they had received no pay 
during the eighteen months preceding. The constitution, said they, was 
about to discharge the debts of the country, but hitherto it had not had time 
to do so; and the Holy Virgin would reward me for what I might give them. 
I blushed as I relieved each modern Belisarius ; and I set out compassionat- 
ing Spanish liberty for the melancholy inheritance which absolute power had 
left it.” 
The colouring in the preceding descriptions is doubtless overcharged ; 
but not so much as might be supposed. No man who has travelled in 
Spain will soon forget the inns at which he has called. Not only are the 
inmates too idle or too proud to serve him, but his accommodations are of 
such a description that he envies the poorest peasant in the bog huts of 
Ireland. Yet he is obliged to pay as much for his sorry cheer, as he 
would were he in the comparatively comfortable inns in the southern 
provinces of France. 
The zeal with which a great portion of the regular clergy promoted 
the constitutional cause, and inculcated the most violent hatred against 
the French invaders, would really surpass belief, did not the very cate- 
chism exist that was put into the hands of almost every child in the 
Peninsula. We have not, indeed, been able to see a copy of it; but, 
from what we have heard of its contents, we do not think the questions 
which our author professes to have extracted from it, in the least degree 
exaggerated.* Weare much mistaken if the following specimen do not 
th surprise and divert the reader. A curate, in one of the wildest parts 
Spain, is examining some rustics in this national catechism. He first 
dresses a little boy :— 
“© Q. Tell me, my dear, what art thou?—‘ A. A Spaniard, by the grace 
of God. —* Q. How many duties has a Spaniard?’—‘ 4. Three To be a 
Roman Catholic ; to defend his holy religion, country, and king ; to die rather 
than be defeated..—* Q How many natures has the emperor ?’ 
© Here Zacharias looked confused ; he had forgotten his answer, and none 
around him could prompt him. ‘Two,’ said the curate: ‘ the devil’s and 
. All the Castilians present devoutly repeated what most of them had 
otten. 
e The curate then addressed himself to a young man who was playing on a 
musical instrument. 
«<< Q. Angel, who is the enemy of our happiness ?’—‘ A. The French Em- 
peror,’ replied the musician, without raising his eyes, or ceasing to beat the 
measure with his hands and feet.—* Q. Who are the French ?’—‘ A. Anciently, 
Christians, but now, heretics. —‘ Q. How many emperors are there ?’—‘A. One 
in three perfidious persons. —‘ Q. Who are they?’—‘ A. Napoleon, Murat, 
and Godoy.’—* Q. Is one more wicked than another ?’—‘ A. No, father, they 
are all equally so..—‘ Q. From whom does Napoleon proceed ?’—* A. From 
* See the Memoir of M. de Naylies on the Spanish War. 
