34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



ornamented his pastoral ring. This idea, I must frankly 

 declare, had preoccupied me during the whole of the 

 visit. 



M. Biot having at last come to seek me again at Valen- 

 cia, where I expected, as I have before said, some new in- 

 struments, we went on to Formentera, the southern ex- 

 tremity of our arc, of which place we determined the 

 latitude. M. Biot quitted me afterwards to return to 

 Paris, whilst I made the geodesical junction of the island 

 of Majorca to Iviza, and to Formentera, obtaining thus, 

 by means of one single triangle, the measure of an arc 

 of parallel of one degree and a half. 



I then went to Majorca, to measure there the latitude 

 and the azimuth. 



At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered 

 by the entrance of the French into Spain, began to in- 

 vade the whole Peninsula and the islands dependent on 

 it. This ferment had as yet in Majorca only reached 

 to the ministers, the partisans, and the relations of the 

 Prince of Peace. Each evening, I saw, drawn in tri- 

 umph in the square of Palma, the capital of the island 

 of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames, sometimes 

 of the minister Seller, another 'time those of the bishop, 

 and even those of private individuals supposed to be 

 attached to the fortunes of the favourite Godoi. I was far 

 from suspecting then that my turn would soon arrive. 



My station at Majorca, the Clop de Galazo, a very 

 high mountain, was situated exactly over the port where 

 Don Jayme el Conquistator disembarked when he went 

 to deliver the Balearic Islands from the Moors. The 

 report spread itself through the population that I had 

 established myself there in order to favour the arrival of 

 the French army, and that every evening I made signals 



