MY REPORTED EXECUTION. 37 



1 



All my old Majorcan friends had abandoned me at the 

 moment of my detention. I had had a very sharp cor- 

 respondence with Don Manuel de Vacaro in order to 

 obtain the restitution of the passport of safety which the 

 English Admiralty had granted to us. M. Rodriguez 

 alone ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me 

 every consolation in his power. 



The excellent M. Rodriguez, to while away the mo- 

 notony 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 Bull- 

 fights had been the theatre, and in which nearly the 

 whole of the French established in this town (more than 

 350) had disappeared under the pike of the bull-fighter. 

 Another journal contained an article bearing this title : 

 " Relacion de la ahorcadura del senor Arago e del senor 

 Berthemie," literally, "Account of the execution of M. 

 Arago and M. Berthemie." This account spoke of the 

 two executed men in very different terms. M. Berthemie 

 was a Huguenot ; he had been deaf to all exhortations ; 

 he had spit in the face of the ecclesiastic who was pres- 

 ent, and even on the image of Christ. As for me, I 

 had conducted myself with much decency, and had 

 allowed myself to be hung without giving rise to any 

 scandal. The writer also expressed his regret that a 

 young astronomer had been so weak as to associate 

 himself with treason, coming under the disguise of sci- 

 ence to assist the entrance of the French army into a 

 friendly kingdom. 



After reading this article I immediately made my de- 



