EPISODES OF 1848 AT PARIS AND MADRID. 123 



Ionia during a period of disturbance and revolution, 

 I was on excellent terms with the Eoyal Family, the 

 Government, and the generals of different parties. 

 After having satisfied myself that there was nothing 

 to fear on the French side of the frontier, I went to 

 fetch my family at Barcelona, and we started for 

 Madrid by way of the Catalonian mountains, where 

 civil war hud prevailed for the last twenty years, and 

 which were still occupied by bands of insurgents, 

 Carlists, smugglers, and brigands. I was asked if I 

 should like to have an escort, but it would have done 

 more harm than good. So I started with my wife and 

 children. Every now and then a group of horsemen 

 would pull up at a certain distance from us, and one 

 of them would come forward to the carriage and ask 

 who I was. Upon my telling him he rode back to 

 his companions, and they at once made off. 



In this way I reached Saragossa, where M. Charles 

 Yalois, the first secretary of the Embassy, had pre- 

 ceded me, and thence I reached Madrid upon the day 

 following a mutiny of two regiments, which Marshal 

 Narvaez, Duke of Valencia, had succeeded in quell- 

 ing, after seeing General Fulgosio, Governor of Ma- 

 drid, and several officers of his staff killed at the 

 beginning of the revolt. I had scarcely taken up my 

 residence at the French Embassy when I was called 

 up in the middle of the night and told 'that a lady, 

 thickly veiled, was waiting in my study to see me. I 

 came down at once and recognised her as soon as she 



