50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



selves behind me. A handling of arms made us think 

 that we had but a few seconds to live. 



In analyzing the feelings which I experienced on this 

 solemn occasion, I have come to the conclusion that the 

 man who is led to death is not as unhappy as the public 

 imagines him to be. Fifty ideas presented themselves 

 nearly simultaneously to my mind, and I did not rack my 

 brain for any of them ; I only recollect the two following, 

 which have remained engraved on my memory. On 

 turning my head to the right, I saw the national flag 

 flying on the bastions of Figueras, and I said to myself, 

 " If I were to move a few hundred metres, I should be 

 surrounded by comrades, by friends, by fellow citizens, 

 who would receive me affectionately. Here, without 

 their being able to impute any crime to me, I am going 

 to suffer death at twenty-two years of age." But what 

 agitated me more deeply was this : looking towards the 

 Pyrenees, I could distinctly see their peaks, and I re- 

 flected that my mother, on the other side of the chain, 

 might at this awful moment be looking peaceably at them. 



The Spanish authorities, finding that to redeem my 

 life I would not declare myself the owner of the vessel, 

 had us conducted without farther molestation to the for- 

 tress of Rosas. Having to file through nearly all the 

 inhabitants of the town, I had wished at first, through a 

 false feeling of shame, to leave in the mill the remains 

 of our week's meals. But M. Berthemie, more prudent 

 than I, carried over his shoulder a great quantity of 

 pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread. I imi- 

 tated him. I furnished myself famously from our old 

 stock, set it on my shoulder, and it was with this ac- 

 coutrement that I made my entrance into the famous 

 fortress. 



