Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Part 2

The next day the captain-general, Don Domingo Izquierdo, related to me that a man had been found crushed on the road to Murviedro. I gave him an account of the prowess of Isidro's mule, and no more was said.

One anecdote, taken from among a thousand, will show what an adventurous life was led by the delegate of the _Bureau of Longitude_.

During my stay on a mountain near Cullera, to the north of the mouth of the river Xucar, and to the south of the Albufera, I once conceived the project of establishing a station on the high mountains which are in front of it. I went to see them. The alcaid of one of the neighbouring villages warned me of the danger to which I was about to expose myself.

"These mountains," said he to me, "form the resort of a band of highway robbers." I asked for the national guard, as I had the power to do so.

My escort was supposed by the robbers to be an expedition directed against them, and they dispersed themselves at once over the rich plain which is watered by the Xucar. On my return I found them engaged in combat with the authorities of Cullera. Wounds had been given on both sides, and, if I recollect right, one alguazil was left dead on the plain.

The next morning I regained my station. The following night was a horrible one; the rain fell in a deluge. Towards night, there was knocking at my cabin door. To the question "Who is there?" the answer was, "A custom-house guard, who asks of you a shelter for some hours."

My servant having opened the door to him, I saw a magnificent man enter, armed to the teeth. He laid himself down on the earth, and went to sleep. In the morning, as I was chatting with him at the door of my cabin, his eyes flashed on seeing two persons on the slope of the mountain, the alcaid of Cullera and his princ.i.p.al alguazil, who were coming to pay me a visit. "Sir," cried he, "nothing less than the grat.i.tude which I owe to you, on account of the service which you have rendered to me this night, could prevent my seizing this occasion for ridding myself, by one shot of this carabine, of my most cruel enemy.

Adieu, sir!" And he departed, springing from rock to rock as light as a gazelle.

On reaching the cabin, the alcaid and his alguazil recognized in the fugitive the chief of all the brigands in the country.

Some days afterwards, the weather having again become very bad, I received a second visit from the pretended custom-house guard, who went soundly to sleep in my cabin. I saw that my servant, an old soldier, who had heard the recital of the deeds and behaviour of this man, was preparing to kill him. I jumped down from my camp bed, and, seizing my servant by the throat,--"Are you mad?" said I to him; "are we to discharge the duties of police in this country? Do you not see, moreover, that this would expose us to the resentment of all those who obey the orders of this redoubted chief? And we should thus render it impossible for us to terminate our operations."

Next morning, when the sun rose, I had a conversation with my guest, which I will try to reproduce faithfully.

"Your situation is perfectly known to me; I know that you are not a custom-house guard; I have learnt from certain information that you are the chief of the robbers of the country. Tell me whether I have any thing to fear from your confederates?"

"The idea of robbing you did occur to us; but we concluded that all your funds would be in the neighbouring towns; that you would carry no money to the summit of mountains, where you would not know what to do with it, and that our expedition against you could have no fruitful result.

Moreover, we cannot pretend to be as strong as the King of Spain. The King's troops leave us quietly enough to exercise our industry; but on the day that we molested an envoy from the Emperor of the French, they would direct against us several regiments, and we should soon have to succ.u.mb. Allow me to add, that the grat.i.tude which I owe to you is your surest guarantee."

"Very well, I will trust in your words; I shall regulate my conduct by your answer. Tell me if I can travel at night? It is fatiguing to me to move from one station to another in the day under the burning influence of the sun."

"You can do so, sir; I have already given my orders to this purpose; they will not be infringed."

Some days afterwards, I left for Denia; it was midnight, when some hors.e.m.e.n rode up to me, and addressed these words to me:--

"Stop there, senor; times are hard; those who have something must aid those who have nothing. Give us the keys of your trunks; we will only take your superfluities."

I had already obeyed their orders, when it came into my head to call out--"But I have been told, that I could travel without risk."

"What is your name, sir?"

"Don Francisco Arago."

"_Hombre! vaya usted con Dios_ (G.o.d be with you)."

And our cavaliers, spurring away from us, rapidly lost themselves in a field of "algarrobos."

When _my friend_ the robber of Cullera a.s.sured me that I had nothing to fear from his subordinates, he informed me at the same time that his authority did not extend north of Valencia. The banditti of the northern part of the kingdom obeyed other chiefs; one of whom, after having been taken, was condemned and hung, and his body divided into four quarters, which were fastened to posts, on four royal roads, but not without their having previously been boiled in oil, to make sure of their longer preservation.

This barbarous custom produced no effect; for scarcely was one chief destroyed before another presented himself to replace him.

Of all these brigands those had the worst reputation who carried on their depredations in the environs of Oropeza. The proprietors of the three mules, on which M. Rodriguez, I, and my servant were riding one evening in this neighbourhood, were recounting to us the "grand deeds"

of these robbers, which, even in full daylight, would have made the hair of one's head stand on end, when, by the faint light of the moon, we perceived a man hiding himself behind a tree; we were six, and yet this sentry on horseback had the audacity to demand our purses or our lives: my servant, at once answered him--"You must then believe us to be very cowardly; take yourself off, or I will bring you down by one shot of my carabine." "I will be off," returned the worthless fellow "but you will soon hear news of me." Still full of fright at the remembrance of the stories which they had just been relating, the three "arieros" besought us to quit the high road and cast ourselves into a wood which was on our left. We yielded to their proposal; but we lost our way. "Dismount,"

said they, "the mules have been obeying the bridle and you have directed them wrongly. Let us retrace our way as far as the high road, and leave the mules to themselves, they will well know how to find their right way again." Scarcely had we effected this manoeuvre, which succeeded marvellously well, when we heard a lively discussion taking place at a short distance from us. Some were saying: "We must follow the high road, and we shall meet with them." Others maintained that they must get into the wood on the left. The barking of the dogs, by which these individuals were accompanied, added to the tumult. During this time we pursued our way silently, more dead than alive. It was two o'clock in the morning. All at once we saw a faint light in a solitary house; it was like a light-house for the mariner in the midst of the tempest, and the only means of safety which remained to us. Arrived at the door of the farm, we knocked and asked for hospitality. The inmates, very little rea.s.sured, feared that we were thieves, and did not hurry themselves to open to us.

Impatient at the delay, I cried out, as I had received authority to do so, "In the name of the King, open to us!" They obeyed an order thus given; we entered pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules, into the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor; and we hurried to extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the suspicions of the bandits who were seeking for us. Indeed, we heard them, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing near the house, vociferating with the whole force of their lungs against their unlucky fate. We did not quit this solitary house until broad day, and we continued our route for Tortosa, not without having given a suitable recompense to our hosts. I wished to know by what providential circ.u.mstance they happened to have a lamp burning at that unseasonable hour. "We had killed a pig," they told me, "in the course of the day, and we were busy preparing the black puddings." Had the pig lived one day more, or had there been no black puddings, I should certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should not have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers of Oropeza.

Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly abolished the ancient division of France into provinces, and subst.i.tuted its division into departments, than in traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The inhabitants of these three provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved with my instruments from one station to another. The Valencians, in particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling, inconsistent people. They were in the habit of saying to me, "_En el reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres mugeres, las mugeres nada_"; which may be translated thus: "In the kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are women, and women nothing."

On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call them "_schuros_."

Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at which his compatriots showed themselves so offended:

"I do not know," said he, smiling cunningly at me, "whether I dare answer you." "Go on, go on," I said to him, "I can hear anything without being angry." "Well, the word _schuros_ means that, to our great shame, we have sometimes been governed by French kings. The sovereign, before a.s.suming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words _lo Juro!_ As he did not know how to p.r.o.nounce the J he said _schuro_. Are you satisfied, senor?" I answered him, "Yes, yes. I see that vanity and pride are not dead in this country."

Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the cla.s.s of individuals of both s.e.xes destined to look after herds, appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry. The songs by which they endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European nations to which I have had access. I never recollect without surprise, that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain there squatting on the ground. When the storm was over and I came out from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of the rest:--

A los que amor no saben Ofreces las dulzuras Y a mi las amarguras Que s'e lo quo es amar.

Las gracias al me certe Eran cuadro de flores Te cantaban amores Por hacerte callar.

Oh! how much sap there is in this Spanish nation! What a pity that they will not make it yield fruit!

In 1807, the tribunal of the Inquisition existed still at Valencia, and at times performed its functions. The reverend fathers, it is true, did not burn people, but they p.r.o.nounced sentences in which the ridiculous contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to go through all quarters of the town astride on an a.s.s, her face turned towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a sticky substance, partly honey, they told me, to which adhered an enormous quant.i.ty of little feathers, so that to say the truth, the victim resembled a fowl with a human head. The procession, whether attended by a crowd I leave it to be imagined, stationed itself for some time in the cathedral square, where I lived. I was told that the sorceress was struck on the back a certain number of blows with a shovel; but I do not venture to affirm this, for I was absent at the moment when this hideous procession pa.s.sed before my windows.

We thus see, however, what sort of spectacles were given to the people in the commencement of the nineteenth century, in one of the princ.i.p.al towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university, and the native country of numerous citizens distinguished by their knowledge, their courage, and their virtues. Let not the friends of humanity and of civilization disunite; let them form, on the contrary, an indissoluble union, for superst.i.tion is always on the watch, and waits for the moment again to seize its prey.

I have mentioned in the course of my narrative that two Carthusians often left their convent in the _Desierto de las Palmas_, and came, though prohibited, to see me at my station, situated about two hundred metres higher. A few particulars will give an idea of what certain monks were, in the Peninsula, in 1807.

One of them, Father Trivulce, was old; the other was very young. The former, of French origin, had played a part at Ma.r.s.eilles, in the counter-revolutionary events of which this town was the theatre, at the commencement of our first revolution. His part had been a very active one; one might see the proof of this in the scars of sabre cuts which furrowed his breast. It was he who was the first to come. When he saw his young comrade march up, he hid himself; but as soon as the latter had fully entered into conversation with me, Father Trivulce showed himself all at once. His appearance had the effect of Medusa's head.

"Rea.s.sure yourself," said he to his young compeer; "only let us not denounce each other, for our prior is not a man to pardon us for having come here and infringed our vow of silence, and we should both receive a punishment, the recollection of which would long remain." The treaty was at once concluded, and from that day forward the two Carthusians came very often to converse with me.

The youngest of our two visitors was an Aragonian, his family had made him a monk against his will. He related to me one day, before M. Biot, (then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get cured of his fever,) some particulars which, according to him, proved that in Spain there was no longer more than the ghost of religion. These details were mostly borrowed from the secrets of confession. M. Biot manifested sharply the displeasure which this conversation caused him; there were even in his language some words which led the monk to suppose that M.

Biot took him for a kind of spy. As soon as this suspicion had entered his mind, he quitted us without saying a word, and the next morning I saw him come up early, armed with a light gun. The French monk had preceded him, and had whispered in my ear the danger that threatened my companion. "Join with me," he said, "to turn the young Aragonian monk from his murderous project." I need scarcely say that I employed myself with ardour in this negotiation, in which I had the happiness to succeed. There were here, as must be seen, the materials for a chief of _guerilleros_. I should be much astonished if my young monk did not play his part in the war of independence.

The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that religion was, with the Carthusian monks of the _Desierto de las Palmas_, not the consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of superst.i.tious practices.

The scene with the gun, always present to my mind, seemed to make it clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his pa.s.sions, would be capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear ma.s.s, I met this monk, who, without saying a word, conducted me by a series of dark corridors into a chapel where the daylight penetrated only by a very small window. There I found Father Trivulce, who prepared himself to say ma.s.s for me alone. The young monk a.s.sisted. All at once, an instant before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these exact words: "We have permission to say ma.s.s with white wine; we therefore make use of that which we gather from our own vines: this wine is very good. Ask the prior to let you taste it, when on leaving this you go to breakfast with him. For the rest, you can a.s.sure yourself this instant of the truth of what I say to you." And he presented me the goblet to drink from. I resisted strongly, not only because I considered it indecent to give this invitation in the middle of the ma.s.s, but because, besides, I must own I conceived the thought for a moment that the monks wished, by poisoning me, to revenge themselves on me for M.

Biot having insulted them. I found that I was mistaken, that my suspicions had no foundation; for Father Trivulce went on with the interrupted ma.s.s, drank, and drank largely, of the white wine contained in one of the goblets. But when I had got out of the hands of the two monks, and was able to breathe the pure air of the country, I experienced a lively satisfaction.

The right of asylum accorded to some churches was one of the most obnoxious privileges among those of which the revolution of 1789 rid France. In 1807, this right still existed in Spain, and belonged, I believe, to all the cathedrals. I learnt, during my stay at Barcelona, that there was, in a little cloister contiguous to the largest church of the town, a brigand,--a man guilty of several a.s.sa.s.sinations, who lived quietly there, guaranteed against all pursuit by the sanct.i.ty of the place. I wished to a.s.sure myself with my own eyes of the reality of the fact, and I went with my friend Rodriguez into the little cloister in question. The a.s.sa.s.sin was then eating a meal which a woman had just brought him. He easily guessed the object of our visit, and made immediately such demonstrations as convinced us that, if the asylum was safe for the robber, it would not be so long for us. We retired at once, deploring that, in a country calling itself civilized, there should still exist such crying, such monstrous abuses.

In order to succeed in our geodesic operations, to obtain the cooperation of the inhabitants of the villages near our stations, it was desirable for us to be recommended to the priests. We went, therefore,--M. La.n.u.sse, the French Vice-Consul, M. Biot, and I,--to pay a visit to the Archbishop of Valencia, to solicit his protection. This archbishop, a man of very tall figure, was then chief of the Franciscans; his costume more than negligent, his gray robe, covered with tobacco, contrasted with the magnificence of the archiepiscopal palace. He received us with kindness, and promised us all the recommendations we desired; but, at the moment of taking leave of him, the whole affair seemed to be spoiled. M. La.n.u.sse and M. Biot went out of the reception room without kissing the hand of his grace, although he had presented it to each of them very graciously. The archbishop indemnified himself on my poor person. A movement, which was very near breaking my teeth, a gesture which I might justly call a blow of the fist, proved to me that the chief of the Franciscans, notwithstanding his vow of humility, had taken offence at the want of ceremony in my fellow visitors. I was going to complain of the abrupt way in which he had treated me, but I had the necessities of our trigonometrical operations before my eyes, and I was silent.

Besides this, at the instant when the closed fist of the archbishop was applied to my lips, I was still thinking of the beautiful optical experiments which it would have been possible to make with the magnificent stone which 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 Valencia, where I expected, as I have before said, some new instruments, we went on to Formentera, the southern extremity of our arc, of which place we determined the lat.i.tude. 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 lat.i.tude and the azimuth.

At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered by the entrance of the French into Spain, began to invade 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 triumph in the square of Palma, the capital of the island of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames, sometimes of the minister Soller, another time those of the bishop, and even those of private individuals supposed to be attached to the fortunes of the favourite G.o.do. 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.