Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Part 4

The judge, rendered impatient, exclaimed, "Let us put an end to these trials which decide nothing. I summon you, sir, to tell me who you are.

I promise that your life will be safe if you answer me with sincerity.

"My greatest wish would be to give an answer to your satisfaction. I will, then, try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper; you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and tell you that I am a _t.i.tiretero_, (player of marionettes,) and that I practised at Lerida."

A loud shout of laughter from the mult.i.tude encircling us greeted this answer, and put an end to the questions.

"I swear by the d----l," exclaimed the judge, "that I will discover sooner or later who you are!"

And he retired.

The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory, understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed myself to be intimidated. At the close of the interview they came to kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.

I became their secretary for all the individual or collective remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable. Every day I was occupied in drawing up pet.i.tions, especially in the name of the two ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near relation of the Emperor of Morocco. Astonished at the rapidity with which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite to transcribe pa.s.sages from the Koran; and that this would form both for me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me, in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.

Very little rea.s.sured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of safety from another quarter.

I was the possessor of a safe-conduct from the English Admiralty; I therefore wrote a confidential letter to the captain of an English vessel, The Eagle, I think, which had cast anchor some days before in the roads at Rosas. I explained to him my position. "You can," I said to him, "claim me, because I have an English pa.s.sport. If this proceeding should cost you too much, have the goodness at least to take my ma.n.u.scripts and to send them to the Royal Society in London."

One of the soldiers who guarded us, and in whom I had fortunately inspired some interest, undertook to deliver my letter. The English captain came to see me; his name was, if my memory is right, George Eyre. We had a private conversation on the sh.o.r.e. George Eyre thought, perhaps, that the ma.n.u.scripts of my observations were contained in a register bound in morocco, and with gilt edges to the leaves. When he saw that these ma.n.u.scripts were composed of single leaves, covered with figures, which I had hidden under my shirt, disdain succeeded to interest, and he quitted me hastily. Having returned on board, he wrote me a letter which I could find if needful, in which he said to me,--"I cannot mix myself up in your affairs; address yourself to the Spanish Government; I am persuaded that it will do justice to your remonstrance, and will not molest you." As I had not the same persuasion as Captain George Eyre, I chose to take no notice of his advice.

I ought to mention that some time after having related these particulars in England, at Sir Joseph Banks's, the conduct of George Eyre was severely blamed; but when a man breakfasts and dines to the sound of harmonious music, can he accord his interest to a poor devil sleeping on straw and nibbled by vermin, even though he have ma.n.u.scripts under his shirt? I may add that I (unfortunately for me) had to do with a captain of an unusual character. For, some days later, a new vessel, The Colossus, having arrived in the roads, the Norwegian, Captain Krog, although he had not, like me, an Admiralty pa.s.sport, made an application to the commander of this new ship; he was immediately claimed, and relieved from captivity.

The report that I was a Spanish deserter, and proprietor of the vessel, acquiring more and more credit, and this position being the most dangerous of all, I resolved to get out of it. I begged the commandant of the place, M. Alloy, to come to receive my declaration, and I announced to him that I was French. To prove to him the truth of my words, I invited him to send for Pablo Blanco, the sailor in the service of the corsair who took us, and who had returned from his cruise a short time before. This was done as I wished. In disembarking, Pablo Blanco, who had not been warned, exclaimed with surprise: "What! you, Don Francisco, mixed up with all these miscreants!" The sailor gave the Governor circ.u.mstantial evidence as to the mission which I fulfilled with two Spanish commissaries. My nationality thus became proved.

That same day Alloy was replaced in the command of the fortress by the Irish Colonel of the Ultonian regiment; the corsair left for a fresh cruise, taking away Pablo Blanco; and I became once more the roving merchant from Schwekat.

From the windmill, where we underwent our quarantine, I could see the tricoloured flag flying on the fortress of Figueras. The reconnoitring parties of the cavalry came sometimes within five or six hundred metres; it would not then have been difficult for me to escape. However, as the regulations against those who violate the sanitary laws are very rigorous in Spain, as they p.r.o.nounce the penalty of death against him who infringes them, I only determined to make my escape on the eve of our admission to pratique.

The night being come I crept on all-fours along the briars, and I should soon have got beyond the line of sentinels who guarded us. A noisy uproar which I heard among the Moors made me determine to reenter, and I found these poor people in an unspeakable state of uneasiness, thinking themselves lost if I left; I therefore remained.

The next day a strong picquet of troops presented itself before the mill. The manoeuvres made by it inspired all of us with anxiety, but especially Captain Krog.[3] "What will they do with us?" he exclaimed.

"Alas! you will see only too soon," replied the Spanish officer. This answer made every one believe that they were going to shoot us. What might have strengthened me in this idea was the obstinacy with which Captain Krog and two other individuals of small size hid themselves behind me. A handling of arms made us think that we had but a few seconds to live.

In a.n.a.lyzing 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 reflected 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 fortress 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 quant.i.ty of pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread. I imitated him. I furnished myself famously from our old stock, set it on my shoulder, and it was with this accoutrement that I made my entrance into the famous fortress.

They placed us in a casemate, where we had barely the s.p.a.ce necessary for lying down. In the windmill, they used to bring us, from time to time, some provisions, which came from our boat. Here, the Spanish government purveyed our food. We received every day some bread and a ration of rice; but as we had no means of dressing food, we were in reality reduced to dry bread.

Dry bread was very unsubstantial food for one who could see from his casemate, at the door of his prison, a sutler selling grapes at two farthings a pound, and cooking, under the shelter of half a cask, bacon and herrings; but we had no money to bring us into connection with this merchant. I then decided, though with very great regret, to sell a watch which my father had given me. I was only offered about a quarter of its value; but I might well accept it, since there were no compet.i.tors for it.

As possessors of sixty francs, M. Berthemie and I could now appease the hunger from which we had long suffered; but we did not like this return of fortune to be profitable to ourselves alone, and we made some presents, which were very well received by our companions in captivity.

Though this sale of my watch brought some comfort to us, it was doomed at a later period to plunge a family into sorrow.

The town of Rosas fell into the power of the French after a courageous resistance. The prisoners of the garrison were sent to France, and naturally pa.s.sed through Perpignan. My father went in quest of news wherever Spaniards were to be found. He entered a cafe at the moment when a prisoner officer drew from his fob the watch which I had sold at Rosas. My good father saw in this act the proof of my death, and fell into a swoon. The officer had got the watch from a third party, and could give no account of the fate of the person to whom it had originally belonged.

The casemate having become necessary to the defenders of the fortress, we were taken to a little chapel, where they deposited for twenty-four hours those who had died in the hospital. There we were guarded by peasants who had come across the mountain, from various villages, and particularly from Cadaques. These peasants, eager to recount all that they had seen of interest during their one day's campaign, questioned me as to the deeds and behaviour of all my companions in misfortune. I satisfied their curiosity amply, being the only one of the set who could speak Spanish.

To enlist their good will, I also questioned them at length upon the subject of their village, on the work that they did there, on smuggling, their princ.i.p.al sources of employment, &c. &c. They answered my questions with the loquacity common to country rustics. The next day our guards were replaced by some others who were inhabitants of the same village. "In my business of a roving merchant," I said to these last, "I have been at Cadaques;" and then I began to talk to them of what I had learnt the night before, of such an individual, who gave himself up to smuggling with more success than others, of his beautiful residence, of the property which he possessed near the village,--in short, of a number of particulars which it seemed impossible for any but an inhabitant of Cadaques to know. My jest produced an unexpected effect. Such circ.u.mstantial details, our guards said to themselves, cannot be known by a roving merchant; this personage, whom we have found here in such singular society, is certainly a native of Cadaques; and the son of the apothecary must be about his age. He had gone to try his fortune in America; it is evidently he who fears to make himself known, having been found with all his riches in a vessel on its way to France. The report spread, became more consistent, and reached the ears of a sister of the apothecary established at Rosas. She runs to me, believes she recognizes me, and falls on my neck. I protest against the ident.i.ty. "Well played!"

said she to me; "the case is serious, as you have been found in a vessel coming to France; persist in your denial; circ.u.mstances may perhaps take a more favourable turn, and I shall profit by them to insure your deliverance. In the mean time, my dear nephew, I will let you want for nothing." And truly every morning M. Berthemie and I received a comfortable repast.

The church having become necessary to the garrison to serve as a magazine, we were moved on the 25th of September, 1808, to a Trinity fort, called the _Bouton de Rosas_, a citadel situated on a little mountain at the entrance of the roads, and we were deposited deep under ground, where the light of day did not penetrate on any side. We did not long remain in this infected place, not because they had pity upon us, but because it offered shelter for a part of the garrison attacked by the French. They made us descend by night to the edge of the sea, and then transported us on the 17th of October to the port of Palamos. We were shut up in a hulk; we enjoyed, however, a certain degree of liberty;--they allowed us to go on land, and to parade our miseries and our rags in the town. It was there that I made the acquaintance of the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, mother of Louis Philippe. She had left the town of Figueras, where she resided, because, she told me, thirty-two bombs sent from the fortress had fallen in her house. She was then intending to take refuge in Algiers, and she asked me to bring the captain of the vessel to her, of whom, perhaps, she would have to implore protection. I related to my "_ras_" the misfortunes of the Princess; he was moved by them, and I conducted him to her. On entering, he took off his slippers from respect, as if he had entered within a mosque, and holding them in his hand, he went to kiss the front of the dress of Madame d'Orleans. The Princess Was alarmed at the sight of this manly figure, wearing the longest beard I ever saw; she quickly recovered herself, and the interview proceeded with a mixture of French politeness and Oriental courtesy.

The sixty francs from Rosas were expended. Madame D'Orleans would have liked much to a.s.sist us, but she was herself without money. All that she could gratify us with was a piece of sugarbread. The evening of our visit I was richer than the Princess. To avoid the fury of the people the Spanish Government sent those French who had escaped the first ma.s.sacres back to France in slight boats. One of the _cartels_ came and cast anchor by the side of our hulk. One of the unhappy emigrants offered me a pinch of snuff. On opening the snuff-box I found there "_una onza de oro_," (an ounce of gold,) the sole remains of his fortune. I returned the snuff-box to him, with warm thanks, after having shut up in it a paper containing these words:--"My fellow-countryman who carries this note has rendered me a great service;--treat him as one of your children." My pet.i.tion was naturally favourably received; it was by this bit of paper, the size of the _onza de oro_, that my family learnt that I was still in existence, and it enabled my mother--a model of piety--to cease saying ma.s.ses for the repose of my soul.

Five days afterwards, one of my hardy compatriots arrived at Palamos, after having traversed the line of posts both French and Spanish, carrying to a merchant who had friends at Perpignan the proposal to furnish me with all I was in need of. The Spaniard showed a great inclination to agree to the proposal; but I did not profit by his good will, because of the occurrence of events which I shall relate presently.

The Observatory at Paris is very near the barrier. In my youth, curious to study the manners of the people, I used to walk in sight of the public-houses which the desire of escaping payment of the duty has multiplied outside the walls of the capital; on these excursions I was often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger.

I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain circ.u.mstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his heart. Here is the fact which suggested these reflections to me.

To celebrate the unhoped-for arrival of _una onza de oro_, M. Berthemie and I had procured an immense dish of potatoes. The ordnance officer of the Emperor was already devouring it with his eyes, when a Moroccan, who was making his ablutions near us with one of his companions, accidentally filled it with dirt. M. Berthemie could not control his anger; he darted upon the clumsy Mussulman, and inflicted upon him a rough punishment.

I remained a pa.s.sive spectator of the combat, until the second Moroccan came to the aid of his compatriot. The party no longer being equal, I also took part in the conflict by seizing the new a.s.sailant by the beard. The combat ceased at once, because the Moroccan would not raise his hand against a man who could write a pet.i.tion so rapidly. This conflict, like the struggles of which I had often been a witness outside the barriers of Paris, had originated in a dish of potatoes.

The Spaniards always cherished the idea that the ship and her cargo might be confiscated; a commission came from Girone to question us. It was composed of two civil judges and one inquisitor. I acted as interpreter. When M. Berthemie's turn came, I went to fetch him, and said to him, "Pretend that you can only talk Styrian, and be at ease; I will not compromise you in translating your answers."

It was done as we had agreed; unfortunately the language spoken by M.

Berthemie had but little variety, and the _sacrement der Teufel_, which he had learnt in Germany, when he was aide-de-camp to Hautpoul, predominated too much in his discourse. Be that as it may, the judges observed that there was too great a conformity between his answers and those which I had made myself, to render it necessary to continue an interrogatory, which I may say, by the way, disturbed me much. The wish to terminate it was still more decided on the part of the judges, when it came to the turn of a sailor named Mehemet. Instead of making him swear on the Koran to tell the truth, the judge was determined to make him place his thumb on the forefinger so as represent the cross. I warned him that great offence would thus be given; and, accordingly, when Mehemet became aware of the meaning of this sign, he began to spit upon it with inconceivable violence. The meeting ended at once.

The next day things had wholly changed their appearance; one of the judges from Girone came to declare to us that we were free to depart, and to go with our ship wherever we chose. What was the cause of this sudden change? It was this.

During our quarantine in the windmill at Rosas, I had written, in the name of Captain Braham, a letter to the Dey of Algiers. I gave him an account of the illegal arrest of his vessel, and of the death of one of the lions which the Dey had sent to the Emperor. This last circ.u.mstance transported the African monarch with rage. He sent immediately for the Spanish Consul, M. Onis, claimed pecuniary damages for his dear lion, and threatened war if his ship was not released directly. Spain had then to do with too many difficulties to undertake wantonly any new ones, and the order to release the vessel so anxiously coveted arrived at Girone, and from thence at Palamos.

This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the 28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Ma.r.s.eilles; but, as the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Ma.r.s.eilles, when a gust of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the south.

I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin, overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed themselves to be off the Baleares, we landed, on the 5th of December, at Bougie.

There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named _sandalis_, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side planks close to which I was pa.s.sing. This suggested to me the thought of going to Algiers by land.

I went next day, accompanied by M. Berthemie and Captain Spiro Calligero, to the Cad of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul would make a complaint to the Dey, and I should have my head cut off."

"Fear not on that ground. I will give you an acquittance."

It was immediately drawn up in these terms: "We, the undersigned, certify that the Cad of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to Algiers by land; that he has a.s.sured us that we shall be ma.s.sacred on the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty times, we have persisted in our project. We beg the Algerine authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for this event if it should occur. We once more repeat, that the voyage has been undertaken against his will.

_Signed_: ARAGO and BERTHeMIE."

Having given this declaration to the Cad, we considered ourselves quit of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word, the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket. All this was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even the wish, to reclaim it.

At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty "piastres fortes," and a red mantle. The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.

I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had been equally my companions in misfortune.[4] These monkeys during our frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged themselves in our hair.

Poor animals! they seemed to me very unfortunate in being shut up in the narrow enclosure of the vessel, when, on the neighbouring coast, other monkeys, as if to bully them, came on to the branches of the trees, giving innumerable proofs of their agility.

At the commencement of the day, we saw on the road two Kabyls, similar to the soldiers of Jugurtha, whose harsh appearance powerfully allayed our fancy for wandering. In the evening we witnessed a fearful tumult, which appeared to be directed against us. We learnt afterwards that the Mahomedan priest had been the object of it; that it originated with some Kabyls whom he had disarmed on one of their journeys to Bougie. This incident, which appeared likely to be repeated, inspired us for a moment with the thought of returning; but the sailors were resolute, and we continued our hazardous enterprise.