Biographies of distinguished scientific men. First series

by F. Arago

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 pronounced 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 ass, 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 quantity 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 passed 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 principal 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 superstition 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 Marseilles, 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. "Reassure 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 superstitious 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 passions, would be capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear mass, 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 mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, an instant before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these exact words: "We have permission to say mass 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 assure 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 mass, 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 mass, 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 assassinations, who lived quietly there, guaranteed against all pursuit by the sanctity of the place. I wished to assure 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 assassin 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 cöoperation of the inhabitants of the villages near our stations, it was desirable for us to be recommended to the priests. We went, therefore,—M. Lanusse, 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. Lanusse 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.