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.