They placed us in a casemate, where we had barely the space 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 competitors 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 passed 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 principal 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