the walls without giving them time to lay a train for blowing us up.  I saw that it was necessary to change the mode of attack, and directed some trees to be cut down and trimmed, to be used as battering rams.  Two of these were taken up by detachments of men, as numerous as could work to advantage, and brought to bear upon the walls with all the power they could exert, while the troops kept up a fire to protect them from the fire poured upon them from the walls.  Presently the walls began to tremble, a breach was made, and the Imperial troops rushed into the Inquisition.  Here we met with an incident, which nothing but Jesuitical effrontery is equal to.  The Inquisitor General, followed by the father confessors in their priestly robes, all came out of their rooms, as we were making our way into the interior of the Inquisition, and with long faces, and arms crossed over their breasts, their fingers resting on their shoulders, as though they had been deaf to all the noise of the attack and defence, and had just learned what was going on, they addressed themselves in the language of rebuke to their own soldiers, saying, “Why do you fight our friends, the French?”

Their intention, no doubt, was to make us think that this defence was wholly unauthorized by them, hoping, if they could make us believe that they were friendly, they should have a better opportunity, in the confusion of the moment, to escape.  Their artifice was too shallow, and did not succeed.  I caused them to be placed under guard, and all the soldiers of the Inquisition to be secured as prisoners.  We then proceeded to examine all the rooms of the stately edifice.  We passed through room after room; found all perfectly in order, richly furnished, with altars and crucifixes, and wax candles in abundance, but we could discover no evidences of iniquity being practiced there, nothing of those peculiar features which we expected to find in an Inquisition.  We found splendid paintings, and a rich and extensive library.  Here was beauty and splendor, and the most perfect order on which my eyes had ever rested.  The architecture, the proportions were perfect.  The ceilings and floors of wood were scoured and highly polished.  The marble floors were arranged with a strict regard to order.  There was everything to please the eye and gratify a cultivated taste; but where were those horrid instruments of torture, of which we had been told, and. where those dungeons in which human beings were said to be buried alive?  We searched in vain.  The holy father assured us that they had been belied; that we had seen all; and I was prepared to give up the search, convinced that this Inquisition was different from others of which I had heard.