I of course disclaimed not only all right to direct them, but all knowledge of the subject, telling them that I had merely cast the soldier from me in defence of my own property, and that I was not aware what patriots they spoke of at Lerida, or what tyrants at Barcelona. "What!" cried one of the young men, with a look divided between surprise and incredulity; "do you not know that the inhabitants of Lerida have risen, and cast off the yoke of the Castilian tyrants? Do you not know the glorious news, that they have beat the mercenary soldados of Castile through every street of the city wherever they dared to make a stand, till the few that escaped have shut themselves up in the citadel? Do you pretend not to know that they have well avenged the death of the poor youth that the bloody-minded slaughterers fired off last night from a cannon's mouth? Pshaw! you know it well enough; and we know too, that it is with arms and ammunition from France, that all this has been done: so, '_Viva la Francia! Viva el Francés!_'" It was in vain I protested my ignorance of the whole; they were determined to believe me an agent of the French government, and nothing I could say had any effect in persuading them to the contrary. The only means I could devise for extricating myself from the unpleasant situation in which I was placed, without violating the truth, was to tell them, that I was going on myself to Barcelona, but that I thought the best thing they could do, would be to remain quiet till they heard more particularly from Lerida, taking care to be prepared for whatever event might occur. They received this advice as if it had come from the Delphic Oracle. "Yes, yes, he is right," cried one; "we will wait for orders from Lerida."--"He will get to Barcelona before the Castilian now!" cried a second: "Quick! saddle the cavalier's horse!"--"Send us off a despatch as soon as all is safe at Barcelona," cried a third; but to this last I did not think fit to make any reply, as I had not the least intention of complying with the request. All was soon ready to set out, but a sudden difficulty delayed me some time, which was, that when about to depart, I could nowhere discover Monsieur Achilles Lefranc, whom I had left up stairs sound asleep. To leave the poor little man alone, in a country, the language of which was as unknown to him as Hebrew, was a piece of cruelty I could not think of committing. I was nevertheless nearly obliged to do so, for after looking for him in vain in the room where he had slept, and in every other place I could think of, with the assistance of half a dozen Spaniards, men, women, and children, he was drawn out from below the bed, where he had ensconced himself on hearing the sound of a musket, with the various shouts of the Spaniards in the street.