"Reasoning with such a mob as that," said he, as he went on, "is as vain as talking to the winds or the seas. The only way of managing them, is to leave them in possession of all their prejudices and follies, but to turn those prejudices and follies to the best purposes one can. You see that cart, Monsieur de l'Orme, with its great clumsy wheels, which are not half so good as the light wheels that we have in Navarre and Arragon, but if I wanted to send a load quickly to the port, I would not think of sitting down to take off those wheels--to make lighter, and to put them on--but would, of course, make use of the cart as I found it. Thus, when you want to guide a multitude, never attempt to give them new ideas, but take advantage of those which they have already got." We had now arrived at the viceregal palace; and, leaving Garcias to make what arrangements he thought proper for the accommodation of the five hundred men which he had brought with him from Lerida, and for organizing the people of Barcelona into a sort of irregular militia, the insurrectionary council repaired to the great hall, and, with the corregidor and alcayde, sat till midnight, deciding on the fate of all those persons that the various parties of the armed multitude thought fit to bring before it. The task was somewhat a severe one; for every person that did not know another brought him before the council, if he could, and if he could not he was himself brought. Their zeal, however, in this respect, began to slacken as night fell; and it was only the more resolute and exasperated part of the insurgents that continued their perquisitions for Castilians, and other suspected persons, patrolling the streets of the city in bodies of tens and twelves, and making every one they met give an account of himself and his occupations. As it was the sincere wish of every member of the council to allay the popular fury, and stop the effusion of blood, various extraordinary shifts were we obliged to make for the purpose of saving many of the poor wretches that were brought before us, from the more inveterate and bloodthirsty of the insurgents. The part we had to play was certainly a very difficult one; for we were surrounded by men over whom we had not the check of long established control, and whose inflamed passions and long-smothered revenge was not half quenched with all the gore that had already drenched the streets of Barcelona. Blood was still their cry, and they contrived to find out almost every individual who had been in any way connected with the Castilian government of the province, and drag him before us. Our very principal object was to check their indiscriminate cruelty, and yet, if we refused in every instance to gratify them in their revenge, it was likely we should annul our own authority, and that the populace would betake themselves again to the massacres which we sought to prevent.