Manuel Garcia was in his eleventh year when the tragedy took place, and in after years would recall the sensation which the gruesome incident made among the Neapolitans. Almost immediately after Murat's death the Neapolitans found cause for great affliction and terror in the appearance of the plague, which seemed to them almost a judgment from Heaven. The epidemic had only ceased a few months in Malta when it broke out again in Dalmatia, spreading thence from place to place, till it attacked the inhabitants of Cadiz at one extremity of the Mediterranean and Constantinople at the other. At the same time it reached Noia, a small city of Puglia, situated on the Adriatic. Eagerness for gain by men carrying on illicit trade caused its introduction with some goods from Dalmatia. The first death occurred on November 23, 1815, but a cordon was not placed round the city till six weeks later; traffic went on as usual, people left the city and returned, and merchandise was carried into the provinces and as far as Naples. Fortune, however, or divine providence, saved the kingdom and Italy, for out of the number of men and quantity of goods leaving Noia, none happened to be infected. At last, on January 1, precautionary measures were taken, and the unhappy city was surrounded by three circuits of ditches, one at a distance of sixty paces, the next at ninety, and the third, which was rather a boundary-line than a barrier, at ten miles. Sentries were placed along these, and numerous fires lighted up the country at night. Whoever dared to attempt passing the line was punished with death; and more than one case is recorded of a poor wretch, maddened with the horrors of the town, rushing across the boundary-line, only to fall instantly under the musket-fire of the soldiers. Throughout the winter the Garcias, in common with the other inhabitants of Naples, lived in constant fear that the plague might break out in the town. Since, with the coming of spring, the danger showed little sign of ceasing, the elder Garcia determined to leave the country and remove with his family to Paris, from which he had been more than four years absent. It must have been just about the time of their departure that the theatre in which the tenor had been appearing during four successive seasons was destroyed by fire.