About ninety Notables had now assembled at Bayonne, including those who had been decoyed thither with Ferdinand. A much greater number had been convoked; but some dared not undertake the journey, for fear of the people, who would justly have regarded them as traitors for obeying the summons; and others engaged heartily in the national cause. The Bishop of Orense, D. Pedro Quevedo y Quintana, was one of the persons whom the Junta of Government had summoned; and he declined obedience in a letter of calm and dignified remonstrance, which produced as much effect upon the people as the most animated military address, and which those who hoped or affected to hope for any melioration of the state of Spain by Buonaparte’s means could not have perused without a sense of shame. Impressive as this composition was, it derived additional weight from the character of the writer, for the Bishop of Orense was one of those prelates whose truly Christian virtues are the proudest boast and the truest glory of the Catholic church. During the dreadful years of the French revolution he received into his palace three hundred of the emigrant clergy: there he lodged and supported them, and lived with them at the same table, refusing to partake of any indulgence himself which could not be extended to these numerous guests. It was not possible for him, he said, infirm as he was, and at the age of seventy-three, to undertake so long a journey upon so sudden a notice. But bearing in mind the good of the nation, and the intentions of the Emperor, who desired to be as it were its angel of peace, its tutelary spirit, ... he would take the opportunity of saying to the Junta, and through them to the Emperor, what, if he were in person at Bayonne, he should there have said and protested. The business there to be treated is of remedying evils, repairing injuries, improving the condition of the nation and the monarchy: ... but upon what bases? Is there any approved means for doing this, any authority recognized by the nation? Will she enslave herself, and by that means expect her safety? Are there not diseases which are aggravated by medicine, and of which it has been said, _tangant vulnera sacra nullæ manus_? And does it not appear that those of the Royal Family are of this kind, and have they not been so aggravated by the treatment which they have received from their powerful protector, the Emperor Napoleon, that their case is now desperate? The Royal Family had been sent into the interior of France, ... of that country which had banished it for ever; sent back to its primitive cradle, it found a grave there by a cruel death, where its elder branch was cruelly cut off by an insane and sanguinary revolution. And this having been done, what could Spain hope for? Would her cure be more favourable? The means and the medicines did not promise it. He proceeded to say, that the abdications made at Bayonne could not be believed, and appeared to be impossible;