My friend there inquired the name of the Bishop’s substitute, or _Vicar General_; and, with an agreeable surprise, we learnt that it was Señor Valenzuela. We instantly recognised one of our fellow students at the University of Seville. He had been elected a Member of the Revolutionary Junta of Merida, and though not more confident of his influence over the populace than the rest of his colleagues, whom the present mob had reduced to a state of visible consternation, he instantly offered us his house as an asylum for the night, and engaged to obtain for us a passport for the remainder of the journey. In the mean time, the military commander of the place, attended by some of the magistrates, had promised the crowd to throw the young Frenchman into a dungeon, as he had done a few nights before with his own adjutant, against whom these very same recruits had risen on the parade, with so murderous a spirit, that though protected by a few regulars, they wounded him severely, and would have taken his life but for the interference of the Vicar, who, bearing the consecrated host in his hands, placed the officer under the protection of that powerful charm. The Frenchman was, accordingly, conducted to prison; but neither the soldiers nor the magistrates, who surrounded him, could fully protect him from the savage fierceness of the peasants, who crowding upon him, as half dead with terror, he was slowly dragged to the town gaol, stuck the points of their knives into several parts of his body. Whether he finally was sacrificed to the popular fury, or, by some happy chance, escaped with life, I have not been able to learn. Though not far from our journey’s end, we were by no means relieved from our fears and misgivings. Often were we surrounded by bands of reapers, who, armed with their sickles, made us go through the ordeal of a minute interrogatory. But what cast the thickest gloom on our minds was, the detailed account we received from an Alcalde, of the events which had taken place at Seville. A revolution, however laudable its object, is seldom without some features which nothing but distance of time or place, can soften into tolerable regularity. We were too well acquainted with the inefficiency of most of the men who had suddenly been raised into power, not to feel a strong reluctance to place ourselves under their government and protection. The only man of talents in the Junta of Seville was Saavedra, the ex-minister.[54] Dull ignorance, mixed with a small portion of inactive honesty, was the general character of that body. But a man of blood had found a place in it, and we could not but fear the repetition of the horrid scene with which he opened the revolution that was to give him a share in the supreme government of the province. [54] See Letter X.