"Thanks to this medicine and nourishment, the disease did not make headway, and the apoplectic attacks ceased; but I remained crippled in the right leg, deaf in the right ear, paralysed in the left cheek and the sight of my right eye was almost lost. In addition to all this I was a prey to violent pains in the head and constant buzzing. "It was an odd spectacle that I was called upon to witness, a struggle taking place in myself between a strong constitution and powers bent obstinately on my destruction. "We had now been nearly fifteen months prisoners at Taranto, and were of sufficient importance to be talked of about the town. The authorities began to shrink at the thought of the scandal our death would raise. All their attempts at poisoning had leaked out in the town, and the patriots loudly denounced the shameful treatment to which I had been subjected. It was therefore decided between the marquis de la Squiave and the agents of the King of Naples at Taranto to transfer us to the maritime castle of Brindisi. This extraordinary arrangement was carefully hidden from us; but in spite of the strictest secrecy the patriots were warned of the move, and three or four of them made us understand, by gestures when passing in front of our windows, that we were to be transferred to another prison and assassinated on the way. "I called Manscourt to tell him the news I had gathered; but we thought it a false rumour, and took no more notice of it. "That very evening, towards eleven o'clock, when we were asleep, my door was suddenly opened with a great crash, and the marquis de la Squiave entered, accompanied by some fifty of his hirelings, and intimated to us that we were to set out at once for Brindisi. Immediately the warning I had received during the day came back to my mind; and, considering that the first part of this warning, as to taking us away, had come true, the second, concerning our intended assassination, might also be true, I thought we might just as well die at once; for it would be preferable to die resisting, to die fighting, to die in combat, than to die slowly, hour by hour, minute by minute. I therefore swore that I would not stir, that they must take me away by force, for I meant to resist to the very last. "To this reply the marquis drew his sword and approached me.