“M. de Colet embraced with alacrity this opportunity of vengeance, and issued orders at the gates of the town to seize the three reverend personages. They arrived about noon, with high spirits and keen appetites, and demanded of the sentinel which was the best hotel. The officer of the guard presented himself, and informed them that he was commissioned to conduct them to the commandant of the place, who would provide for them lodging and entertainment. The monks, rejoiced at this lucky windfall, overflowed with acknowledgments, and declared they could not think of incommoding the commandant. ‘Come, good fathers, M. de Colet is determined to do you the honours of the city.’ In the meantime he provided them an escort of four soldiers and a sergeant. The fathers marched along with joy, congratulating one another, and delighted with the politeness of the French. ‘Good fathers,’ said M. de Colet, ‘I am delighted to have you in this city. I expected you impatiently, and have provided you a lodging.’ ‘Ah, Monsieur Commandant, you are too good; we are undeserving.’ ‘Pardon me; have you not, in your prison at Barcelona, a French officer, the Chevalier de St. Gervais?’ ‘No, M. Commandant, we have never heard of any such person.’ ‘I am sorry for that, for you are to be imprisoned, and to live upon bread and water, until this officer be forthcoming.’ The reverend fathers, exceedingly irritated, exclaimed against this violation of the law of nations, and then said they resigned themselves to the will of heaven, and that the commandant should answer, before God and the Pope, for the persecution which he was about to exercise against members of the church. ‘Yes,’ said the commandant, ‘I take the responsibility upon myself; meanwhile, you will repair to the citadel.’ “Now, behold the three hypocrites, in a narrow prison, condemned to the regimen of the Pauls and the Hilaries, uttering the loudest exclamations against the system of fasting and the commandant. Every day the purveyor, when he brought them their pitcher of water and portion of bread, demanded whether they had anything to declare relative to the French officer. For three days they persisted in replying in the negative; but, at length, the cries, not of their consciences, but of their stomachs, and their weariness of this mode of life, overcame their obstinacy. They begged an interview with M. de Colet, who instantly waited on them. They confessed that a young French officer was confined in the prisons of the Holy Office, on account of the impious language he had held respecting the Virgin. ‘Undoubtedly he has acted improperly,’ said M. de Colet; ‘but allow the Virgin to avenge herself. Write to Barcelona, to set this gentleman at liberty; in the interim I will keep you as hostages, but I will mitigate your sufferings, and your table shall be less frugally supplied.’ The monks immediately wrote to give liberty to the accursed Frenchman.