Of another famous general, Stanhope also records some interesting observations. Arrived at Dijon, which was a dépôt for Spanish prisoners, he went to call on an English fellow-prisoner, and found him having breakfast in company with two Anglo-Spanish officers, both of whom had served at Saragossa. "I therefore," he relates, "felt great interest in talking over with them the events of that memorable siege, in which they had acted an important part. Of course, to judge from their own account, to them and to other Hibernian-Spanish officers was due the honour of having conducted the defence of Saragossa; but what was indeed of interest was to find that of Palafox [6] they spoke but slightingly, and seemed to consider him merely as the nominal commander. All this was so new, so incredible to me, that I could not help openly expressing my doubts on the subject; these, however, were met by an argument to which it was impossible not to attach considerable weight--that Palafox was at that moment on parole in a town in France. 'Do you really think,' asked they, 'that if he were the powerful man he is represented to be he would be left in comparative liberty? No; the Emperor is too wise for that! If Palafox were what he has been supposed to be, _Napoleon would consider that no prison in France is strong enough to hold him!_'" At length young Stanhope arrived at Verdun and entered upon a period of detention there to which he could foresee no prospective conclusion. "There was no positive suffering of which to complain," he wrote afterwards, "yet there is a weariness, an utter hopelessness in the life of an exile which none can understand who have not experienced its intensity." The patriotism which had gilded the voluntary exile of Collingwood was perforce absent from the imprisonment of John Stanhope. No glory of martyrdom dignified his forcible detention; he was merely the victim of mischance. And the outlook was singularly hopeless. "The negotiation for the exchange of prisoners has totally failed," he writes. "The hope of the conclusion of the war appears to be more distant than ever. Whilst the Emperor lives, peace seems to be impossible, and he may live twenty years without the least diminution of his energy or his ambition ... there is but one source from which we can any of us derive the slightest consolation, and that is from the character of Napoleon himself. His insatiable ambition, after having prompted him to the execution of everything that is practicable, may finally urge him to attempt impossibilities. Alexander wept because he could find no more worlds to conquer; Napoleon may find there are too many worlds for him. Universal dominion is not now so easy an acquisition. 'Give him rope enough and he will hang himself!' is in all our mouths!"