It was on February 2, 1852, that the dastardly attempt was made on the life of the Queen, just before leaving the palace for the Church of Atocha, where the royal infant was to be baptized. The Court procession was passing along the quadrangular gallery, hung with the priceless tapestries only displayed on important occasions, when Manuel Martin Merino, a priest of a parish of Madrid, suddenly darted forward from the spectators lining the way, with the halberdier guard. The petition in the cleric’s hand and his garb of a cleric led to his step forward being unmolested, and the Queen turned to him, prepared to take the paper. But the next moment the other hand of the assassin appeared from under his cloak with a dagger, which he swiftly aimed at the royal mother. Fortunately, the Queen’s corset turned aside the murderous weapon, and, although blood spurted from her bodice, the wound was not very deep; but she was at once put to bed and placed under the care of the royal physicians. The royal infant was promptly seized from the arms of its mother at the moment of the attack, by an officer of the Royal Guard, and for this presence of mind the soldier was afterwards given the title of the Marquis of Amparo. With regard to the assailant, the Queen said to her Ministers: “You have often vexed me by turning a deaf ear to my pleas of mercy for criminals, but I wish this man to be punished immediately.” And, with the outraged feeling of the object of such a dastardly deed, Isabella turned to the would-be murderer, and said: “What have I ever done to offend you, that you should have attacked me thus?” During the trial in the succeeding days the Queen softened to the criminal, and said to her advisers: “No, no! don’t kill him for what he did to me!” However, justice delivered the man to the hangman five days after his deed. The efforts to discover Merino’s accomplices were fruitless, and it was thought that the deed had been prompted more by the demagogue party than by the Carlists. The cool, cynical manner of the cleric never left him even at the moment of his execution. When the priest’s hair was cut for the last time, he said to the barber: “Don’t cut much, or I shall catch cold.” The doomed man’s request to say a few words from the scaffold was refused. When asked what he had wished to say, he replied: “Nothing much. I pity you all for having to stay in this world of corruption and misery.” The ovation which the Queen had when she finally went to the Church of Atocha to present the infant surpasses description. Flowers strewed the way, and tears of joy showed the sympathy of the people with the Queen in her capacity as mother, and at her escape from the attempt on her life.