The daughter of the collector of Almagro, for professing attachment to the usurper, was stabbed by Urena to the heart,--and a secret correspondence between the wife of the Alcalde of Birhueda and the French general in the next command, having been detected by an intercepted despatch, the wretched woman, by order of Juan Martin Diez, “the Empecinado,”[78] was dragged by a guerilla party from her house, her hair shaven, her denuded person tarred and feathered, and disgracefully exhibited in the public market-place,--and she was then put to death amid the execrations of her tormentors. Nor was there any security for a traitor, even were his residence in the capital, or almost within the camp of the enemy. One of the favourites of Joseph Buonaparte, Don Jose Riego, was torn from his home in the suburbs of Madrid, while celebrating his wedding, by the Empecinado, and hanged in the square of Cadiz. The usurper himself, on two occasions, narrowly escaped from this desperate partisan. Dining at Almeida, some two leagues distance from the capital, with one of the generals of division, their hilarity was suddenly interrupted by the unwelcome intelligence that the Empecinado was at hand, and nothing but a hasty retreat preserved the pseudo-king from capture. On another occasion, he was surprised upon the Guadalaxara-road, and so rapid was the guerilla movement, so determined the pursuit, that before the French could be succoured by the garrison of Madrid, forty of the royal escort were sabred between Torrejon and El Molar. A war of extermination raged, and on both sides blood flowed in torrents. One act of cruelty was as promptly answered by another; and a French decree, ordering that every Spaniard taken in arms should be executed, appeared to be a signal to the guerillas to exclude from mercy every enemy who fell into their hands. The French had shown the example; the Junta were denounced, their houses burned, and their wives and children driven to the woods. If prisoners received quarter in the field,--if they fell lame upon the march, or the remotest chance of a rescue appeared, they were shot like dogs. Others were butchered in the towns, their bodies left rotting on the highways, and their heads exhibited on poles. That respect, which even the most depraved of men usually pay to female honour, was shamefully disregarded,--and more than one Spaniard, like the postmaster of Medina, was driven to the most desperate courses, by the violation of a wife and the murder of a child.[79]