Report presented to the French Government by Divisional-General
Alexandre Dumas, on his captivity at Taranto and at Brindisi, ports in
the Kingdom of Naples.
"We left the port of Alexandria on the evening of the 17th
Ventôse, year VII, on board the _Belle Maltaise_, with
General Manscourt, citizen Dolomieu and many other French
military men and civil servants attached to the Egyptian
Army, all furnished with leave on furlough from General
Bonaparte. I hoped, if the winds favoured us, and with the
aid of our excellent sailing vessel, to escape the English
fleet and to reach some port in France in about ten or
twelve days. That hope was all the better founded as the
Maltese captain who commanded the boat (his name was Félix)
declared that after some repairs of trifling importance
it could hold out against the roughest weather. We had
discussed together the price of these repairs, and he had
estimated them at sixty louis. I gave him a hundred. I had
therefore good reason to believe that these repairs had been
conscientiously carried out: unfortunately they were not.
"We had hardly got outside the harbour before the sea was
against us, and a high wind buffeted us about from the first
night. When day appeared, after a stormy night, we found
that our vessel leaked.
"We were already forty leagues from Alexandria; and, as the
wind was not favourable, we could not turn the ship's head
round for Egypt; we therefore decided to continue our course
and to crowd on as much sail as possible.
"But the quicker we went and the more we urged on the boat,
the worse became the leakage, until at length it became
impossible to cope with it, and on the third day of our
voyage the situation became almost desperate.
"During that day we threw overboard our only means of
defence, the ten pieces of cannon which armed our vessel.
The next day my Arab horses were thrown into the sea; then
all the coffee, and, lastly, all our luggage.
"But in spite of this lightening the boat settled down more
and more. When the latitude was taken, we found we were
in the entrance to the Adriatic Gulf, and, after holding
counsel with the seamen and officers on board, it was
decided to make for the nearest land and port, without loss
of a moment's time.
"The land was Calabria, and the port Taranto.
"On the tenth day we sighted land. It was high time! Another
twenty-four hours of navigation and the ship would have
foundered with all hands.
"I gave orders to anchor at a small isle which lay about a
league from the town. As we came from Egypt, we had to be
quarantined, and, thinking Naples was friendly to France, I
insisted on conforming to the sanitary regulations, in order
to disabuse the minds of the people of Calabria that there
was any fear of plague.
"We had hardly cast anchor before I sent the captain of
the vessel with a letter to the governor of the town. This
letter set forth who we were and our distressed condition,
and I begged him, for the sake of our common humanity, to
give us all the help he could, as we were in very great need.
"Two hours later the captain returned with a verbal answer
from the governor. We were to disembark with confidence; the
only condition made was that we should pass first through
quarantine.
"We were quite prepared for that, and no one dreamt of
opposing it: we rejoiced in such a happy ending to our
precarious situation.
"When we entered the harbour, they made us land one at a
time, and four Neapolitan captains searched us; the ships
of these captains had been burned before Alexandria, and I
had given them a passage on the _Belle Maltaise_ out of pure
humanity.
"To begin by treating us like this seemed somewhat odd; but
we were still quite unsuspicious: we put it down to the
severity of the sanitary laws, and offered no resistance to
their examination.
"After this visitation, they huddled us up together,
generals, officers, passengers, and sailors, in so narrow
a room that if anyone ventured to lie down he impinged upon
his neighbour's rights.
"And thus we spent the rest of that day and night.
"The next day they landed what remained of our goods and
effects, and they seized our letters, papers, and arms.
"My two horses were not forgotten in the confiscation,
although they made me pay for two months' keep of them, all
the while giving me to understand that I should have them
returned to me.
"Forty-eight hours more elapsed, and we were still packed
tightly in our room. At length, after repeated complaints
and offers of money, on the third day they gave General
Manscourt, Dolomieu, and myself a room to ourselves, where
we could finish the remainder of our quarantine.
"While this was being endured, we had a visit from the son
of the King of Naples.
"His Royal Highness questioned us closely concerning the
health of Generals Bonaparte and Berthier and on the
situation of the Egyptian Army; then he left us abruptly,
without wishing us adieux.
"These curious manners, combined with the bad Italian he
spoke, caused us to doubt that he was the person he was set
forth to be.
"Eight days later the members of the Government came to
inform us that by order of Prince François we were declared
prisoners of war.
"We had not been deceived--the so-called Prince François was
a pretender.
"Four Corsican adventurers had determined to urge the people
to revolt in favour of the Bourbons; but, knowing the
proverbial cowardice of Prince François, they resolved to
act in his name, so one of them, a vagabond named Corbara,
an outcast, but a brave man, personated the prince.
"The others, whose names were respectively Cesare,
Boccheciampe, and Colonna, were to personate--Colonna the
high constable of the kingdom, Boccheciampe the brother of
the King of Spain, and Cesare the Duke of Saxe.
"Now who were these men who aspired to such high titles?
"Cesare was once a liveried servant, Boccheciampe a
deserter from an artillery corps and Colonna a sort of
vagabond like his friend and compatriot Corbara. It was
in the house of Intendant Girunda at Montjari that this
farcical plot was hatched.
"Girunda in his capacity of intendant was supposed to be
personally acquainted with the heir-apparent, and his part,
therefore, was to precede the four adventurers, announcing
them in their divers assumed names and titles.
"Thanks to these precautions, the tour made by the pretended
princes was a triumph; for the entire province rose up
before them, behind them, and all round them.
"In the meantime the pretended Prince François was acting as
dictator, dismissing magistrates, appointing governors in
the towns, raising funds, and doing it all more cleverly, it
must be admitted, and certainly more boldly, than the true
heir to the throne would have done.
"Two incidents which might have wrecked our adventurers
turned out, on the contrary, to increase their popularity.
The Archbishop of Otranto knew the prince personally. Duly
advised of his coming by Girunda, he received the false
Royal Highness as though he were the true prince, and there
was an end of the matter. Furthermore, during his sojourn
at Taranto, the two old princesses, aunts of Louis XVI.,
who were coming from Naples on their way to Sicily, were
compelled by rough weather to put into port. Learning that
their royal relative was there, they naturally asked to
see him. The false prince had to make the best of it, and
to present himself to his supposed aunts; but the two old
princesses had been informed of the reason why Corbara
was playing the rôle of prince, and, being desirous of
furthering the Bourbon cause, they lent themselves to
the lie, and even encouraged its success by the cordial
reception they gave to the pretended grandson of Louis XIV.:
thus making him still more popular with the Calabrians.[1]
"That was the type of man who controlled our destiny and who
made us prisoners of war.
"When they made this declaration to us in the name of the
false prince, they promised faithfully that when we were set
at liberty our arms, our horses, and our papers should be
returned to us.
"They were quite safe in promising all this with such
intentions in their minds towards us as they had.
"I insisted on seeing His Royal Highness a second time,
to demand an explanation of the captivity; I could not at
all understand it, as I did not know of the renewal of
hostilities between Naples and France; but I need hardly say
that His Royal Highness did not make himself so cheap as to
come a second time.
"I then wrote to him; but after the explanations I have just
given, it will readily be understood that my letter remained
unanswered.
"About a month after this visit, with what object I cannot
conceive, they led us to hope that we were soon to be sent
back to France, and a letter came from Cardinal Ruffo, the
purport of which was as follows: General Manscourt and I
were invited to write to the generals-in-chief of the armies
of Naples and Italy to negotiate the cartel of our exchange
for Signor Boccheciampe, who had just been made prisoner and
taken to Ancona. The letter added that the King of Naples
set more value on this Signor Boccheciampe than on all the
other Neapolitan generals, prisoners of war, either in Italy
or in France.
"We accordingly sent the requisite letters to the cardinal;
but when the cardinal learnt that Boccheciampe had not been
taken prisoner, but killed outright, the negotiations, which
could no longer serve the desired end, fell through.
"Soon after this we were visited one morning by the civil
and political governor of Taranto and by the military
commander, who told us they had orders to take General
Manscourt and myself to the Castle at once.
"This order was put into immediate execution.
"After many entreaties, our servants were allowed to join us
the day after.
"We were now separated from Dolomieu, who was destined to
endure as dreadful a confinement as ours.[2] They put us
into separate rooms when we got to the Castle.
"We sent for the governor directly we were installed, and
related to him Cardinal Ruffo's proposal, asking him what we
should do in the matter.
"He suggested that, as our letter had remained unanswered,
we should write again; which we instantly did, and a vessel
just setting out was deputed to deliver it to General
d'Anciera, commander of Messina.
"It goes without saying that we had no more answer to this
than to the first.
"The day but one after my removal to the Castle of Brindisi,
as I lay on my bed, the window open, a parcel containing a
book was thrust through the bars of my window, and fell on
the floor of my room.
"I rose and picked up the packet: it was tied round with
string. I cut the knots, and found that the parcel contained
two volumes, entitled the _Médecin de Campagne_, by Tissot.
A scrap of paper was folded between the first and second
page, containing these words:
"'From the Calabrian patriots; read the article on _Poison._'
"I looked for the indicated word: it was underlined twice;
and I knew that my life was threatened. I hid both volumes
as best I could, for fear they should be taken from me. I
read and re-read the article pointed out to me so often
that I nearly knew by heart the remedies prescribed for the
different kinds of poison that might be tried on me.
"Notwithstanding all this, our situation for the first eight
days was quite tolerable; we enjoyed our walks in front of
the door of our quarters, up and down a space of about sixty
yards. But, under pretext that the French had just taken
possession of Naples, the governor told us, towards the end
of the first week, that our walk was henceforth forbidden;
and the same day we saw locksmiths put bolts on all our
doors, and masons raised the walls of a court a dozen feet
long by eight feet wide, where we were in future to take our
airings.
"Vainly did we put to ourselves this dilemma: Either we were
prisoners of war, and entitled to the treatment allowed
to the rank of a general undergoing imprisonment; or we
were not prisoners of war, and in that case we ought to be
liberated.
"For eight months we were obliged to live at our own
expense, fleeced by everybody, and paying double its value
for everything we bought.
"At the end of that time we were told that the king had
allowed us a grant of ten _carlins_ per day, or about four
francs ten sous of our French money, and out of this sum we
had to pay our servants.
"They might just as well have doubled our allowance, as they
had fully determined never to pay us anything.
"I had left Egypt on account of my bad state of health. My
friends thought my sufferings were simply from home-sickness
and my ailments imaginary; but I knew that my malady was
real, and I realised the gravity of my case.
"A stroke of paralysis unfortunately attacked my left cheek
a few days after my arrival at the lazaretto, and gave
the lie to my friends' incredulity. I had the greatest
difficulty in getting permission for a doctor to see me; and
he contented himself by prescribing such trifling remedies
that the disease remained stationary.
"Some days after I had been taken to the Castle--namely, on
June 16th, at ten o'clock in the morning--the same doctor
visited me, this time unasked. I was taking my bath. He
recommended a biscuit soaked in a glass of wine, and said he
would send me the biscuits. Ten minutes later, the promised
biscuits arrived.
"I followed his advice, but about two o'clock in the
afternoon I was seized by the most violent internal pains
and vomitings, which at first prevented me from eating, and
which, continually increasing in intensity, soon brought me
to the point of death.
"Then I recalled the injunctions sent me by the patriots and
the word _poison_ which they had underlined; I asked for
some milk. A goat that I had brought from Egypt, which had
been a diversion to me during my captivity, by good fortune
yielded me about a bottle and a half. When the goat ran
dry, my servant procured oil and made me swallow thirty or
forty spoonfuls; a few drops of lemon, mixed with the oil,
counteracted the sickliness of the remedy.
"Directly General Manscourt saw me in such a deplorable
state he sent to the governor and informed him what had
happened, begging him to send the doctor instantly; but
the governor coolly replied that it was impossible, as the
doctor had gone into the country. Not until eight o'clock at
night, and when the entreaties of my companion in captivity
assumed a threatening character, did the governor decide to
come with him to my prison: he was accompanied by all the
members of the Government, and escorted by a dozen armed
soldiers. It was in the presence of this military force,
against which Manscourt protested with all the strength of
his nature and with the utmost loyalty towards me, that a
consultation was allowed me. The doctor no doubt required
the support of all this armed force in presenting himself
before me, and, even with this aid, when he entered my room
he turned deadly pale.
"It was then my turn to question him, and I did it so
searchingly that he stammered and was hardly able to reply;
his words were so confused that it was easy to see he was
not the perpetrator of the crime--why should he be? he had
no personal interest in my death, he was but the instrument.
He only advised one remedy--namely, to drink iced water, or
else to suck snow.
"I mistrusted the alacrity with which they advised me to
follow out the wretch's prescription; and indeed, at the end
of a quarter of an hour's trial of it, the pain grew so much
worse that I hastened to stop it, and returned to my oil and
my lemon.
"I was the further confirmed in the belief that I had been
poisoned, by other evidence than that of the internal pains
and vomiting, which had all the symptoms of arsenical
poisoning, and this evidence was as follows:--
"I recollected having seen the doctor through my open door
while I was having my bath, before he came to me, go up to
General Manscourt, who was reading in the adjoining room,
and tell him with an air of great secrecy that he was
certain we were going to be robbed as our companions had
been;' therefore, if we possessed any valuable belongings,
he placed his services at our disposal, and offered to take
care of them until we came out of prison, when he would
immediately restore them to us.
"He had taken advantage of the absence of a Tarentine
gunner, named Lamarrone, to make this communication to
General Manscourt; Lamarrone was his accomplice, but the
doctor did not mean to share the spoils with him if he could
help it.
"My goat died next day. It had saved my life, so it had to
be punished.
"Three days later the doctor died. He had missed his blow,
so they had to stop his mouth.
"The day the doctor had visited me he prescribed as well
for General Manscourt, who was suffering from a scorbutic
affection; but the general took good care not to follow his
advice when he saw the effect of the biscuits the wretch had
ordered me to take; no doubt this abstention saved his life.
"But his death was determined on as well as mine; and they
tried different means.
"They mixed a powder with his tobacco, which gave him
violent pains in the head, and after a while made him
delirious. General Manscourt was puzzled to know what
caused these attacks, when it occurred to me to look in his
tobacco-box. The powder they had mixed with the tobacco was
so corrosive that it had eaten several holes in the bottom
of the box, and particles of white lead were mixed with the
tobacco in the proportion of about one-twentieth.
"Again I had recourse to my _Médecin de Campagne_, which
recommended bleeding. So General Manscourt bled himself in
three different places, and was relieved.
"In the meantime, following on the attempt to poison me,
deafness attacked me, I completely lost the sight of one
eye, and the paralysis was increasing.
"It was an unusual thing that such symptoms of decay should
seize any one at the early age of thirty-four, and it proved
the presence of some mischievous disease.
"Although the experience I had just had of my first doctor
did not inspire me with much confidence in a second, my
state of emaciation compelled me to apply to the governor
for fresh assistance from medical science.
"I therefore sent for him, and asked him if I might consult
a French surgeon who had come from Egypt with a fresh cargo
of prisoners; but my request was refused, and I had to be
satisfied with a visit from the Castle doctor.
"His name was Carlin, and he spoke French fluently.
"His manner roused my suspicions at his first visit--he
began with an outpouring of protestations of devotion and
sympathy too profuse to be sincere. He examined me with
the greatest attention, declared that there was not the
slightest cause for my fears, and that I was only suffering
from an attack of languor.
"He entirely disapproved of the treatment I had received
from the deceased doctor, characterising it as ignorant and
stupid; he ordered injections for my ears, and recommended
me to take half an ounce of cream of tartar every morning.
"At the end of eight days of this treatment, my deafness
(which had begun to disappear) came back again, and my
stomach was in such a highly irritable state that I could
not digest anything.
"Carlin visited me regularly, talked a great deal, affected
an exaggerated patriotism and much sympathy with the French;
but as all his demonstrations, instead of inspiring me
with confidence, only made me more and more circumspect,
the governor devised a means that he thought would prove
efficacious: he forbade Carlin to enter my prison, giving as
an excuse that he helped me to carry on communications with
the Italian patriots.
"I confess this stratagem took me in. I grew daily worse:
I entreated urgently to be allowed to see Carlin; but the
governor feigned the greatest strictness in this respect,
and, keeping him always away from me, he sent me another
doctor.
"This one, like his predecessor, strongly disapproved of
the régime I had been following, saying, for example, that
the injections in my ears which had been ordered me were
only making my deafness worse, by irritating the delicate
membrane of the tympanum. Moreover, he himself made up the
medicines and brought them to me when he came to see me. I
experienced a distinct improvement from his treatment, but
unluckily I had the imprudence to confess I was better, and,
as my cure was not desired, the good man was dismissed after
his second visit. In vain did I ask to have him again, the
governor told me that he definitely declined to see me.
"I was obliged to do without a doctor; but, thanks to
Tissot's book, I continued to doctor myself with more or
less success. My eye, however, grew worse. At last Manscourt
recollected having seen a cure effected, in just such a case
as mine, by blowing finely ground cane-sugar into the eye
seven or eight times a day. We procured the cane-sugar and
began the treatment, which at all events was an easy one to
follow. It produced a considerable improvement, and to-day
my eye is only affected by a slight film, which I hope will
finally disappear altogether.
"Unfortunately, my deafness and my internal pains became
increasingly worse, and I was obliged to ask for Carlin, who
was only allowed to come on condition that he should not
utter a single word of French during our conversations, and
that he should always be accompanied in his visits by the
governor. Carlin found me in such a bad state on his return
that he demanded a consultation. I had wanted this for long,
and had pleaded for it in vain. Now it was granted me, and
Carlin brought a doctor from the town, the Castle surgeon,
and a French surgeon whom I obtained by urgent entreaty from
the suite of the Marquis de Valvo, Neapolitan minister, at
that time on a mission to Taranto.
"At the door the governor stopped the French surgeon before
he came in.
'You are going to see your General Dumas,' he said; 'take
good care you do not utter a single word of French, or you
are lost.'
"Then, drawing back the six bolts which kept us prisoners,
he continued: 'You see that door; it opens to you for the
first and the last time.'
"They all came into my room and gathered round my bed. I
tried to catch sight of the French doctor, eager to see a
fellow-countryman. I could hardly believe my eyes when I
saw that he was a poor, wretched, attenuated creature, only
half clad, his whole aspect as he stood before me betokening
suffering and misery.
"I spoke to him, but to my great surprise he did not reply
to me: I persisted, but again he was silent. I interrogated
the governor, who muttered a few irrelevant words.
"While this was happening the French doctor whispered
rapidly and in a low voice to General Manscourt, 'I am
forbidden to speak to the prisoner under penalty of death.'
"Carlin then explained to his confrères the nature and
developments of my illness, then the treatment he had judged
advisable to recommend me; and, after a short discussion, in
which the French doctor scarcely joined, partly on account
of his ignorance of Italian, and partly intimidated by fear
of the governor's threats, it was decided that I should go
back to the first treatment, to which they simply added
pills, and blisters behind both ears and on my neck and arms.
"I submitted to these remedies; but they reduced me to such
a low ebb at the end of a month that I was obliged to give
them up. Throughout the month I was the victim of constant
insomnia; I was poisoned a second time.
"I called in the doctor. I laid bare every symptom: I made
them so evident, so patent, that the governor, who was
present at the interview, dared not meet my eye, and turned
away his head; but the unabashed Carlin held his ground,
assured me that his treatment was the only means of saving
me, and, my thirty pills being exhausted, he ordered me
another quantity of the same kind.
"I made a pretence of compliance with his wishes, I promised
to follow his instructions, and, on the following day, I
received ten fresh pills, which I carefully kept in order to
submit them to analysis.
"These last were no doubt meant to act more powerfully than
the others; for when he left me he said good-bye, saying
that he was setting off for the country, and pretending
that, in all probability, I should have left Taranto myself
before his return.
"Eight days later, although I had completely given up this
fatal treatment, I suddenly felt a blow, as though I was
struck by a thunderbolt, and I fell senseless in the middle
of my room.
"I was seized with a violent fit of apoplexy.
"General Manscourt at once informed the governor of what had
happened to me, and begged the help of the Castle surgeon;
the governor, without troubling to get up from his dinner,
calmly replied that the surgeon was in the country, but that
he should be sent me on his return.
"And in that state I had to wait for him for four hours.
"Nature, left to her own devices, had in the meanwhile
exerted herself, and I had somewhat regained consciousness;
but the rally was only just sufficient to enable me to
realise that I was at death's door.
"Therefore, summoning up my small remnant of strength, I
told the old woman who cooked our food to go and tell the
governor that I knew perfectly well the doctor was not
in the country, and that if he did not come to me in ten
minutes' time, I gave him fair warning I would drag myself
to the window and proclaim to the whole town that I had been
poisoned--the news would no doubt cause little surprise, but
it might at any rate expose his infamy.
"This threat was effectual; five minutes later my door
opened, and the surgeon, who had not been able to come
because he was supposed to be away in the country, put in
his appearance.
"I had been studying my Tissot, and I had learned that a
plentiful letting of blood was the only remedy for the
condition I was in. I therefore peremptorily ordered the
doctor to bleed me.
"As though he did not dare to obey without orders from his
superiors, he went back to the commander of the Castle to
obtain leave from him. No doubt it was granted, for he drew
a surgical instrument from his pocket; only, instead of this
instrument being a lancet, it was a fleam used for bleeding
horses.
"I shrugged my shoulders--
'Why not a dagger outright?' I said to him; 'it would be
quicker done.'
"I held out my arm. The first incision was, of course, not
sufficient, and it was not until the wretch had made three
incisions in my arm that he alighted upon a vein and drew
blood.
"This first attack of apoplexy was followed by a second,
three days later. The same surgeon was again called in, and
bled me again with the same instrument; only this time he
thought it best to do it in my foot, and he did it either
so clumsily or else so cleverly (for they were in constant
fear that we should escape through the help of the patriots)
that a sinew was cut, and for more than three months my leg
swelled to a fearful size whenever I took a dozen steps.
"As the governor feared, the report of this scandalous
treatment was noised abroad in the town. One day a stone
fell into my room, wrapped in a bit of paper. On the paper
was written these words:--
"'They want to poison you, but you ought to have received a
book, in which we underlined the word _poison._ If you need
any remedy that you cannot procure in your prison, hang a
string out of your window, and at the end of the string we
will hook on what you want.'
"Between the paper and the stone was rolled a long piece of
string with a hook at the end.
"The next night I let down the string, and asked for quinine
to dose myself with, and chocolate to sustain me; the night
following I received both articles.
"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.
"I had a stick at the head of my bed, with a heavy solid
gold head, which they had left me, no doubt, because they
took the head to be only copper. I seized hold of this stick
and, leaping to the foot of my bed, I fell upon the marquis
and all his rabble in such a furious fashion that the
marquis dropped his sword and fled, and all his miserable
rascals followed suit; throwing down their knives and
poignards, shrieking with fear, and flying in such hot haste
that in less than ten seconds my room was completely empty.
"I do not know at all how this act of rebellion would have
ended for us, if the armistice concluded at Foligno had
not come to put an end to our protracted sufferings: we
must inevitably have succumbed to them in the long run.
But, as the Neapolitan Government was bent on treating us
shamefully to the last moment, they took great care not to
tell us our captivity was at an end. On the contrary, with
fresh menacings, with formidable preparations, and as though
they meant to send us there so that we should all perish
together, they transferred us all to Brindisi, although we
were under French law at Taranto and in its environs.
"Not until the moment of going on board did we know that the
armistice was concluded and the cartel of exchange arranged:
we were free.
"Our term of liberty did not seem as though, in all
probability, it would be of long duration.
"They embarked us at Brindisi for Ancona, and on a sea
bristling with enemies. The English would no doubt inherit
us next, and we should be only changing our old captivity
for a new one.
"I laid all these facts before the marquis de la Squiave,
and protested, on behalf of myself and all my companions,
against this embarkation; but my protests were useless: they
crowded us into a felucca, and made us set sail for Ancona.
"Before starting, I of course asked for all my papers, my
arms, my horses, and, in short, for everything that had
been stolen from me, above all for my sword, which I valued
greatly, as it had been presented to me by Bonaparte at
Alexandria. They tritely replied to all my demands that they
would refer the matter to His Majesty.
"I have since learnt that they really did transmit the
request to King Ferdinand; but as he used my rifles and my
horses daily for hunting--as he found the guns carried well
and the horses were excellent hunters--he kept both guns and
horses.
"We reached Ancona, escaping the English and the
Barbary-raiders by nothing short of a miracle.
"At Ancona we found General Watrin, who, seeing us stripped
of our all (for we had sold everything we possessed for
food), laid his purse at our disposal.
"This money enabled us in the first place to clothe
ourselves, then to give a hundred piastres to the Neapolitan
captain who had transported us, and who was not ashamed to
come and demand this sum from us for his _buona mano._
"Such is an exact account of those twenty months of
captivity, during which three attempts to poison and one to
assassinate me were made.
"And now, although I cannot live much longer, I thank Heaven
that I have been spared till to-day.
"I am near death's door, but I still have strength enough to
lay bare this infamous treatment, so that all the world may
be made aware of it--a treatment such as the least civilised
of peoples would blush to use towards their bitterest
enemies.
"Written at the Headquarters of the Southern Army of
Observation, Florence, the 15th Germinal, year IX of the
Republic. ALEX. DUMAS."
[Footnote 1: This assertion would seem well-nigh incredible if it
were not given in pretty nearly the same terms by the pen of General
Coletta. "These impostors directed their steps towards the town of
Taranto, but directly they reached it they saw a vessel coming into
the harbour, and learnt that it contained the old princesses of France
on their way from Naples to Sicily. Nothing daunted, the adventurers
sent a messenger in advance of Corbara to inform the princesses of the
marvellous credulity of the people; they then presented themselves
before these ladies with regal pomp and with as much assurance as
though of the blood royal. In spite of the inborn pride of the race of
Bourbon, the princesses received the obscure adventurer as though he
were their grandson; deeming, by so doing, that they were thus serving
the king's cause; they addressed him by the title of 'your Highness,'
and lavished marks of respect and affection upon him" (_History of
Naples from 1734 to 1825,_ by Coletta).]
[Footnote 2: Dolomieu was taken to the prison of Naples, where he
implored his gaoler to alleviate his hardships, but the gaoler refused
the illustrious savant's request. "If you are not careful," Dolomieu
said to him, "I shall die in a few days under such treatment."
"What does that matter to me?" replied the gaoler. "I am only
responsible for your bones."
Dolomieu died two years after his release from prison.]