brupt way in which he
had treated me, but I had the necessities of our trigonometrical
operations before my eyes, and I was silent.

Besides this, at the instant when the closed fist of the archbishop was
applied to my lips, I was still thinking of the beautiful optical
experiments which it would have been possible to make with the
magnificent stone which ornamented his pastoral ring. This idea, I must
frankly declare, had preoccupied me during the whole of the visit.

M. Biot having at last come to seek me again at Valencia, where I
expected, as I have before said, some new instruments, we went on to
Formentera, the southern extremity of our arc, of which place we
determined the latitude. M. Biot quitted me afterwards to return to
Paris, whilst I made the geodesical junction of the island of Majorca to
Iviza, and to Formentera, obtaining thus, by means of one single
triangle, the measure of an arc of parallel of one degree and a half.

I then went to Majorca, to measure there the latitude and the azimuth.

At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered by the entrance of
the French into Spain, began to invade the whole Peninsula and the
islands dependent on it. This ferment had as yet in Majorca only reached
to the ministers, the partisans, and the relations of the Prince of
Peace. Each evening, I saw, drawn in triumph in the square of Palma, the
capital of the island of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames,
sometimes of the minister Soller, another time those of the bishop, and
even those of private individuals supposed to be attached to the
fortunes of the favourite Godoi. I was far from suspecting then that my
turn would soon arrive.

My station at Majorca, the _Clop de Galazo_, a very high mountain, was
situated exactly over the port where _Don Jayme el Conquistator_
disembarked when he went to deliver the Balearic Islands from the Moors.
The report spread itself through the population that I had established
myself there in order to favour the arrival of the French army, and that
every evening I made signals to it. But these reports had nothing
menacing until the moment of the arrival at Palma, the 27th of May,
1808, of an ordnance officer from Napoleon. This officer was M.
Berthemie; he carried to the Spanish squadron, at Mahon, the order to go
in all haste to Toulon. A general rising, which placed the life of this
officer in danger, followed the news of his mission. The Captain-General
Vives