achment was
immediately sent out to the Retiro, but it was too late to pursue the
assassins; and all that could be done was to bring in the bodies of Don
Torribio, his daughter, and niece, who were lying dead in the
supper-room. An old groom and two women servants had shared a like fate;
the horses had been taken out of the stable, and the house ransacked of
every thing valuable.

For several weeks Ignacio Guerra remained wavering, as it were, between
life and death. At length he recovered; but his health was so much
impaired, that the surgeons forbade his again encountering the fatigues
of a campaign. Enfeebled in body, heartbroken at the horrible fate of
Gertrudis, and foreseeing the speedy termination of the war, consequent
on the concluded treaty of Bergara, he threw up his commission, and left
Spain to seek forgetfulness of his misfortunes in foreign travel.

In all French towns of any consequence, and in many whose size and
population would almost class them under the denomination of villages,
there is some favourite spot serving as an evening lounge for the
inhabitants, whither, on Sundays and fete-days especially, the belles
and _elegants_ of the place resort, to criticize each other's toilet,
and parade up and down a walk varying from one to two or three hundred
yards in extent.

The ancient city of Toulouse is of course not without its promenade,
although but poor taste has been evinced in its selection; for, while on
one side of the town soft well-trimmed lawns, cool fountains, and
magnificent avenues of elm and plane trees, are abandoned to
nursery-maids and their charges, the rendezvous of the fashionables of
the pleasant capital of Languedoc is a parched and dusty _allee_,
scantily sheltered by trees of recent growth, extending from the canal
to the open square formerly known as the Place d'Angouleme, but since
1830 re-baptized by the name of the revolutionary patriarch General
Lafayette.

It was on a Sunday evening of the month of August 1840, and the Allee
Lafayette was more than usually crowded. After a day of uncommon
sultriness, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and a little before sundown
the fair Toulousaines had deserted their darkened and artificially
cooled rooms, and flocked to the promenade. The walk was thronged with
gaily attired ladies, smirking dandies, and officers in full dress. In
the fields on the further side of the canal, a number of men of the
working-classes, happy in their respite