Note 734 — SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER XI
Reading edition
About the same time a still more dreadful plot was said to have been formed in Barcelona, with the knowledge and approval of Lacy—arsenic was to be mixed with the flour of the garrison’s rations by secret agents. [See Suchet’s Mémoires, ii. p. 256, and Arteche, xii. p. 353.] How far the plan was a reality is difficult to decide. There is a large file of papers in the Paris War Office concerning experiments carried out by a commission of army-doctors, in consequence of a sudden outbreak of sickness among the troops in July. One or two soldiers died, a great number were seized with vomiting and stomach-cramps; poison being suspected, the doctors took possession of the flour, attempted to analyse it, and tried its effects on a number of street dogs. A few of the animals died: most were violently sick, but got over the dose. Poison was not definitely proved, and dirty utensils and bad baking might conceivably have been the cause of the outbreak. Some Catalan writers say that there was a poisoning-plot, or I should have doubted the whole story. See the Appendix to Arteche, xii. p. 483.