Left, therefore, to itself, _my_ belief is, that the story of the
Military Nun would have prevailed finally against the demurs of the
sceptics. However, in the mean time, all such demurs were suddenly and
_officially_ silenced forever. Soon after the publication of Kate's
memoirs, in what you may call an early stage of her _literary_
career, though two centuries after her _personal_ career had closed, a
regular controversy arose upon the degree of credit due to these
extraordinary confessions (such they may be called) of the poor
conscience-haunted nun. Whether these in Kate's original MS.
were entitled "Autobiographic Sketches," or "Selections Grave and
Gay," from the military experiences of a Nun, or possibly "The
Confessions of a Biscayan Fire-Eater," is more than I know. No matter:
confessions they were; and confessions that, when at length published,
were absolutely mobbed and hustled by a gang of misbelieving (that is,
_miscreant_) critics. And this fact is most remarkable, that the
person who originally headed the incredulous party, namely, Senor de
Ferrer, a learned Castilian, was the very same who finally
authenticated, by _documentary_ evidence, the extraordinary
narrative in those parts which had most of all invited scepticism. The
progress of the dispute threw the decision at length upon the archives
of the Spanish Marine. Those for the southern ports of Spain had been
transferred, I believe, from Cadiz and St. Lucar to Seville; chiefly,
perhaps, through the confusions incident to the two French invasions of
Spain in our own day [1st, that under Napoleon; 2dly, that under the
Due d'Angouleme]. Amongst these archives, subsequently amongst those of
Cuzco, in South America; 3dly, amongst the records of some royal courts
in Madrid; 4thly, by collateral proof from the Papal Chancery; 5thly,
from Barcelona--have been drawn together ample attestations of all the
incidents recorded by Kate. The elopement from St. Sebastian's, the