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NOVEMBER 2000 Year I
No. 1
The horrors of the French invasion in Abruzzo
(from the Liber Baptizatorum, Spoppletum)
A parish priest's diary of the tragical events of the French invasion of 1799 - 1811. The page was hidden between two records of birth, as if the poor priest believed a Baptizatorum Liber in Latin would never attract the interest of the French
(Click on the image if you want to print it)

ITALIAN TEXT
diario1807 Nel detto anno 1807 fu un massacro così crudele di gente fatto dai francesi, senza rispetto di dignità, grado, nobiltà e vecchiezza, che nella città dell'aquila, in cui per altro fu pochissimo in paragone delle altre provincie del regno, ogni giorno vi era giustizia doppia, chi fucilato, chi afforcato, chi trucidato e per la più tal supplizio veniva sofferto per sospetto, che asservassero il loro leggittimo sovrano Ferdinando iv. Quelli a quali non potea niente imposturarsi dalle barbare commissioni militari, erano ristretti in carcere, e due e tre volte la settimana la notte ne cacciavano cinquanta, cento, e più di quelli infelici incatenati al collo, con pretesto che gli mandavano a Chieti, a Pescara a Napoli, e come aveano fatto il cammino di poche ore gli venivano tagliate le teste. Non vi era strada del nostro regno, in cui non si incontrassero corpi umani, teste e quarti esposti al cibo di lupi, corvi e cani

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
«In the said year 1807 there was such a cruel massacre of people by the French, with no respect of dignity, degree, nobility, old age, that in the city of Aquila, though it was small thing in comparison to other provinces of the Kingdom, every day there were double executions, whether by shooting, or hanging or slain, and such killing was established mostly out of suspicion that they were faithful totheir lawful sovereign Ferdinand IV. Those who could not be found guilty of anything by the barbarous military commissions, were put in prison, and two or three times a week the french took out fifty, one hundred, and more of those unfortunate, chained by the neck, under pretense they were being led to Chieti, Pescara, Naples, and as soon as they had walked some hours, they were beheaded. There was no road in our kingdom without human bodies, heads, limbs left as food to wolves, crows and dogs.»