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Cournet looks him in the face, and finds this countenance in his memory. The man was right. He had, in fact, formed part of the gathering in the Rue Saint Spire. The police spy resumed, laughing, "I nominated Eugène Sue with you." It was useless to deny it, and the moment was not favorable for resistance. There were on the spot, as we have said, twenty sergents de ville and a regiment of Dragoons.
Cournet, it may be remembered, had been a naval officer. He was one of those men of a prompt, decisive character, who magnetized other men, and who on certain extraordinary occasions send an electric shock through a multitude.
"I have served under him." It was the truth. Cournet had served under M. de Joinville, and prided himself on it.
Cournet, jumping hedges, striding over ditches, stumbling at every moment, slipping into sloughs, laying hold of briers, with his clothes in rags, his hands bleeding, dying with hunger, battered about, wearied, worn out, almost exhausted, followed his guide gaily. At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond.
Cournet went there, and was shown into the presence of this personage. Baron Hody did him the honor to ask him sharply, "Who are you?" "A refugee," answered Cournet; "I am one of those whom the coup d'état has driven from Paris. "Your profession?" "Ex-naval officer." "Ex-naval officer!" exclaimed Baron Hody in a much gentler tone, "did you know His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville?"
Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the only one open throughout the street.
In "Marie Tudor," I have made Fabiani answer under similar circumstances, "No, a Jew." Cournet, who probably had not read "Marie Tudor," answered, "No, a police spy." Then he resumed, "I have killed a police spy to save three men, one of whom was myself." Cournet was right.
"I will follow you," said Cournet. A fiacre was called up. "While I am about it," said the police spy, "come in all three of you." He made Huy and Lorrain get in with Cournet, placed them on the front seat, and seated himself on the back seat by Cournet, and then shouted to the driver, "To the Prefecture!" The sergents de ville surrounded the fiacre.
Cournet gave himself up for lost. The Belgian gendarmes took him to Armentières. If they had asked for the Mayor it would have been all at an end with Cournet, but they asked for the Inspector of Customs. A glimmer of hope dawned upon Cournet. He accosted the Inspector of Customs with his head erect, and shook hands with him. The Belgian gendarmes had not yet released him.
But one of them remarked that some Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had left them. The muskets therefore were not restored. The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there were fifteen of them. "We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough muskets."
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