United States or Honduras ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"They are splendid fellows, all of them, and I beg of you to overlook their unfortunate er zealousness. Permit me to add that you are not guilty I should say, that you are honourably discharged by this humble court. But wait! The sergents shall also apologise. Here! Attend. It devolves upon you "
The Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere des Sergents, the Porcherons, la Galiote, les Celestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne these are the names of old Paris which survive amid the new. The memory of the populace hovers over these relics of the past.
Then a squad of twenty sergents de ville suddenly emerging from a narrow street rushed with drawn swords upon the men who were carrying the litters, and overturned the corpses into the mud. A regiment of Chasseurs came up at the double, and put an end to the conflict with bayonet thrusts. A hundred and two citizen prisoners were conducted to the Prefecture.
During the same night towards four o'clock the approaches of the Northern Railway Station were silently invested by two regiments; one of Chasseurs de Vincennes, the other of Gendarmerie Mobile. Numerous squads of sergents de ville installed themselves in the terminus. The station-master was ordered to prepare a special train and to have an engine ready.
What a different sight our station presented to that of two hours before! The great iron gates were shut, and guarded by a line of sergents de ville. Only men joining their regiments and persons returning to their legitimate dwellings were allowed to pass. And there were thousands of both. Around the grillwork hovered dense groups of women, bravely waving tearless adieux to their men folk.
A hand-to-hand struggle ensued four against one. Madame Baze and her two little girls giving vent to screams, the servant being thrust back with blows by the sergents de ville. "You are ruffians," cried out Monsieur Baze.
He did not betray us. But these were exceptions. The pursuit of the police was none the less ardent and implacable. At Marie's, it may be remembered that the sergents de ville and the gendarmes arrived ten minutes after we had left the house, and that they even ransacked under the beds with their bayonets. Amongst the Representatives there were several Constituents, and at their head Bastide.
The servant, thinking that he was the Commissary of Police of the Assembly, opened the door. At this moment M. Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened, put on a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door." He had scarcely spoken these words when a man in plain clothes and three sergents de ville in uniform rushed into his chamber.
The stout fellows with their clubs look as if they might do service; but what a contrast they are to the Paris sergents de ville!
Yet all of these pantaloons and skirts had such scrutinous eyes and expressions of mirth to laugh like demons at my conscious, burning, painted head; eyes which spread out, astonished at the sight of me, and peered and winked and grinned from the big wrinkles above the gaiters of Zouaves, from the red breeches of the gendarmes, the knickerbockers of the cyclists, the white ducks of sergents de ville, and the knees of the boulevardiers, bagged with sitting cross-legged at the little tables.
Word Of The Day