“Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?”

“Yes, madame.”

“But what is it about?  Is it regarding politics?”

The man did not answer.

“As to politics,” continued my wife, “what is happening?”

“I believe, madame, that all is at an end.”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense of the President.”

My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,—­

“You have come to arrest my husband, sir.”

“It is true, madame,” answered the man, opening his overcoat, which revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.

He added after a pause, “I am a Commissary of Police, and I am the bearer of a warrant to arrest M. Victor Hugo.  I must institute a search and look through the house.”

“What is your name, sir?” asked Madame Victor Hugo.

“My name is Hivert.”

“You know the terms of the Constitution?”

“Yes, madam.”

“You know that the Representatives of the People are inviolable!”

“Yes, madame.”

“Very well, sir,” she said coldly, “you know that you are committing a crime.  Days like this have a to-morrow; proceed.”

The Sieur Hivert attempted a few words of explanation, or we should rather say justification; he muttered the word “conscience,” he stammered the word “honor.”  Madame Victor Hugo, who had been calm until then, could not help interrupting him with some abruptness.

“Do your business, sir, and do not argue; you know that every official who lays a hand on a Representative of the People commits an act of treason.  You know that in presence of the Representatives the President is only an official like the others, the chief charged with carrying out their orders.  You dare to come to arrest a Representative in his own home like a criminal!  There is in truth a criminal here who ought to be arrested—­yourself!”

The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and through the half-open door my wife could see, behind the well-fed, well-clothed, and bald Commissary, seven or eight poor raw-boned devils, wearing dirty coats which reached to their feet, and shocking old hats jammed down over their eyes—­wolves led by a dog.  They examined the room, opened here and there a few cupboards, and went away—­with a sorrowful air—­as Isidore said to me.

The Commissary Hivert, above all, hung his head; he raised it, however, for one moment.  Isidore, indignant at seeing these men thus hunt for his master in every corner, ventured to defy them.  He opened a drawer and said, “Look and see if he is not in here!” The Commissary of Police darted a furious glance at him:  “Lackey, take care!” The lackey was himself.

These men having gone, it was noticed that several of my papers were missing.  Fragments of manuscripts had been stolen, amongst others one dated July, 1848, and directed against the military dictatorship of Cavaignac, and in which there were verses written respecting the Censorship, the councils of war, and the suppression of the newspapers, and in particular respecting the imprisonment of a great journalist—­Emile de Girardin:—­