in the navy.  He combined in himself in a certain degree—­and it is this which made this energetic man, when well directed and well employed, a means of enthusiasm and a support—­he combined the popular fire and the military coolness.  He was one of those natures created for the hurricane and for the crowd, who have begun their study of the people by their study of the ocean, and who are at their ease in revolutions as in tempests.  As we have narrated, he took an important part in the combat.  He had been dauntless and indefatigable, he was one of those who could yet rouse it to life.  From Wednesday afternoon several police agents were charged to seek him everywhere, to arrest him wherever they might find him, and to take him to the Prefecture of the Police, where orders had been given to shoot him immediately.

Cournet, however, with his habitual daring, came and went freely in order to carry on the lawful resistance, even in the quarters occupied by the troops, shaving off his moustaches as his sole precaution.

On the Thursday afternoon he was on the boulevards at a few paces from a regiment of cavalry drawn up in order.  He was quietly conversing with two of his comrades of the fight, Huy and Lorrain.  Suddenly, he perceives himself and his companions surrounded by a company of sergents de ville; a man touches his arm and says to him, “You are Cournet; I arrest you.”

“Bah!” answers Cournet; “My name is Lepine.”

The man resumes,—­

“You are Cournet.  Do not you recognize me?  Well, then, I recognize you; I have been, like you, a member of the Socialist Electoral Committee.”

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 Eugene 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.

“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.  But whether by chance or through confidence, or in the haste to obtain the payment for his capture, the man who had arrested Cournet shouted to the coachman, “Look sharp, look sharp!” and the fiacre went off at a gallop.

In the meantime Cournet was well aware that on arriving he would be shot in the very courtyard of the Prefecture.  He had resolved not to go there.

At a turning in the Rue St Antoine he glanced behind, and noticed that the sergents de ville only followed the fiacre at a considerable distance.