And then he began to smile.

The Commissary became more and more perplexed.  The police agents ended by invoking the testimony of the prisoner himself.

“Now, sir, tell him your name yourself.”

“Get out of the difficulty yourselves,” answered Changarnier.

All this appeared most irregular to the mind of a provincial alguazil.

It seemed evident to the Commissary of Valenciennes that General Changarnier was escaping from Ham under a false name with a false passport, and with false agents of police, in order to mislead the authorities, and that it was a plot to escape which was on the point of succeeding.

“Come down, all three of you!” exclaimed the Commissary.

The General gets down, and on putting foot to the ground notices Charras in the depths of his compartment between his two bullies.

“Oho!  Charras, you are there!” he cries.

“Charras!” exclaimed the Commissary.  “Charras there!  Quick! the passports of these gentlemen!” And looking Charras in the face,—­

“Are you Colonel Charras?”

“Egad!” said Charras.

Yet another complication.  It was now the turn of Charras’s bullies to bluster.  They declared that Charras was the man called Vincent, displayed passports and papers, swore and protested.  The Commissary’s suspicions were fully confirmed.

“Very well,” said he, “I arrest everybody.”

And he handed over Changarnier, Charras, and the four police agents to the gendarmes.  The Commissary saw the Cross of Honor shining in the distance.  He was radiant.

The police arrested the police.  It happens sometimes that the wolf thinks he has seized a victim and bites his own tail.

The six prisoners—­for now there were six prisoners—­were taken into a parlor at the railway station.  The Commissary informed the town authorities.  The town authorities hastened hither, headed by the sub-prefect.

The sub-prefect, who was named Censier, comes in, and does not know whether he ought to salute or to question, to grovel in the dust or to keep his hat on his head.  These poor devils of magistrates and local officials were very much exercised in their minds.  General Changarnier had been too near the Dictatorship not to make them thoughtful.  Who can foresee the course of events?  Everything is possible.  Yesterday called itself Cavaignac, to-day calls itself Bonaparte, to-morrow may call itself Changarnier.  Providence is really cruel not to let sub-prefects have a peep at the future.

It is sad for a respectable functionary, who would ask for nothing better than to be servile or arrogant according to circumstances, to be in danger of lavishing his platitudes on a person who is perhaps going to rot forever in exile, and who is nothing more than a rascal, or to risk being insolent to a vagabond of a postscript who is capable of coming back a conqueror in six months’ time, and of becoming the Government