m 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 th