open the door with his left hand, but he did not
succeed, he felt that he could only do it with his right hand, and he
was obliged to loose his hold of the man. The man fell face forwards,
and sank down on his knees.

Cournet opened the door.

"Off with you!" he said to them.

Huy and Lorrain jumped into the street and fled at the top of their
speed.

The coachman had noticed nothing.

Cournet let them get away, and then, pulling the check string, stopped
the _fiacre_, got down leisurely, reclosed the door, quietly took forty
sous from his purse, gave them to the coachman, who had not left his
seat, and said to him, "Drive on."

He plunged into Paris. In the Place des Victoires he met the
ex-Constituent Isidore Buvignier, his friend, who about six weeks
previously had come out of the Madelonnettes, where he had been confined
for the matter of the _Solidarite Republicaine_. Buvignier was one of
the noteworthy figures on the high benches of the Left; fair,
close-shaven, with a stern glance, he made one think of the English
Roundheads, and he had the bearing rather of a Cromwellian Puritan than
of a Dantonist Man of the Mountain. Cournet told his adventure, the
extremity had been terrible.

Buvignier shook his head.

"You have killed a man," he said.

In "Marie Tudor," I have made Fabiani answer under similar
circumstances,--

"No, a Jew."

Cournet, who probably had not read "Marie Tudor," answered,--

"No, a police spy."

Then he resumed,--

"I have killed a police spy to save three men, one of whom was myself."

Cournet was right. They were in the midst of the combat, they were
taking him to be shot; the spy who had arrested him was, properly
speaking, an assassin, and assuredly it was a case of legitimate
defence. I add that this wretch, a democrat for the people, a spy for
the police, was a twofold traitor. Moreover, the police spy was the
jackal of the _coup d'etat_, while Cournet was the combatant for the
Law.

"You must conceal yourself," said Buvignier; "come to Juvisy."

Buvignier had a little refuge at Juvisy, which is on the road to
Corbeil. He was known and loved there; Cournet and he reached there that
evening.

But they had hardly arrived when some peasants said to Buvignier, "The
police have already been here to arrest you, and are coming again
to-night."

It was necessary to go back.

Cournet, more in danger than ever, hunted, wandering, pursued, hid
himself in Paris with cons