d was touched, took the double louis, and gave him bed and
supper.

Next day, while he was still sleeping, the landlord came into his room,
woke him gently, and said to him,--

"Now, sir, if I were you, I should go and see Baron Hody."

"Who and what is Baron Hody?" asked Cournet, half asleep.

The landlord explained to him who Baron Hody was. When I had occasion to
ask the same question as Cournet, I received from three inhabitants of
Brussels the three answers as follows:--

"He is a dog."

"He is a polecat."

"He is a hyena."

There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.

A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to
me,--

"He is a beast."

As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels
"The Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of
the Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.

Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover,
like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that
moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read
strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style
there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police,
when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the
unbuttoned cassock.

At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical
party had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron
Hody confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale.
Nothing more.

"Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.

He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and
asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"

"At the Ministry of Justice."

In fact this is the case in Brussels; the police administration forms
part of the Ministry of Justice, an arrangement which does not greatly
raise the police and somewhat lowers justice.

Cournet went there, and was shown into the presence of this personage.

Baron Hody did him the honor to ask him sharply,--

"Who are you?"

"A refugee," answered Cournet; "I am one of those whom the _coup d'etat_
has driven from Paris.

"Your profession?"

"Ex-naval officer."

"Ex-naval officer!" exclaimed Baron Hody in a much gentler tone, "did
you know His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville?"

"I have served under him."

It was the truth. Cournet had served