d applied successively to all the
priests of Paris; but met with a refusal. They applied to the
Archbishop: again a refusal. As many masses for the assassin as they
liked, but far the assassinated not one. To pray for dead men of this
sort would be a scandal. The refusal was determined. How should it be
overcome? To do without a mass would have appeared easy to others, but
not to these staunch believers. The worthy Catholic Democrats with great
difficulty at length unearthed in a tiny suburban parish a poor old
vicar, who consented to mumble in a whisper this mass in the ear of the
Almighty, while begging Him to say nothing about it.

CHAPTER XV.

HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM

On the night of the 7th and 8th of January, Charras was sleeping. The
noise of his bolts being drawn awoke him.

"So then!" said he, "they are going to put us in close confinement." And
he went to sleep again.

An hour afterwards the door was opened. The commandant of the fort
entered in full uniform, accompanied by a police agent carrying a torch.

It was about four o'clock in the morning.

"Colonel," said the Commandant, "dress yourself at once."

"What for?"

"You are about to leave."

"Some more rascality, I suppose!"

The Commandant was silent. Charras dressed himself.

As he finished dressing, a short young man, dressed in black, came in.
This young man spoke to Charras.

"Colonel, you are about to leave the fortress, you are about to quit
France. I am instructed to have you conducted to the frontier."

Charras exclaimed,--

"If I am to quit France I will not leave the fortress. This is yet
another outrage. They have no more the right to exile me than they had
the right to imprison me. I have on my side the Law, Right, my old
services, my commission. I protest. Who are you, sir?"

"I am the Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior."

"Ah! it is you who are named Leopold Lehon."

The young man cast down his eyes.

Charras continued,--

"You come on the part of some one whom they call 'Minister of the
Interior,' M. de Morny, I believe. I know M. de Morny. A bald young man;
he has played the game where people lose their hair; and now he is
playing the game where people risk their heads."

The conversation was painful. The young man was deeply interested in the
toe of his boot.

After a pause, however, he ventured to speak,--

"M. Charras, I am instructed to say that if you want money--"

Charras inte