tempting to help him, were thrown on top of him; Madame
Renault, in her turn, was thrown down at the feet of Fougas, and began
screaming at the top of her voice.

"Damnation!" said Fougas, straightening himself up as if by a spring,
"these scoundrels will suffocate us if some one doesn't squelch them!"
His attitude, the glare of his eyes, and, above all, the prestige of the
miraculous, cleared a space around him. One would have thought that the
walls had been stretched or that the spectators had slid into one
another!

"Out of here, every mother's son of you!" cried Fougas, in his fiercest
tone of command. A tumult of cries, explanations, and remonstrances was
raised around him; he fancied he heard menaces, he seized the first
chair within reach, brandished it like a weapon, drove, hammered, upset
the citizens, soldiers, officials, _savants_, friends, sight-seers,
commissary of police--everybody, and urged the human torrent into the
street with an uproar perfectly indescribable. This done, he shut the
door and bolted it, returned to the laboratory, saw three men standing
near Madame Renault, and said to the old lady, softening the tone of his
voice:

"Well, good mother, shall I serve these three like the others?"

"No! No! No! Be careful!" cried the good old lady. "My husband and my
son, Monsieur, and Doctor Nibor, who has restored you to life."

"In that case all honor to them, good mother! Fougas has never violated
the laws of gratitude and hospitality. As for you, my Esculapius, give
me your hand!"

At the same instant, he noticed ten or a dozen inquisitive people on
tiptoe on the pavement just by the windows of the laboratory. Forthwith
he marched and opened them with a precipitation which upset the gazers
among the crowd.

"People," said he, "I have knocked down a hundred beggarly pandours who
respect neither sex nor infirmity. For the benefit of those who are not
satisfied, I will state that I call myself colonel Fougas of the 23d.
And _Vive l'Empereur!_"

A confused mixture of plaudits, cries, laughs, and jeers, answered this
unprecedented allocution. Leon Renault hastened out to make apologies to
all to whom they were due. He invited a few friends to dine the same
evening with the terrible colonel, and, of course, he did not forget to
send a special messenger to Clementine. Fougas, after speaking to the
people, returned to his hosts, swinging himself along with a swaggering
air, set himself astride a c