o the extreme of cruelty and fiendishness.

But perhaps the severest censure of the Paris police agent lies in the
fact that no just magistrate accepts his unsupported testimony, and
that at least two-thirds of his riot arrests are nullified at once by
setting the victims at liberty. As the police agent is the creature of
the general government and is not responsible to the municipality, he
can only be brought to book when he makes the mistake of offending
some high personage. To the complaint of an ordinary citizen he would
probably reply by drawing his cloak around him and expectorating
viciously.

"Qu'est-ce que ca me fiche?"

The students assembled at the Place du Pantheon easily avoided the
shadowy blue barrier drawn up across the Rue Soufflot. They howled a
good deal in unison, then suddenly disappeared down Rue Cujas, and,
pouring into Boulevard St. Michel, joined forces at the foot of Rue
Racine with their comrades from the Place de l'Odeon. Like all student
manifestations of any sort, the procession made a great noise, sticks
were brandished, and the air rent with cries of "Vive l'armee! A bas
les traitres!"

The peaceful shopkeepers came to their doors and regarded the young
men indulgently. "Ah! la jeunesse n'a q'un temps!"

Some four hundred young men from the great schools were joined at the
Place St. Michel by numerous hoodlums and roughs from the purlieus of
Rue St. Severin, Place Maubert, and the equally delectable region of
Rue de la Hutchette. These patriot soldiers of fortune "emeuted" for
the low rate of forty sous per day, and were mostly armed with
bludgeons, wherewith to earn their meagre salary. It mattered little
whom they served, though it was just now the noble Duc d'Orleans.

The police saw this addition with a knowing eye. They barred the
entrance to the Pont St. Michel. It was a half-hearted effort, and
with cries of "Vive la liberte!" "En avant!" the mob of young men
swept the thin files out of the way and gained the bridge. Not,
however, without some kicks and blows, broken canes, and bleeding
faces. A lusty gold-laced brigadier rolled in the dust, desperately
clinging to two coat-collars, and won the coveted cross by allowing
himself to be kicked and stamped almost out of human resemblance by
the infuriated mob of rescuers.

By this time the head of the mob had reached the other end of the
bridge, where a double barrier of agents was drawn up across the
street. A gray-haired com