“Ah, indeed!” he said to them; “you there!”

Of these two men there was only one who spoke, that one answered,—­

“Yes, Colonel.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We are keeping watch over you.”

“But we are in Belgium.”

“Possibly.”

“Belgium is not France.”

“Ah, that may be.”

“But suppose I put my head out of the carriage?  Suppose I call out?  Suppose I had you arrested?  Suppose I reclaimed my liberty?”

“You will not do all that, Colonel.”

“How will you prevent me?”

The police agent showed the butt-end of his pistol and said “Thus.”

Charras burst out laughing, and asked them, “Where then are you going to leave me?”

“At Brussels.”

“That is to say, that at Brussels you will salute me with your cap; but that at Mons you will salute me with your pistol.”

“As you say, Colonel.”

“In truth,” said Charras, “it does not matter to me.  It is King Leopold’s business.  The Bonaparte treats countries as he has treated the Representatives.  He has violated the Assembly, he violates Belgium.  But all the same, you are a medley of strange rascals.  He who is at the top is a madman, those who are beneath are blockheads.  Very well, my friends, let me go to sleep.”

And he went to sleep.

Almost the same incident happened nearly at the same moment to Generals
Changarnier and Lamoriciere and to M. Baze.

The police agents did not leave General Changarnier until they had reached Mons. There they made him get down from the train, and said to him, “General, this is your place of residence.  We leave you free.”

“Ah!” said he, “this is my place of residence, and I am free?  Well, then, good-night.”

And he sprang lightly back into the carriage just as the train was starting, leaving behind him two galley sergeants dumfounded.

The police released Charras at Brussels, but did not release General Lamoriciere.  The two police agents wished to compel him to leave immediately for Cologne.  The General, who was suffering from rheumatism which he had caught at Ham, declared that he would sleep at Brussels.

“Be it so,” said the police agents.

They followed him to the Hotel de Bellevue.  They spent the night there with him.  He had considerable difficulty to prevent them from sleeping in his room.  Next day they carried him off, and took him to Cologne-violating Prussian territory after having violated Belgian territory.

The coup d’etat was still more impudent with M. Baze.

They made M. Baze journey with his wife and his children under the name of Lassalle.  He passed for the servant of the police agent who accompanied him.

They took him thus to Aix-la-Chapelle.

There, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, the police agents deposited him and the whole of his family, without a passport, without papers, without money.  M. Baze, indignant, was obliged to have recourse to threats to induce them to take him and identify him before a magistrate.  It was, perhaps, part of the petty joys of Bonaparte to cause a Questor of the Assembly to be treated as a vagrant.