Contemplate Duquesnoy, a sort of mastiff, always barking and biting, when gorged he is even more furious. Delegate to the army of the Moselle, and passing by Metz[3298] he summoned before him Altmayer, the public prosecutor, although he had sat down to dinner. The latter waits three hours and a half in the ante-chamber, is not admitted, returns, and, at length received, is greeted with a thundering exclamation: "Who are you?" "The public prosecutor," he replies. "You look like a bishop--you were once a curé or monk--you can't be a revolutionary.... I have come to Metz with unlimited powers. Public opinion here is not satisfactory. I am going to drill it. I am going to set folks straight here. I mean to shoot, here in Metz, as well as in Nancy, five or six hundred every fortnight." The same at the house of General Bessières, commandant of the town encountering there M. Cledat, an old officer, the second in command, he measures him from head to foot: "You look like a muscadin. Where did you come from? You must be a bad republican--you look as if you belonged to the ancient régime." "My hair is gray," he responds, "but I am not the less a good republican: you may ask the General and the whole town." "Be off! Go to the devil, and be quick about it, or I will have you arrested!"-- The same, in the street, where he lays hold of a man passing, on account of his looks; the justice of the peace, Joly, certifies to the civism of this person, and he "eyes" Joly: "You too, you are an aristocrat! I see it in your eyes! I never make a mistake." Whereupon, tearing off the Judge's badge, he sends him to prison.--Meanwhile, a fire, soon extinguished, breaks out in the army bakery; officers, townspeople, laborers, peasants and even children form a line (for passing water) and Duquesnoy appears to urge them on in his way: using his fists and his foot, he falls on whoever he meets, on an employee in the commissariat, on a convalescent officer, on two men in the line, and many others. He shouts to one of them, "You are a muscadin!" To another: "I see by your eyes that you are an aristocrat!" To another: "You are a bloody beggar, an aristocrat, a rascal,"