The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-WitnessHugo, Victor
History
The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
Hugo, Victor
France -- History -- 1789-1900
With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly
all hope, but the men of the _coup d'état_ had not lost all uneasiness.
Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning a rigorous
supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the Faubourg ran the
risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest suspicion,
arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault. About two
o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed the
Faubourg. A _sergent de ville_ and a police agent in plain clothes barred
his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where are you going?"
"Over there, close by, to Bartholomé's, the overseer of the sugar
manufactory.--" They search him. He himself opened his pocket-book; the
police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and unbuttoned
his shirt over his breast; finally the _sergent de ville_ said gruffly,
"Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be off!" It was
the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the pockets of
his waistcoat--and if they had searched his great-coat, they would have
found his sash there--Gindrier would have been shot.
Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the
combat--such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is why
we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.
Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and
returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he
resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue
Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a _fiacre_ passed him. Gindrier heard his
name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a _fiacre_,
relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the
relations of Baudin, Madame L----, said to him, "Baudin is
wounded!" She added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital.
We are going to fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the
_fiacre_. The stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of
Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by
the commissary of Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy,
to inform the family. Having only found the women at home he had
confined himself to telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded.
He offered to accompany them, and went with them in the _fiacre_. They
had uttered the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been
imprudent. They spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the
Representative, and it was settled that before the Commissary of Police
Gindrier should assume to be a relation, and be called Baudin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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