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
Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian
woman, Princess Cantacuzène, who undertook to conduct him to the
frontier, and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had
a foreign passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a
Wallachian, and it was arranged that he should not know how to speak
French, he who writes it as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask
for passports along all the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens
they were particularly suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great.
The gendarmes went from carriage to carriage; entered them lantern in
hand, and compared the written descriptions of the travellers with their
personal appearance. Several who appeared to be suspicious characters
were arrested, and were immediately thrown into prison. Edgar Quinet,
seated by the side of Madame Cantacuzène awaited the turn of his
carriage. At length it came. Madame Cantacuzène leaned quickly forward
towards the gendarmes, and hastened to present her passport, but the
corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzène's passport saying, "It is
useless, Madame. We have nothing to do with women's passports," and he
asked Quinet abruptly, "Your papers?" Quinet held out his passport
unfolded. The gendarmes said to him, "Come out of the carriage, so that
we can compare your description." It happened, however, that the
Wallachian passport contained no description. The corporal frowned, and
said to his subordinates, "An irregular passport! Go and fetch the
Commissary."
All seemed lost, but Madame Cantacuzène began to speak to Quinet in the
most Wallachian words in the world, with incredible assurance and
volubility, so much so that the gendarme, convinced that he had to deal
with all Wallachia in person, and seeing the train ready to start,
returned the passport to Quinet, saying to him, "There! be off with
you!"--a few hours afterwards Edgar Quinet was in Belgium.
Arnauld de l'Ariège also had his adventures. He was a marked man, he had
to hide himself. Arnauld being a Catholic, Madame Arnauld went to the
priest; the Abbé Deguerry slipped out of the way, the Abbé Maret
consented to conceal him; the Abbé Maret was honest and good. Arnauld
d'Ariège remained hidden for a fortnight at the house of this worthy
priest. He wrote from the Abbé Maret's a letter to the Archbishop of
Paris, urging him to refuse the Pantheon, which a decree of Louis
Bonaparte took away from France and gave to Rome. This letter angered
the Archbishop. Arnauld, proscribed, reached Brussels, and there, at the
age of eighteen months, died the "little Red," who on the 3d of December
had carried the workman's letter to the Archbishop--an angel sent by God
to the priest who had not understood the angel, and who no longer knew
God.
In this medley of incidents and adventures each one had his drama.
Cournet's drama was strange and terrible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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