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
Without a passport, without letters, without papers, he was afraid of
being arrested in the night, and he was longing for a good sleep. A good
bed to-night, he thought, and to-morrow the Deluge! At the Hôtel de
Brabant he paid the coachman, but did not go into the hotel. Moreover,
he would have asked in vain for the Representatives Forel and Guilgot;
both were there under false names.
He took to wandering about the streets. It was eleven o'clock at night,
and for a long time he had begun to feel utterly worn out.
At length he saw a lighted lamp with the inscription "Hôtel de la
Monnaie."
He walked in.
The landlord came up, and looked at him somewhat askance.
He then thought of looking at himself.
His unshaven beard, his disordered hair, his cap soiled with mud, his
blood-stained hands, his clothes in rags, he looked horrible.
He took a double louis out of his waistband, and put it on the table of
the parlor, which he had entered and said to the landlord,--
"In truth, sir, I am not a thief, I am a proscript; money is now my only
passport. I have just come from Paris, I wish to eat first and sleep
afterwards."
The landlord was touched, took the double louis, and gave him bed and
supper.
Next day, while he was still sleeping, the landlord came into his room,
woke him gently, and said to him,--
"Now, sir, if I were you, I should go and see Baron Hody."
"Who and what is Baron Hody?" asked Cournet, half asleep.
The landlord explained to him who Baron Hody was. When I had occasion to
ask the same question as Cournet, I received from three inhabitants of
Brussels the three answers as follows:--
"He is a dog."
"He is a polecat."
"He is a hyena."
There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.
A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to
me,--
"He is a beast."
As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels
"The Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of
the Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.
Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover,
like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that
moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read
strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style
there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police,
when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the
unbuttoned cassock.
At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical
party had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron
Hody confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale.
Nothing more.
"Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.
He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and
asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"
"At the Ministry of Justice."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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