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few moments afterwards, the keepers, under pretext of cold, pulled up
the ground-glass window which closed the vehicle on the side of the
Commissary, and having thus "blocked the police," as one of them
remarked, they opened the cells of the prisoners.
It was with great delight that the four Representatives met again and
shook hands. Each of these three generals at this demonstrative moment
maintained the character of his temperament. Lamoricière, impetuous and
witty, throwing himself with all his military energy upon "the Bonaparte;"
Cavaignac, calm and cold; Changarnier, silent and looking out through
the port-hole at the landscape. The sergents de ville ventured to put
in a word here and there. One of them related to the prisoners that the
ex-Prefect Carlier had spent the night of the First and Second at the
Prefecture of Police. "As for me," said he, "I left the Prefecture at
midnight, but I saw him up to that hour, and I can affirm that at
midnight he was there still."
They reached Creil, and then Noyon. At Noyon they gave them some
breakfast, without letting them get out, a hurried morsel and a glass of
wine. The Commissaries of Police did not open their lips to them. Then
the carriages were reclosed, and they felt they were being taken off the
trucks and being replaced on the wheels. Post horses arrived, and the
vehicles set out, but slowly; they were now escorted by a company of
infantry Gendarmerie Mobile.
When they left Noyon they had been ten hours in the police-van. Meanwhile
the infantry halted. They asked permission to get out for a moment "We
consent," said one of the Commissaries of the Police, "but only for a
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