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And he handed over Changarnier, Charras, and the four police agents to
the gendarmes. The Commissary saw the Cross of Honor shining in the
distance. He was radiant.
The police arrested the police. It happens sometimes that the wolf
thinks he has seized a victim and bites his own tail.
The six prisoners--for now there were six prisoners--were taken into a
parlor at the railway station. The Commissary informed the town
authorities. The town authorities hastened hither, headed by the
sub-prefect.
The sub-prefect, who was named Censier, comes in, and does not know
whether he ought to salute or to question, to grovel in the dust or to
keep his hat on his head. These poor devils of magistrates and local
officials were very much exercised in their minds. General Changarnier
had been too near the Dictatorship not to make them thoughtful. Who can
foresee the course of events? Everything is possible. Yesterday called
itself Cavaignac, to-day calls itself Bonaparte, to-morrow may call
itself Changarnier. Providence is really cruel not to let sub-prefects
have a peep at the future.
It is sad for a respectable functionary, who would ask for nothing
better than to be servile or arrogant according to circumstances, to be
in danger of lavishing his platitudes on a person who is perhaps going
to rot forever in exile, and who is nothing more than a rascal, or to
risk being insolent to a vagabond of a postscript who is capable of
coming back a conqueror in six months' time, and of becoming the
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