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Charras answered, "We are packages."
And turning to his keepers who were now in their turn in keeping:--
"Apply to our exporters. Ask our Custom House officers. It is a mere
matter of goods traffic."
They set the electric telegraph to work. Valenciennes, alarmed,
questioned Paris. The sub-prefect informed the Minister of the Interior
that, thanks to a strict supervision, which he had trusted to no one but
himself, he had just effected an important capture, that he had just
discovered a plot, had saved the President, had saved society, had saved
religion, etc., that in one word he had just arrested General
Changarnier and Colonel Charras, who had escaped that morning from the
fort of Ham with false passports, doubtless for the purpose of heading a
rising, etc., and that, in short, he asked the Government what was to be
done with the two prisoners.
At the end of an hour the answer arrived:--"Let them go on their way."
The police perceived that in a burst of zeal they had pushed profundity
to the point of stupidity. That sometimes happens.
The next train carried away the prisoners, restored, not to liberty, but
to their keepers.
They passed Quiévrain.
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