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Some minutes after the clearance, this Salle des Pas Perdus, which had
just witnessed Representatives pass by in the clutch of gendarmes, saw
M. Dupin in the clutch of the Representatives.
They did not get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors.
Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came
up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the
commander's pocket.
The colonel was pale, the commander was pale, M. Dupin was livid. Both
sides were afraid. M. Dupin was afraid of the colonel; the colonel
assuredly was not afraid of M. Dupin, but behind this laughable and
miserable figure he saw a terrible phantom rise up--his crime, and he
trembled. In Homer there is a scene where Nemesis appears behind
Thersites.
M. Dupin remained for some moments stupefied, bewildered and speechless.
The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,--
"Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not interrupt you."
Then, with the words of the Representatives at his back, and the
bayonets of the soldiers at his breast, the unhappy man spoke. What
his mouth uttered at this moment, what the President of the Sovereign
Assembly of France stammered to the gendarmes at this intensely critical
moment, no one could gather.
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