had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st December, as
we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These empty pistols were
lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The Commissary of Police
threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been
loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had
been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud, who
at the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping
to carry out the _coup d'état_. If these pistols had remained loaded, and
if General Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have
been curious if Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly
would not have hesitated. We have already mentioned the names of these
police rascals. It is useless to repeat them. It was Courtille who
arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier, Desgranges who arrested
Nadaud. The men thus seized in their own houses were Representatives of
the people; they were inviolable, so that to the crime of the violation
of their persons was added this high treason, the violation of the
Constitution.

There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The
police agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas
the under-jailors jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The
Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a
prisoner."--"My person is inviolable."--"Unless you are caught red-handed,
in the very act."--"Well," said Bedeau, "I am caught in the act, the
heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the collar and dragged him
to a _fiacre_.

On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and
Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoricière. This made the police gentry
laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross round his