The major was a logical soul, and he realised the justice of the reasoning.
"Very well," he said, "take your prisoner to the headquarters; I will give you a hundred men to accompany you."
The lieutenant and Fra Diavolo exchanged a sly glance which implied that the major had played into their hands.
The hundred men of the escorting party and the two hundred and fifty Calabrian peasants set off for the headquarters six leagues away. But the headquarters never received news of Fra Diavolo, and the hundred men of the escort never reappeared. When a defile was reached, the hundred Frenchmen were slaughtered, and Fra Diavolo and his two hundred and fifty men regained the mountains! Colonel Hugo meant to go on with the pursuit; and, from henceforth, there was a constant series of outwittings and marches and counter-marches between him and the Calabrian chief, which ended in Fra Diavolo being defeated. Taken a second time, Fra Diavolo was sent to Naples, where his trial was to take place, and the 20,000 ducats were immediately paid over to those who had taken him. One morning Colonel Hugo learnt that Fra Diavolo was condemned to be hung.
"Hung!" The word sounded odd to French ears. Colonel Hugo at once started off for Naples and obtained an audience of the king, from whom he wished to solicit a commutation, not of the penalty, but of the manner of execution. He asked that, as Fra Diavolo had been a soldier, he might be shot. Unluckily, Fra Diavolo had been a bandit before he became a soldier, and he had served his own ends before enlisting in the services of Cardinal Ruffo and Ferdinand I. The documentary evidence shown to Colonel Hugo by King Joseph was so crammed with wilful crimes, murders and incendiary fires that Colonel Hugo was the first to withdraw his proposition. Consequently, Colonel Michel Pezza, otherwise Fra Diavolo, and Count of I know not what title, was summarily hung.
In 1808, Napoleon having declared that the Bourbons of Spain had ceased to reign, Joseph Bonaparte passed from the throne of the Two Sicilies to that of Spain, where Colonel Hugo followed him. Upon his arrival in Madrid, Colonel Hugo was made brigadier-general, governor of the Cours de Tagus, first major-domo and first aide-de-camp to the king, a grandee of Spain, Count of Cogolludo and Marquis of Cifuentes and of Siguença! These were high proofs of favour; but there was one among them all which Colonel Hugo accepted with some aversion: and that was the title of marquis.
"Sire," he said to Joseph, when the King of Spain condescended to announce his intentions towards him, "I thought that the emperor had abolished the title of marquis?"
"Not in Spain, my dear colonel ... only in France."
"Sire," insisted the new general, "if the emperor has only abolished it in France, Molière has abolished it everywhere else."
And General Hugo contented himself with using the title of count, and never bore that of marquis. But, in spite of this, he was none the less be-marquised and be-majordomoed. Among the privileges which accompanied this latter office was that of presenting people to the king. On one occasion the new major-domo had to present to King Joseph the Archbishop of Tarragona, who had come to profess his allegiance to the king. The Archbishop of Tarragona had a reputation for ugliness, which left far behind it that which General Hugo's son later bestowed on the bell-ringer of Notre-Dame. So, when the major-domo looked at the worthy prelate and recognised that his ugliness had not only not been exaggerated but that it was, perhaps, even worse than people had said, ignorant that the archbishop could speak and understand French, he could not refrain from adding, after he had pronounced the all-important formula in pure Castilian, "Señor, presento á vuestra Magestad el se señor arzobispo de Tarragona," the following words in French: "The most villainous-looking brute in your Majesty's kingdom!"