"Have him shot! What are you thinking of?" ... Have General Lobau, a member of the Provisional Government, shot! Who will you get to do the job?"
"Oh! you need not be anxious on that score!" said Charras.
And, drawing Mauguin away towards the window, he said, pointing out to his hundred and fifty men, "Do you see those fine fellows down there round a tricolour standard? Well, they have taken the barracks of Babylon under me; they recognise and obey me only, and if the Eternal Father Himself were to betray the cause of liberty—which He is quite incapable of doing—and I were to tell them to go and shoot Him, they would do it!"
Mauguin bent his head down. He was terrified at what such men as these might do. It was these men, these Republicans, as he called them, who had done such injury to poor Hippolyte Bonnelier.
An hour later, Charras and Lothon departed for La Fère provided with a letter signed by Mauguin and a proclamation by La Fayette. It differed but little from mine, which, as we have seen, had been of little use to me, as it had been in the hands of M. Missa[3] the whole time of my stay in Soissons.
[1] I have been told I was mistaken in this information. But I appeal to M. Thiers himself and to his Souvenirs of 1829. M. Thiers will not have forgotten the reply made him at a masked ball, by a domino who gave his arm to M. de Blancmesnil, a reply that obliged him to quit the ball instantly. Perhaps, by the domino's permission, I shall be able to relate the scene later.
[2] Translator's note.—Dumas probably means the duchess.
[3] See notes at end of volume.