"'Really? I was mounted on a Spanish horse?' (I have never been mounted on anything but a bicycle.)
"'A Spanish horse, which you gave to one of your archers to hold.'
"'Ah, I was in command of archers, was I?'
"'Yes, of twenty mounted archers, and a hundred archers on foot. All this troop had come from the Palais de Justice; and when it reached the Buci Cross-roads, you dismounted, because you were thirsty, and wished before the ceremony to get outside a pint at the tavern kept by the Smacker.'
"'And for what ceremony had I come from the Palais de Justice with my hundred and twenty archers?' said I, wishing to humour him, for I only wanted to get home.
"'It was the matter of summoning me by Public Proclamation for the murder of the workman Mondelot. Therefore on that day, March 28, 1721, the Clerks of Court, trumpeters, drummers, archers on horseback, and archers on foot, issued from the Palais de Justice in an imposing procession, and after having made the proclamation first in the Court de May, where everything passed quietly, and then again in Croix-Rouge Place, they came back here to the Buci Cross-roads. You had drunk your pint, M. Mifroid, and were mounting your Spanish horse, when this remarkable incident took place. The Clerk of Court read very solemnly: 'In the name of the King, through the Lords of Parliament, the said Louis-Dominique Cartouche...' when a voice, cried: 'Present! Here's Cartouche! Who wants Cartouche?'... On the instant the Clerks of Court, archers on foot, and archers on horseback, drummers and trumpeters, the whole procession broke up and fled in every direction.... Yes; there did not remain a single person at the Buci Cross-roads, not a single person except myself and the Spanish horse, after I cried:
"'Here's Cartouche!'
"Phenomenon more curious than all curious phenomena in the depths of the Catacombs!... M. Longuet had no sooner said, 'Here's Cartouche!' than I started to fly from the Buci Cross-roads as fast as my legs could carry me, as if the fear of Cartouche had dwelt in the calves of the police at the Buci Cross-roads for nearly two hundred years!"