"What the favor you have asked from me authorizes me to demand. An arm," said he, "the blows of which cannot be parried. I wish you to sign me a letter of mark or a pass, as you please to call it, which permits those whom you employ to pass without disturbance."
"Beautiful!" said M. H...., with a smile; "now I understand you."
He wrote: "I recognize as a member of my police, employed by me, Monsieur...." He paused, and looked anxiously at the stranger. The latter leaned towards the Chief of Police, and in so low a tone that H.... could scarcely hear him, uttered a name which made the latter drop his pen. He however rallied himself, and wrote down the name. This document he afterwards authenticated by the seal of the police, and gave to the stranger.
"This is well," said the latter, as he received it. "Now be quick, for time presses, and the three persons will in a few hours have left Paris."...
When the man had left, and was alone, an atrocious smile appeared on his lips. This smile, however, was interrupted by an acute pain in his left arm. Then taking the paper which H.... had given him, he placed it on the wound, and said, "This is a cure for a wound I thought incurable—for steel and poison."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Continued from page 504, vol. iii.
[3] At this time one or the ultra-royalist factions, called Les Timides.