"He is a polecat."
"He is a hyena."
There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.
A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to me,—
"He is a beast."
As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels "The Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of the Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.
Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover, like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police, when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the unbuttoned cassock.
At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical party had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron Hody confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale. Nothing more.
"Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.
He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"