Part 78 (2/2)
A little religion can be mingled with this justice. Here is an example.
Frederick Morin, like Arnauld de l'Ariege, was a Catholic Republican. He thought that the souls of the victims of the 4th of December, suddenly cast by the volleys of the _coup d'etat_ into the infinite and the unknown, might need some a.s.sistance, and he undertook the laborious task of having a ma.s.s said for the repose of these souls. But the priests wished to keep the ma.s.ses for their friends. The group of Catholic Republicans which Frederick Morin headed applied successively to all the priests of Paris; but met with a refusal. They applied to the Archbishop: again a refusal. As many ma.s.ses for the a.s.sa.s.sin as they liked, but far the a.s.sa.s.sinated not one. To pray for dead men of this sort would be a scandal. The refusal was determined. How should it be overcome? To do without a ma.s.s would have appeared easy to others, but not to these staunch believers. The worthy Catholic Democrats with great difficulty at length unearthed in a tiny suburban parish a poor old vicar, who consented to mumble in a whisper this ma.s.s in the ear of the Almighty, while begging Him to say nothing about it.
CHAPTER XV.
HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM
On the night of the 7th and 8th of January, Charras was sleeping. The noise of his bolts being drawn awoke him.
”So then!” said he, ”they are going to put us in close confinement.” And he went to sleep again.
An hour afterwards the door was opened. The commandant of the fort entered in full uniform, accompanied by a police agent carrying a torch.
It was about four o'clock in the morning.
”Colonel,” said the Commandant, ”dress yourself at once.”
”What for?”
”You are about to leave.”
”Some more rascality, I suppose!”
The Commandant was silent. Charras dressed himself.
As he finished dressing, a short young man, dressed in black, came in.
This young man spoke to Charras.
”Colonel, you are about to leave the fortress, you are about to quit France. I am instructed to have you conducted to the frontier.”
Charras exclaimed,--
”If I am to quit France I will not leave the fortress. This is yet another outrage. They have no more the right to exile me than they had the right to imprison me. I have on my side the Law, Right, my old services, my commission. I protest. Who are you, sir?”
”I am the Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior.”
”Ah! it is you who are named Leopold Lehon.”
The young man cast down his eyes.
Charras continued,--
”You come on the part of some one whom they call 'Minister of the Interior,' M. de Morny, I believe. I know M. de Morny. A bald young man; he has played the game where people lose their hair; and now he is playing the game where people risk their heads.”
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