by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER III
THE TRACKED MAN.
We must do the police of that day the justice of saying that even inthe gravest public conjunctures they imperturbably accomplished theirduties of watching the highways and of inspectorship. A riot was not intheir eyes a pretext to leave the bridle to malefactors, and to neglectsociety for the reason that the Government was in danger. The ordinaryduties were performed correctly in addition to the extraordinaryduties, and were in no way disturbed. In the midst of an incalculablepolitical event, under the pressure of a possible revolution, anagent, not allowing himself to be affected by the insurrection and thebarricade, would track a robber. Something very like this occurredon the afternoon of June 6, on the right bank of the Seine, a littlebeyond the Pont des Invalides. There is no bank there at the presentday, and the appearance of the spot has been altered. On this slopetwo men, a certain distance apart, were observing each other; the onein front seemed to be trying to get away, while the one behind wantedto catch him up. It was like a game of chess played at a distance andsilently; neither of them seemed to be in a hurry, and both walkedslowly, as if they were afraid that increased speed on the part of onewould be imitated by the other. It might have been called an appetitefollowing a prey, without appearing to do so purposely; the prey wascrafty, and kept on guard.
The proportions required between the tracked marten and the trackingdog were observed. The one trying to escape was thin and mean looking;the one trying to capture was a tall determined fellow, of ruggedaspect, and a rough one to meet. The first, feeling himself theweaker, avoided the second, but did so in a deeply furious way; anyone who could have observed him would have seen in his eyes the gloomyhostility of flight, and all the threat which there is in fear; theslope was deserted, there were no passers-by, not even a boatman orraftsman in the boats moored here and there. They could only be noticedeasily from the opposite quay, and any one who had watched them at thatdistance would have seen that the man in front appeared a bristling,ragged, and shambling fellow, anxious and shivering under a tornblouse, while the other was a classic and official personage, wearingthe frock-coat of authority buttoned up to the chin. The reader wouldprobably recognize these two men, were he to see them more closely.What was the object of the last one? Probably he wished to clothe theother man more warmly. When a man dressed by the State pursues a manin rags, it is in order to make him also a man dressed by the State.The difference of color is the sole question; to be dressed in blue isglorious, to be dressed in red is disagreeable, for there is a purpleof the lower classes. It was probably some disagreeable thing, andsome purple of this sort, which the first man desired to avoid.
If the other allowed him to go on ahead, and did not yet arrest him,it was, in all appearance, in the hope of seeing him arrive at somesignificative rendezvous and some group worth capturing. This delicateoperation is called tracking. What renders this conjecture highlyprobable, is the fact that the buttoned-up man, perceiving from theslope an empty fiacre passing, made a sign to the driver; the driverunderstood, evidently perceived with whom he had to deal, turnedround, and began following the two men along the quay. This was notperceived by the ragged, shambling fellow in front. The hackney coachrolled along under the trees of the Champs Élysées, and over theparapet could be seen the bust of the driver, whip in hand. One ofthe secret instructions of the police to the agents is, "Always havea hackney coach at hand in case of need." While each of these menmanœuvred with irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclinein the quay, which allowed drivers coming from Passy to water theirhorses in the river. This incline has since been suppressed for thesake of symmetry,--horses die of thirst, but the eye is gratified. Itwas probable that the man in the blouse would ascend by this inclinein order to try to escape in the Champs Élysées, a place adorned withtrees, but, in return, much frequented by police agents, where theother could easily procure assistance. This point of the quay is a verylittle distance from the house brought from Moret to Paris in 1824 byColonel Brack, and called the house of Francis I. A guard is at handthere. To the great surprise of his watcher, the tracked man did notturn up the road to the watering-place, but continued to advance alongthe bank parallel with the quay. His position was evidently becomingcritical, for unless he threw himself into the Seine, what could he do?
There were no means now left him of returning to the quay, no inclineand no steps, and they were close to the spot marked by the turn in theSeine, near the Pont de Jéna, where the bank, gradually contracting,ended in a narrow strip, and was lost in the water. There he mustinevitably find himself blockaded between the tall wall on his right,the river on his left and facing him, and authority at his heels. It istrue that this termination of the bank was masked from sight by a pileof rubbish seven feet high, the result of some demolition. But did thisman hope to conceal himself profitably behind this heap? The expedientwould have been puerile. He evidently did not dream of that, for theinnocence of robbers does not go so far. The pile of rubbish formed onthe water-side a sort of eminence extending in a promontory to the quaywall; the pursued man reached this small mound and went round it, sothat he was no longer seen by the other. The latter, not seeing, wasnot seen, and he took advantage of this to give up all dissimulationand walk very fast. In a few minutes he reached the heap and turned it,but there stood stupefied. The man he was pursuing was not there; itwas a total eclipse of the man in the blouse. The bank did not run morethan thirty yards beyond the heap, and then plunged under the waterwhich washed the quay wall. The fugitive could not have thrown himselfinto the Seine, or have climbed up the quay wall, without being seen byhis pursuer. What had become of him?
The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the end of the bank and stoodthere for a moment, thoughtfully, with clenched fists and scowlingeye. All at once he smote his forehead; he had just perceived, at thepoint where the ground ended and the water began, a wide, low, archediron grating, provided with a heavy lock and three massive hinges. Thisgrating, a sort of gate pierced at the bottom of the quay, opened onthe river as much as on the bank, and a black stream poured from underit into the Seine. Beyond the heavy rusty bars could be distinguished asort of arched and dark passage. The man folded his arms and looked atthe grating reproachfully, and this look not being sufficient, he triedto push it open, he shook it, but it offered a sturdy resistance. Itwas probable that it had just been opened, although no sound had beenheard,-a singular thing with so rusty a gate,--but it was certain thatit had been closed again. This indicated that the man who had openedthe gate had not a pick-lock but a key. This evidence at once burst onthe mind of the man who was trying to open the grating, and drew fromhim this indignant apostrophe,--
"That is strong! A government key!"
Then calming himself immediately, he expressed a whole internal worldof ideas by this outburst of monosyllables, marked by an almostironical accent,--
"Well! Well! Well! Well!"
This said, hoping we know not what, either to see the man come outor others enter, he posted himself on the watch behind the heap ofrubbish, with the patient rage of a yard-mastiff. On its side, thehackney coach, which regulated itself by all his movements, stoppedabove him near the parapet. The driver, foreseeing a long halt, puton his horses the nose-bag full of damp oats so well known to theParisians, upon whom the Government, we may remark parenthetically,sometimes puts it. The few passers over the Pont de Jéna, beforegoing on, turned their heads to look for a moment at these motionlessobjects,--the man on the bank and the hackney coach on the quay.
