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THE "SPUN" MAN
This justice must be rendered to the police of that period,
that even in the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably
fulfilled its duties connected with the sewers and surveillance.
A revolt was, in its eyes, no pretext for allowing malefactors
to take the bit in their own mouths, and for neglecting society
for the reason that the government was in peril.
The ordinary service was performed correctly in company with
the extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter.
In the midst of an incalculable political event already begun,
under the pressure of a possible revolution, a police agent, "spun"
a thief without allowing himself to be distracted by insurrection
and barricades.
It was something precisely parallel which took place on the
afternoon of the 6th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the
slope of the right shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides.
There is no longer any bank there now.
The aspect of the locality has changed.
On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed
to be watching each other while mutually avoiding each other.
The one who was in advance was trying to get away, the one
in the rear was trying to overtake the other.
It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in
silence. Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly,
as though each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner
redouble his pace.
One would have said that it was an appetite following its
prey, and purposely without wearing the air of doing so.
The prey was crafty and on its guard.
The proper relations between the hunted pole-cat and the hunting
dog were observed.
The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant mien
and not an impressive appearance; the one who was seeking to seize
him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter.
The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided
the second; but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious;
any one who could have observed him would have discerned in his
eyes the sombre hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear
contains.
The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even
a boatman nor a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored
here and there.
It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay
opposite, and to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance,
the man who was in advance would have appeared like a bristling,
tattered, and equivocal being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath
a ragged blouse, and the other like a classic and official personage,
wearing the frock-coat of authority buttoned to the chin.
Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he
were to see them closer at hand.
What was the object of the second man?
Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly.
When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it
is in order to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state.
Only, the whole question lies in the color.
To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be dressed in red is
disagreeable.
There is a purple from below.
It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this
sort which the first man is desirous of shirking.
If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him
as yet, it was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing
him lead up to some significant meeting-place and to some group
worth catching. This delicate operation is called "spinning."
What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the
buttoned-up man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackney-coach
on the quay as it was passing along empty, made a sign to the
driver; the driver understood, evidently recognized the person
with whom he had to deal, turned about and began to follow the
two men at the top of the quay, at a foot-pace. This was not observed
by the slouching and tattered personage who was in advance.
The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-Elysees.
The bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along
above the parapet.
One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to
their agents contains this article:
"Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in case of emergency."
While these two men were manoeuvring, each on his own side,
with irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane
on the quay which descended to the shore, and which permitted
cab-drivers arriving from Passy to come to the river and water
their horses. This inclined plane was suppressed later on, for
the sake of symmetry; horses may die of thirst, but the eye is
gratified.
It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to
ascend this inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into
the Champs-Elysees, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return,
much infested with policemen, and where the other could easily
exercise violence.
This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house
brought to Paris from Moret in 1824, by Colonel Brack, and designated
as "the house of Francois I." A guard house is situated
close at hand.
To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being
tracked did not mount by the inclined plane for watering.
He continued to advance along the quay on the shore.
His position was visibly becoming critical.
What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into
the Seine?
Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay;
there was no other inclined plane, no staircase; and they were
near the spot, marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont
de Jena, where the bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in
a slender tongue, and was lost in the water.
There he would inevitably find himself blocked between the
perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and in
front of him, and the authorities on his heels.
It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from
sight by a heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced
by some demolition or other.
But did this man hope to conceal himself effectually behind
that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The expedient
would have been puerile.
He certainly was not dreaming of such a thing.
The innocence of thieves does not extend to that point.
The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water's
edge, which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of
the quay.
The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound
and went round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other.
The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took
advantage of this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk
very rapidly. In a few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap
and passed round it. There he halted in sheer amazement.
The man whom he had been pursuing was no longer there.
Total eclipse of the man in the blouse.
The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about
thirty paces long, then it plunged into the water which beat against
the wall of the quay.
The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine
without being seen by the man who was following him. What had
become of him?
The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the extremity of
the shore, and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists
clenched, his eyes searching.
All at once he smote his brow.
He had just perceived, at the point where the land came to
an end and the water began, a large iron grating, low, arched,
garnished with a heavy lock and with three massive hinges.
This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the quay,
opened on the river as well as on the shore.
A blackish stream passed under it. This stream discharged
into the Seine.
Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted
corridor could be descried.
The man folded his arms and stared at the grating with an
air of reproach.
As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside;
he shook it, it resisted solidly.
It is probable that it had just been opened, although no sound
had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a grating;
but it is certain that it had been closed again. This indicated
that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a hook
but a key.
This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who
was trying to move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant
ejaculation:
"That is too much!
A government key!"
Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a
whole world of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables
accented almost ironically:
"Come!
Come!
Come!
Come!"
That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that
he should see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself
on the watch behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of
a pointer.
The hackney-coach, which regulated all its movements on his,
had, in its turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet.
The coachman, foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses'
muzzles in the bag of oats which is damp at the bottom, and which
is so familiar to Parisians, to whom, be it said in parenthesis,
the Government sometimes applies it.
The rare passers-by on the Pont de Jena turned their heads,
before they pursued their way, to take a momentary glance at these
two motionless items in the landscape, the man on the shore, the
carriage on the quay.
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