Page 2157 - les-miserables

CHAPTER III

THE ‘SPUN’ MAN

This justice must be rendered to the police of that period,
that even in the most serious public junctures, it imper-
turbably fulfilled its duties connected with the sewers and
surveillance. A revolt was, in its eyes, no pretext for allow-
ing 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 com-
pany 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

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