Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs - Cosmopolitan University 2

order of England, somewhere in his writings, as the "iron hands of the
law." There was not only the law; there was its arbitrary
administration. We have but to recall Steele, ejected from Parliament;
Locke, driven from his chair; Hobbes and Gibbon, compelled to flight;
Charles Churchill, Hume, and Priestley, persecuted; John Wilkes sent to
the Tower. The task would be a long one, were we to count over the
victims of the statute against seditious libel. The Inquisition had, to
some extent, spread its arrangements throughout Europe, and its police
practice was taken as a guide. A monstrous attempt against all rights
was possible in England. We have only to recall the _Gazetier Cuirassé_.
In the midst of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. had writers, whose
works displeased him, arrested in Piccadilly. It is true that George II.
laid his hands on the Pretender in France, right in the middle of the
hall at the opera. Those were two long arms--that of the King of France
reaching London; that of the King of England, Paris! Such was the
liberty of the period.
CHAPTER IV.
URSUS SPIES THE POLICE.
As we have already said, according to the very severe laws of the police
of those days, the summons to follow the wapentake, addressed to an
individual, implied to all other persons present the command not to
stir.
Some curious idlers, however, were stubborn, and followed from afar off
the _cortège_ which had taken Gwynplaine into custody.
Ursus was of them. He had been as nearly petrified as any one has a
right to be. But Ursus, so often assailed by the surprises incident to a
wandering life, and by the malice of chance, was, like a ship-of-war,
prepared for action, and could call to the post of danger the whole
crew--that is to say, the aid of all his intelligence.
He flung off his stupor and began to think. He strove not to give way to
emotion, but to stand face to face with circumstances.
To look fortune in the face is the duty of every one not an idiot; to
seek not to understand, but to act.
Presently he asked himself, What could he do?
Gwynplaine being taken, Ursus was placed between two terrors--a fear for
Gwynplaine, which instigated him to follow; and a fear for himself,
which urged him to remain where he was.
Ursus had the intrepidity of a fly and the impassibility of a sensitive
plant. His agitation was not to be described. However, he took his
resolution heroically, and decided to brave the law, and to follow the
wapentake, so anxious was he concerning the fate of Gwynplaine.
His terror must have been great to prompt so much courage.