2-197 (Original)

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As I have already said, our guard was made up of one squad of policemen, and one squad of soldiers. Several of these men were married, and our Superintendent was a bachelor, having so little respect for himself that he was pretty indecent. One evening when the Superintendent and his cronies had gathered together in one of the rooms where his policemen resided with their families, to drink and enjoy themselves, it happened that the worthy chief and his worthy subordinates became so blind drunk that the differences of ranks and grades could no longer be distinguished. The Superintendent, having so far forgotten himself as to publicly insult the wife of one of the policemen, the husband of this latter attacked his captain hammer and tongs, and showered on him a succession of punches which then restored to the latter his sense of authority. Then he ordered his subordinate officers to arrest the assailant and to take him off to the clink, a dark cell made for prisoners undergoing solitary confinement.
It must be understood that some took the side of their chief, and that others sided with the insulted husband, for a terrible row then took place. From our dormitories we heard the yells and the noise of the smashing of furniture and crockery in the midst of the brawl.
In the embarrassing position in which he found himself, our Superintendent, forgetting his prejudices and his unjust restriction, rushed towards our little cells, opened the doors and summoned us outside. This we were able to do without any delay, owing to the fact that, by reason of the cold and the lack of bed-clothes, we were lying down, as usual, fully dressed Once assembled which was the work of only a minute, the Superintendent ordered us to arrest all the policemen and all the soldiers, and so lock up, in one of the sheds, the whole force appointed to guard us. [125] We obeyed, without knowing then a single word about the origin and causes of the quarrel, and without foreseeing what would be the consequences of this extraordinary adventure. Only one man, a sergeant, had been exempted from arrest. It was he alone who was charged with the duty of guarding us during the rest of the night.
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