oclaimed that the
Republic is invincible, and that in France it would prove itself
indestructible, as being identical on the one hand with the age, on
the other with the people. In lofty language, alike prophetic of
the future and condemnatory of the present, he had poured out his
indignation in the ears of the nation. The result of all this was
that Bonaparte wrote his name at the head of the list of the
proscribed."

Feeling that if he remained in Paris his life would be sacrificed to no
purpose, he endeavored to get away from the city. This was no easy
matter to accomplish, and had it not been for the active and skilful
assistance of Madame Drouet, he would doubtless have been imprisoned,
with his many friends, who crowded all the jails of Paris. A price was
set upon his head; twenty-five thousand francs was offered to any one
who would either kill or arrest him, and there were many assassins
lurking about in waiting for him. Madame Drouet took him in a _fiacre_,
and secretly started out to seek for him a refuge. She thought she had
friends who would shelter him, as Madame Hugo had sheltered Lahorie
during the troublous times of the first Empire. She applied to friend
after friend in vain. She wept, she implored, she tried to bribe,--in
vain. The citizens were too much intimidated to dare shelter one of the
proscribed,--even Victor Hugo, perhaps the most honored man in the
nation. Madame Drouet, however, would not yield to despair, but pursued
her way with undaunted determination. The drive was terrible,--past
ruined barricades and pointed cannon, through bloody patrols, and among
the police so thoroughly accustomed to the hunting of men. They passed
more than one Javert in that fearful ride; and when Victor Hugo
afterwards described the sensations of a man pursued like Jean Valjean,
he did not have to draw very strongly upon his imagination. The horrible
feeling of doubt and distrust, and the cold thrills of dread at every
change of circumstance, were well known to his own soul. Madame Drouet's
perseverance was at last rewarded by finding a temporary retreat for her
charge under the roof of a distant relative of the poet, where he
remained five days, filled with the most harrowing anxiety for the
friends whom he was endangering, as well as for himself. His two sons
were already in prison, and fears for their safety were added to his
other burdens. But he escaped at last, in disguis