Translation:What the Prefect did

Until now, I have only shot small birds; today, I am hunting big game. The real criminal beast whose teeth I have faced a hundred times.

Neither the fat pig, nor the pharisee, nor the little punk, nor the peddler could have harmed me if the Prefect of the Nord had not added his own darkness, his own malice, his own infamy, his own villainy to the peddler's darkness, the little punk's malice, the pharisee's infamy, and the fat pig's villainy.

I insult him today: if he has any heart, let him pursue me! Let him pursue me, and before the assize court, I will prove that he is indeed the brother of the sexual groper who, in Tunis, sullied the French name. Let him pursue me, and to the applause of the entire audience, I will dishonor him.

On the morning of September 20th, the Lannoy gendarmerie sent the public prosecutor this dispatch: "Disorders committed in a meeting by anarchists bribed by Martinet". This accusation, stupid and vague, of having bribed anarchists did not seem sufficient to the prosecutor, and before acting, he wanted to wait. But the prefect did not want to wait, and as soon as he had read – before sitting down to eat – the little punk's article, he telegraphed the fat pig the order to arrest me.

First crime: the public prosecutor's office is seized by a gendarmerie report; the prefect only knows about the matter through the newspapers, and encroaching on the public prosecutor's prerogatives, he has me arrested. I was arrested on a dispatch! For a newspaper article!... Oh, justice!

Certainly, I know that Article 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure confers the same rights on prefects as on judicial police magistrates, but on the condition that they use them in the same manner as magistrates.

The prefect, in accordance with Chapter IV of Title II of the same Code, should have drawn up and issued an arrest warrant. However, on this point, the court ruled in my favor. Before acquitting me, it had issued an initial judgment declaring that my case was not one of flagrante delicto, but the prefect did not issue an arrest warrant solely to prove that he was the strongest and that laws are not made for the great. You were right, Cambon, you taught us contempt for the law; do not complain if, one day, to your detriment, it is disregarded.

Vile debaucher, prefect of big shots, brother of a pimp, you sent to my home Henry the weakling, Bayard the butcher, Hugghe the wrestler, and a fourth whose despised name I do not know.

"In the name of the law, we arrest you!" cry these four wretches. – Very well. Show me your law. Where is the warrant? – We have no warrant. We have the prefect's orders. – That is not enough, men! But no matter, arrest me!

These four infamous men tie my arms behind my back. Bayard and Hugghe rejoiced as they tightened the knots; Henry twirled his mustache. Ah! These are the crimes of authority! Since it is true that it is enough for a man to have power for him to misuse it in this way, does that not give me the right to affirm my anarchist faith and to say that authority is evil and that it must be destroyed?

They took me to Lille, where they threw me onto a straw mattress full of lice, and only thirty-six hours later did I appear before an examining magistrate who, distressed, had no reports against me and who would have gladly released an innocent man, but did not dare.

"Look," I said to him, "how beautiful the sky is! It's the sky of Saint Martin's summer. Ah! You know very well that I will present myself at any request if you grant me provisional release. I have only been free for three months. Do not deprive me of this light!"

And, sorrowfully, Mr. Camille de Brix replied to me, like someone with his hand forced:

"— The public prosecutor requests a detention order." Ah! The public prosecutor forced the examining magistrate's hand. Who forced the public prosecutor's hand?...

Mr. Public Prosecutor, it is to you that I speak. You acted justly the other day by having me released after the fat pig's latest foolishness. But the innocent man outside is not enough; you need the guilty ones inside. Order the arrest of the four informers who, on September 20th, committed violence against the pariah. What are you doing with Article 311, which they wanted to apply to me? What are you also doing with Article 60? Doesn't it address provocation through abuse of authority and power? Who abused their power to provoke the mastiffs Bayard and Hugghe to commit the offense of assault and battery? Come now, Mr. Public Prosecutor, you always have gendarmes on duty. Order them to go to the prefecture, go up to the state apartments, and seize the collar of the man named Jules Cambon. You need him: have him brought to you! Otherwise, your justice is no longer justice, the law is no longer the law, and Themis is a procuress.