Gendarme

“ I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe—the most generous, the most trustful, the most unsuspecting—make a brigadier of Gendarmerie of him for three months, and he’ll come out scarcely a shade brighter than the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! ”

“ A gendarme was crossing the court. A gendarme is one of the most striking objects in the world, even to a man void of uneasiness; but for one who has a timid conscience, and with good cause too, the yellow, blue, and white uniform is really very alarming.
"Why is that gendarme there?" asked Andrea of himself. Then, all at once, he replied, with that logic which the reader has, doubtless, remarked in him, "There is nothing astonishing in seeing a gendarme at an inn; instead of being astonished, let me dress myself." ”

“ Now, khaki-clad policemen, club in hand, patrol the streets, but their efficiency in time of tumult is by no means vindicated. A slouching, bare-foot, mild-faced gendarme such as you see in Canton is by no means an awe-inspiring embodiment of the majesty of the law. ”

“ The gendarme was still there, standing in the position of the soldier without arms, awaiting Fougas' receipt. The Colonel called for pen and ink, signed the paper, gave the gendarme drink-money, and said to him with ill-suppressed emotion:
"You are happy, you are! No one prevents you from serving the country. ”

“ One woman, the wife of a professor, managed to break through the guard and reach her husband, A gendarme tried to pull her away, but she clung tightly, screaming. The soldier turned his rifle about and drove his bayonet into her. Her husband leaped at the man’s throat and was killed by another gendarme. ”

“ Gendarmes are honest men, and do their duty. As for a good-for-nothing 'betyár,' he sets a girl to watch outside, and as soon as he sees so much as the tip of a gendarme's helmet, he is off and away, 'O'er the boundless waste,' leaving fish and wine and all behind him. ”

“ Gemini, the Twins, two stars in the southern hemisphere named Castor and Pollux; also the name of a sign of the zodiac.
Gendarmes (i. e. men-at-arms) , a military police in France organised since the Revolution, and charged with maintaining the public safety. The gendarmerie is considered a part of the regular army, and is divided into legions and companies; but the pay is better than that of an ordinary soldier. In the 14th and 15th centuries the name was applied to the heavy French cavalry, and later to the royal bodyguard of the Bourbons. ”

“ Y aura gras pour les marchands de patience!—Richepin, Le Pavé.
(Thieves’) Marchand de tirelaine, night thief; —— de lacets, formerly a gendarme.
Le gendarme a différents noms en argot: quand il poursuit le voleur, c’est un marchand [244] de lacets; quand il l’escorte, c’est une hirondelle de la Grève; quand il le mène à l’échafaud, c’est le hussard de la guillotine.—Balzac.
Un —— de babillards, a bookseller, or an “et cetera.” (Military) Marchand de morts subites, professional duellist, a “fire-eater;” —— de puces, official who has charge of the garrison bedding. The allusion is obvious ”

“ GENDARMERIE, originally a body of troops in France composed of gendarmes or men-at-arms. In the days of chivalry they were mounted and armed cap-à-pie, exactly as were the lords and knights, with whom they constituted the most important part of an army. They were attended each by five soldiers of inferior rank and more lightly armed. In the later middle ages the men-at-arms were furnished by owners of fiefs. ”

“ Your Excellency will feel that with the few gendarmes I have, it is impossible for me to make the police of the army. I shall receive the 75 men of surplus of the army, but I must beg her to observe that when I have a thousand gendarmes I shall not be able to suppress disorder if the gendarmerie is not respected, as well as its general orders, Nor its officers maintain discipline and obedience, in fine, if the regiments do not make their police and execute the orders of the Emperor. ”

“ I replied, "but he told me to shut up."
The gendarme was called and questioned about the matter.
"All I can say, sir," he replied, "is that a machine can't lie, and I've had enough experience not to make a mistake."
There was a burst of laughter from all the members of the council, which seemed to greatly astonish the old gendarme. The doctor took me back to measure me himself, and finding that my exact height was one metre seventy-nine without socks, he pointed this out to the gendarme. The latter, however, shook his head. ”

“ Votre Excellence sentira qu'avec le peu de gendarmes que j'ai, il m'est impossible de faire la police de l'armée. Je vais recevoir les 75 hommes d'excédents de l'armée, mais je dois la supplier d'observer que, quand j'aurai mille gendarmes, je ne pourrai réprimer les désordres si la gendarmerie n'est respectée ainsi que ses ordres généraux, ni ses officiers ne maintiennent la discipline et l'obéissance, enfin si les régiments ne font leur police et exécutes les ordres de l'Empereur. ”

“ All at once, however, I perceived on our left a large square, where about a hundred men of the Laval National Guard were being exercised. They saw us appear with our escort, they saw the crowd which followed us, and they heard the cries, "Spies! German spies!" Forthwith, with that disregard for discipline which among the French was so characteristic of the period, they broke their ranks and ran towards us.
We were only able to take a few more steps. In vain did the Gendarmes try to force a way through the excited mob. We were surrounded by angry, scowling, vociferating men. ”

“ And then, are they not always delighted with the acquaintance of a wicked fellow? Who, better than myself, can know how often they are the providence of fugitive galley-slaves and condemned prisoners?
Eleven months glided away, and nothing occurred to disturb my repose. The frequency of my being in the streets, my constant meetings with the police officers, who had not even paid attention to me, all seemed to augur the duration of this tranquillity, when, one day as we were sitting down to dinner in the back shop, the faces of three gendarmes were visible through a glass door. ”

“ About midnight, on the 14th of September, the gendarmes were ordered to surround the house of General Makriyani, an officer of irregulars on half-pay, and to arrest him on a charge of treason. On approaching the house they were warned off; but pressing forward they were fired on, and one gendarme was killed and one or two wounded. In consequence of the alarm given by the minister of war, for the purpose of supporting the arrests to be made, the garrison was all in readiness. ”

“ For defendants there were these gendarmes encircling the hall, visible representatives of the criminal system on trial. Should the gendarmes resort to force, they would find themselves up against a huge agitated mass of workers, silently clenching their fists and ready to defy provocation. This, the defendants—the gendarmes—understood perfectly, and so they contented themselves with malicious glances and the brandishing of swords. ”

“ The gendarmerie is the political police of the Czar. It forms a special military organisation quite distinct from the police proper. A detail of such gendarmes, proportionate to the importance of the place, is to be found in every railroad station of the country. On this occasion, however, the presence of the gendarmes seemed to have some special bearing upon the nature of the scene. They were all big strapping fellows. Their jingling spurs, red epaulets and icy silence belonged to the same category of things as the terrible political prisons of Kharkoff and St. Petersburg ”

“ The gendarmes are pale and twist nerously their moustaches, for, as the evening advances, and the time of reaction comes along, these savage and jealous peasants are often the cause of blood-spilling. ”

“ This inconsiderate movement placed the prince between his own artillery and the fugitives, and rendered his cannon useless. The face of the battle was changed in a moment; the viceroy advanced with the gendarmerie and a body of arquebusiers; the king was pressed on all sides. The French gendarmerie did not, in this battle, sustain its ancient reputation; it was beaten and almost destroyed by two thousand Biscayans, of astonishing agility, who, separating by platoons of ten, twenty, or thirty men, attacked it with inconceivable celerity and address. ”

“ The police and the gendarmes examine the young man, but nothing of what he says fits in with the crimes dealt with in their departments, and there is absolutely no way of accusing him of revolutionary acts, or of plotting, since he declares that he does not wish to destroy anything, but, on the contrary, rejects all violence, and conceals nothing, but seeks an opportunity for saying and doing in a most open manner what he says and does. And the gendarmes, though no laws are binding on them, like the clergy, find no cause for an accusation and return the young man to the army. ”

“ Since we have had the gendarmes with us at Ostend there is nothing but disturbance every day. They attack the officers and volunteers, take the liberty of pulling off epaulettes and talk only of cutting and slashing, and declare that they recognize no superior being equals with everybody, and that they will do as they please. Those who are ordered to arrest them are chased and attacked with saber cuts and pistols ”

“ Meanwhile, to our horror and disgust, some half-dozen gendarmes, with their long caps and heavy boots, were crawling up the sides of the drag, and taking their seats upon the top. Some crept into the interior, and showed their grinning faces at the windows; others mounted into the rumble; and two more aspiring spirits ascended to the box, by one of whom O'Grady was rudely ordered to get down, a summons enforced by the commissaire himself in a tone of considerable insolence. ”

“ A legion of gendarmerie, composed of mounted and unmounted troops, provided with machine guns and with administrative and medical services will be organised in each territorial region, it will supply in the vilayets, sandjaks, cazas, etc., the detachments necessary for the organisation of a fixed protective service, mobile reserves being at its disposal at one or more points within the region. ”

“ Word would be sure to get back to the police of his own province, he insisted, and he would be manhandled worse than ever when he went home. True, gendarmes who misbehave are sometimes court-martialed, which sounds to the average civilian like something dreadful, but those of us with a little military experience know how often a court martial is a synonym for a whitewashing, unless it is the sacred army itself which has been wronged. ”

“ They can scarcely be called fights, for it has not come to that; but as soon as the peasants hear that the gendarmes are coming, they send the priest into the wood, and gather in such force that the gendarmes are glad enough to ride away, unharmed. Of course, until we see that the peasants are really in earnest, and intend to fight to the last, it would be madness for any of us to take any part in the matter; for we should be risking not only life but the fortunes of our families, and maybe their lives, too. ”

“ At last a sergeant of the gendarmes rode up to our side splashed and heated.
“Has he escaped?” cried one of the men beside me.
“Yes!” said he, with an oath, “the brigand has got away; though how he cut the cords on his wrists, or by what means he sprang from the charrette to the road, the devil must answer. Ha! there they are firing away after him. The only use of their powder is to show the fellow where they are.”
“I would not change places with our captain this evening,” cried one of the gendarmerie. “Returning to Paris without the red beard—”
“Ma foi, you're not wrong there. ”

“ Those whose wounds permit it are also employed to do garrison duty in fortified places not exposed to an attack by enemies, and to assist in the different arsenals and laboratories, foundries, and depots of military or naval stores. Others are attached to the police offices, and some as gendarmes, to arrest suspected or guilty individuals; or as garnissaires, to enforce the payment of contributions from the unwilling or distressed. ”

“ The young troops who, encouraged by the example of the gendarmes, had so far stood their ground, at once lost heart. The darkness of the night, their ignorance as to the strength of the force that had attacked the rear, and the fear that all retreat would be cut off, would have shaken older soldiers than these and, in spite of the efforts of their officers, the wildest confusion soon reigned. ”

“ The gendarmerie are recruited from the army, there being one legion in each army corps district. Their strength is roughly 22,000 men, equally divided between cavalry and infantry. In Paris there is a separate force known as the Garde républicaine, which carries out police duties very much the same as the gendarmerie in the Departments. They number about 3000, of whom 800 are mounted. The French prison system was in a very antiquated state in 1874, when a commission on prison discipline issued its report in favour of cellular confinements. ”

“ Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be obliged to traverse the boys’ court in order to reach the parlor of Sainte-Marie-l‘Égyptienne. “Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination room is a grave disorder. “Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat; but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap of the secret cells. ”