However, he knew how to recognise his faults.
"M.

Bazile," said he, raising his hat, "if I have touched your face with my hand you will excuse me and you will understand me, you will approve of me, nay, you will compliment me, you will congratulate me and felicitate me, when you know the cause of that act.

I took you for Colomban." M.Bazile, wiping his bleeding nostrils with his handkerchief and displaying an elbow laid bare by the absence of his sleeve: "No, sir," answered he drily, "I shall not felicitate you, I shall not congratulate you, I shall not compliment you, for your action was, at the very least, superfluous; it was, I will even say, supererogatory.
Already this evening I have been three times mistaken for Colomban and received a sufficient amount of the treatment he deserves.

The patriots have knocked in my ribs and broken my back, and, sir, I was of opinion that that was enough." Scarcely had he finished this speech than a band of Pyrotists appeared, and misled in their turn by that insidious resemblance, they believed that the patriots were killing Colomban.

They fell on Prince des Boscenos and his companions with loaded canes and leather thongs, and left them for dead.