Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/209

 good night's sleep, and in the morning assembled all the soldiers of his battery, deposed the incompetent old captain, took possession of the military post at Sallanches, declared war on the Absolute with Napoleonic brevity, and went to sleep again. The following day he shot to pieces the Karburator in the bakery at Thônes, occupied the railway station of Bonneville, and seized the command at Annecy, having by this time three thousand men under him. Within a week he had destroyed over two hundred Karburators and was leading fifteen thousand bayonets and sabres against Grenoble. He was proclaimed commandant of Grenoble, and now had a small army of forty thousand men at his back, with which he descended into the valley of the Rhone and busied himself in painstakingly clearing the surrounding territory of all atomic motors by means of his long-range guns. On the road to Chambery he captured the Minister for War, who was hurrying in his motor-car to put Bobinet back in his place. The Minister for War was so captivated and convinced by Bobinet's plans that he made him a General on the following day. On April 1st the city of Lyons was completely cleansed of every trace of the Absolute.

Up to this point Bobinet's triumphant progress had not been attended by bloodshed. He met with his first opposition from ardent Catholics beyond