Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/307

 (commonly thought the most unquiet,) in which he was stationed, was, for the most part, spared; while, in other districts where no one apprehended any outrage, the robbers and assassins failed not almost every night to find out new victims. Under these circumstances, Desgrais bethought himself of a good ruse de guerre, viz.: to multiply his own personal identity; in plainer words, to dress up different individuals, so exactly like himself, and who resembled him so much in gait, voice, figure, and features, that even the catchpoles and patrol did not know which was the true Desgrais. Meanwhile, he used to watch quite alone, at the risk of his life, in the most retired lanes -and courts, from which he would at times emerge, and cautiously follow any individual who seemed, by his appearance, likely to bear about his person property of value. The person so followed remained always unmolested, so that, of this contrivance, too, the assassins must have been fully instructed, and Desgrais fell into absolute despair.

At length he came one morning to the President la Regnie, pale, disordered, and, indeed, quite beside himself. "What's the matter now?" said the President, "what news? Have you found any trace?" "Ha! your Excellence," stammering in his agitation,—"your Excellence,—last night, not far from the Louvre, the Marquis de la Fare was attacked in my presence." "Heaven and earth!" shouted la Regnie, "then we have them at last!"—"Oh, hear only," said Desgrais, with a bitter smile; "hear only, in the first place, how it happened. I was standing at the Louvre, and with feelings that could scarcely be envied, even by the damned, waiting for those demons that have so long mocked at our endeavors. Then, with steps rather unsteady, and always turning his head, as if to watch some one behind, there comes up a passenger, who went by without observing me. By the moonlight I recognized that this was the Marquis de la Fare; I could keep watch over him from the place where I stood, and I knew very well whence and whither he was going. Scarcely