Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/147

 reasons less than the spirit of party. It testified besides, to the person addressed, that unlimited confidence which never fails to produce its effect on self-love or interest; the person answered that he would agree to undertake to get the casket from its place of concealment. Another letter from the pretended valet-de-chambre stating, that being entirely stripped, he had agreed with the keeper of the infirmary for a very small sum to sell the trunk, in which was, in the false bottom, the plan already alluded to. Then the money arrived, and they received sums sometimes amounting to twelve or fifteen hundred francs. Some individuals, thinking to give a profound proof of sagacity, came even from the remotest parts of their province to Bicêtre, where they received the destined plan which was to conduct them to this mysterious forest, which, like the fantastic forests of the romances of chivalry, fled eternally before them. The Parisians themselves sometimes fell into the snare: and some persons may still remember the adventure of the clothseller of the Rue des Prouvaires, who was caught undermining an arch of the Pont Neuf, where he expected to find the diamonds of the duchess de Bouillon.

We may imagine that such manœuvres could not be effected but by the consent and with the participation of the keepers, since they received the correspondence of the treasure-seekers. But the jailor thought, that independently of the direct benefit he thence drew from it, by the increase of the money spent by the prisoners in viands and spirits, they being thus occupied would not think of escaping. On the same principle he tolerated the making varieties of things in straw, wood, and bone, and even false pieces of two sous, with which Paris was at one time inundated. There were also other crafts exercised; but these were done clandestinely: they made privately false passports with the pen, so well done as to pass currently, saws for cutting iron, and false hair, which