Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/207

 of eighteen, all his accomplices, he contemplated their headless and bleeding bodies as they fell one by one by his side, with a calmness and fortitude that never wavered for an instant.

This circumstance gave me reason to be satisfied with the step that I had taken. Had I staid with the cattle-dealer, I was under the necessity of coming twice a week to Paris; and the police, directing its attention against all plots and foreign agents, was assuming an extent and energy which might have brought detection on me, as they minutely watched individuals, who, perpetually called by business from the departments of the west, might serve as agents between the Chouans and their friends in the capital. I therefore set out without delay, and on the third day reached Arras, which I entered in the evening, at the time when the workmen were returning home from labour. I did not go directly to my father's house, but to one of my aunts, who informed my parents. They thought me dead, not having received any of my last letters; and I have never been able to discover how and by whom they were intercepted. Having related all my adventures at length, I asked news of my family, which necessarily led to my enquiring for my wife. I was told that my father had for some time received her at his house, but that her conduct was so scandalous, that she had been disgracefully expelled thence. She was, I was informed, pregnant by an attorney, who supplied most of her wants; but that for some time nothing had been heard of her, and they had ceased to trouble themselves concerning her.

I gave myself no care about her, for I had matters of much greater import which demanded my attention. I might be discovered at any moment; and if apprehended at my parents' house they would be involved in difficulties. It was imperative on me to find an asylum where the vigilance of the police was not so active as at Arras, and I threw my eyes upon a village