Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/21

 the traces of a transaction which my bookseller and myself had no wish should appear. Apparently, Delavau and Franchet, informed of my sad accident, which precluded me from superintending a publication which must disquiet them, had profited by the circumstance, to garble my Memoirs in such a way as to paralyze beforehand the effect of those discoveries on which they would have little cause for self-gratulation. All conjecture was fair: and I could only accuse the incapacity of my reviser; and as without vanity, I was more satisfied with my own prose than his, I begged him to terminate his labours.

It would seem that he had no objection,—but could he leave his post? He stated his bargain, and the commencement of his labours, by virtue of which he assumed a privilege of mutilating me at his pleasure, and to do what he pleased with me as long as he chose, if he received his "consideration." I had a much greater right to ask him for damages and recompense; but where there is neither cash nor honesty, what avails any demand of this nature? To lose no time in useless debate, I had back my manuscript, and payed its ransom under certain reservations, which I kept "in petto."

From this moment, I determined to destroy the pages in which my life and various adventures were mentioned without apology. A complete destruction was the surest method of overturning an intrigue, of which the plot was easily decyphered; but the first volume was ready, and the second far advanced. A total suppression would have been too considerable a sacrifice