Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/220

 prison of the department a gendarme rang the bell. Who answered the summons? Dutilleul, the turnkey, who, after one of my attempts to escape, had dressed my hurts for a month afterwards. He did not appear to know me. At the office I found another person whom I knew, the guard Hurtrel, in such a state of inebriety that I flattered myself his memory had entirely left him. For three days nothing was said to me; but on the fourth I was led before the examining magistrate, in the presence of Hurtrel and Dutilleul, and was asked if I were not Vidocq? I replied that I was Auguste Duval, which might be confirmed by sending to l'Orient; and besides, the motive of my apprehension at Ostend proved it, as I was only charged with having deserted from a ship of war. My straight-forward tale seemed to weigh with the judge, who hesitated; but Hurtrel and Dutilleul persisted in asserting that they were not mistaken. Rausson, the public accuser, came to see me, and also said he knew me; but as I was not disconcerted, he remained in doubt, and to clear up the affair they devised a stratagem.

One morning I was told that a person wanted me at the office, and on going thither I found my mother, whom they had sent for from Arras; with what intention may be easily divined. The poor woman hastened to embrace me, but I saw through the snare, and putting her from me quietly, I said to the magistrate who was present, that it was an unmanly thing to give the unfortunate woman any hopes of seeing her son, when they were, at least, uncertain of their ability to produce him. My mother, who was put on her guard by a signal which I managed to communicate to her, pretending to examine me attentively, at length declared that a wonderful likeness had deceived her, and then retired, uttering many bitter reproaches against those who had taken her from home only to afford her but a fallacious joy.

The magistrate and turnkeys were then reduced to