Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/235

 in robbing the royal wardrobe (garde-meuble), to the details of which the convicts listened with a sinistrous pleasure. At the enumeration of the diamonds and jewels carried off, their eyes sparkled, their muscles contracted by a convulsive motion; and by the expression of their countenances, inferences might unerringly have been drawn of the first uses they would have made of their liberty. This disposition was particularly discernible in those men only convicted of petty offences, who were taunted and bantered as only having stolen objects of small value; and then, after estimating the plunder of the wardrobe, at twenty millions of francs, Deschamps, added, with an air of contempt towards a poor devil sentenced for stealing vegetables, "Ah! ah! this was cabbage."

From the moment when the robbery was perpetrated it became the subject of multiplied comments, which circumstances and agitation of mind rendered very singular. It was during the meeting of the representatives on the Sunday evening (16th of September 1792), that Roland, minister of the interior, announced the event to the tribune of the convention, complaining bitterly of the inefficient surveillance of the agents and the military guards, who had forsaken their posts, under pretext of the "severity of the cold." Some days afterwards, Thuriot, who was one of the commission charged with searching out the matter, in his turn accused the minister of carelessness, who answered drily, that he had something else to do beside watching the wardrobe. The discussion rested here, but these debates had aroused the public attention, and the sole public theme was of guilty collusions, and plots framed for robbery, of which the produce was devoted to keeping the police agents in pay; they went so far as to say, that the government had robbed itself; and what gave a consistency to such a report, was the reprieves granted on the 18th of October to some individuals condemned for this