Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/32

Rh all that crowd of moral reflexions which people have thought to strengthen by clothing them in the garb of superstition:—"A bad action brings no good luck: ill acquired gains profit us nothing." For the first time I acknowledged from experience a mine of truth in these prophetic sentences, which perpetual predictions were more sure than the admirable Centuries of Michael Nostradamus. I was in the repenting mood, as may be believed from my situation. I calculated the consequences of my flight and its aggravating sequel, but these were but ephemeral feelings: it was written that I should not so soon be placed in the right way. The sea was open to me as a profession, and I resolved to betrothe myself to it, at the risk of breaking my neck thirty times a day, by climbing, for eleven francs a month, up the rigging of a ship. I was ready to enter like a novice, when the sound of a trumpet suddenly arrested my attention; it was not that of a regiment, but of Paillasse (Merry-Andrew) and his master, who, in front of a show bedecked with the emblems of an itinerant menagerie, was awaiting the mob, which never hisses the vulgar exhibitions. I saw the beginning; and whilst a large crowd was testifying its gratification by loud shouts of laughter, it occurred to me that the master of Paillasse might give me employment. Paillasse appeared to me a good fellow, and I was desirous of securing his protection; and as I knew that one good turn deserves another, when he got down from his platform, on saying "follow the crowd," thinking that he might be thirsty, I devoted my last shilling in offering him half a pint of gin. Paillasse, sensible of this politeness, promised instantly to speak for me, and as soon as our pint was finished, he presented me to the director. He was the famous Cotte-Comus; he called himself the first physician of the world, and in traversing the country, had united his talents to those of the naturalist Garnier, the learned preceptor of general Jacquot, whom all Paris saw in the square of the Fountains before and after the revolution. These