Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/50

 my sword and ordered me to follow them. I obeyed, and was soon enclosed within the walls of the Baudets, whose use had been changed since the terrorists had put the population of Arras in a state of periodical decapitation. The jailor, Beaupré, covered with an enormous red cap, and followed by two large black dogs, who never quitted him, conducted me to a vast garret, where he held in his keeping the principal inhabitants of the country. There, deprived of all communication from without, they scarcely received nourishment, and not even that until it had literally been overhauled by Beaupré, who carried his precaution so far as to plunge his filthy dirty hands in the broth, to assure himself that there were no arms or keys. If anybody complained, he said to him, "Umph! you are very difficult to please for the time you have left to live. How do you know that it will not be your turn tomorrow? Oh, by the way, what is your name?"—"So and so."—"Ah! by my faith it is your turn tomorrow!" And the predictions of Beaupré were the less likely to fail as he himself pointed out the individuals to Joseph Lebon, who, after his dinner, consulted him saying, "Who shall we bathe tomorrow?"

Amongst the gentry shut up with us was the count de Bethune. One morning they sent for him to the tribunal. Before leading him out to the fore court, Beaupré said to him abruptly, "Citizen Bethune, since you are going down there, am not I to have all you leave behind you?"—"Certainly, M. Beaupré," answered the old man tranquilly. "There are no misters now," said the grinning wretch of a jailor, "we are all citizens;" and at the gate he again cried out to him, "Adieu, citizen Bethune!" M. de Bethune was however acquitted. He was brought back to prison as a suspected person. His return rejoiced us all; we thought him saved, but the next day he was again called up. Joseph Lebon, during whose absence the sentence of acquittal had been passed, arrived from the country: furious at being deprived of the blood of so worthy