Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/96

 wild life he had led, and what most induced me to make so many enquiries of him, was that I hoped he would be able to aid me with some means of escape. With the same motive, I associated with many individuals imprisoned as part of a band of forty or fifty Chauffeurs, who infested the adjacent districts, under the command of the famous Sallambier. They were named Chopine (called the Nantzman), Louis (of Douay), Duhamel (called Lilleman), Auguste Poissard (called the Provençal), Caron the younger, Caron the Humpback, and Bruxellois (called the Daring), an appellation which he deserved for an act of courage which is seldom heard of even in bulletins.

At the moment of entering a farm with six of his comrades, he thrust his left hand through an opening in the shutter to lift the latch, but when he was drawing it back, he found that his wrist had been caught in a slip knot. Awakened by the noise, the inhabitants of the farm had laid this snare, although too weak to go out against a band of robbers which report had magnified as to numbers. But the attempt being thus defeated, day was fast approaching, and Bruxellois saw his dismayed comrades looking at each other with doubt, when the idea occurred to him that to avoid discovery they would knock out his brains. With his right hand he drew out his clasp knife with a sharp point, which he always had about him, and cutting off his wrist at the joint, fled with his comrades without being stopped by the excessive pain of his horrid wound. This remarkable deed, which has been attributed to a thousand different spots, really occurred in the vicinity of Lille, and is well authenticated in the northern districts, where many persons yet remember to have seen the hero of this tale, who was thence called Manchot (or one-armed), executed.

Introduced by so distinguished a worthy as my townsman Desfosseux, I was received with open arms in the circle of bandits, where from morning to night