Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/99

 appeared, who seizing me, I was carried before the magistrate, who began by asking me where I had been during the last five days. My answer was brief, as I never implicated those who sheltered me. The magistrate observed, that my obstinacy in refusing him any explanation would go much against me, and that my head was in jeopardy, &c. &c. I only laughed, as imagining this remark to be a trap to force me to confess through fear. I persisted in my silence, and was remanded to the Petit HotêlHôtel [sic].

Scarcely had I set foot in the street, when all eyes were fixed on me. People called to each other and whispered, which I thought was caused by my disguise, and I scarcely heeded it. They made me enter a cell, where I was left alone in the straw heavily ironed. At the end of two hours the jailor came, who, pretending to pity me, and take an interest in me, told me that my resolution not to confess where I had spent the last five days, would injure me in the estimation of the judges; but I was immoveable, and two more hours elapsed, when the jailor returned with a turnkey, who took off my fetters, and desired me to go down to the office, where two judges were in attendance. I was again questioned, and made a similar reply, and they then stripped my clothes entirely off, and stamped on my right shoulder a blow that would have killed an ox, which was to mark me; my clothes were taken away, after being described in the procès-verbal; and I was sent back to my cell, covered with a shirt of sail-cloth, in a surtout half black and half grey, in rags, which had served at least two generations of prisoners.

All this gave me food for reflection. It was evident that the seamstress had denounced me, but for what? She had no complaint to make of me. In spite of her fury, Francine would have reflected twice, before she denounced me; and if I had withdrawn for some days, it was rather because I did not wish to irritate her by my presence, than from any fear of consequences.