Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/112

 him. Then, however, the whole day was consecrated to Bacchus; and, in spite of myself, I lapsed from my good intentions of reform.

By the help of a suppositious uncle, a man of wealth and influence, whose property, he said, was secured to him, my old colleague of the Bagne led a very agreeable life; and the credit he obtained from the reputation of being a person of family, was unlimited. There was not a Boulognese citizen of wealth, but cultivated the acquaintance of a personage of such distinction most sedulously. The most ambitious papas desired nothing more ardently than to have him for a son-in-law; and, amongst the young ladies, it was the general wish to catch him: thus he had facilities of dipping into the purses of the one, and obtaining the good graces of the other. He had an equipment like a colonel,—dogs, horses, and servants; and affected the tone and manners of a nobleman; possessing, in a supreme degree, the art of throwing powder in people's eyes, and making himself appear a man of consequence: so much so, that the officers themselves, who are generally so extremely jealous of the prerogatives belonging to an epaulet, thought it very natural that he should eclipse them. In any place but Boulogne, the adventurer would have been soon detected as a swindler, as he had not received any education; but in a city where the citizens of a recent establishment were as yet genteel in costume only, it was an easy matter to carry on such an imposition.

Fessard was the real name of this quarter-master, who was only known at the Bagne as Hyppolyte. He was, I believe, from Low Normandy; and, with an exterior of much frankness, an open countenance, and the haughty air of a young rake, he combined that sly character which slander has attributed to the inhabitants of Domfront: in a word, he was a shrewd man of the world, and gifted with all that was necessary to inspire confidence. A rood of land in his own country would have been to him sufficient