Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/132

 have any direct influence over my situation, yet it alarmed me, and I was horror-struck at feeling that I had ever been in contact with such brigands, destined to the executioner's arm: my remembrance revealed me to myself, and I blushed, as it were, in my own face. I sought to lose the recollection, and to lay down an impassable line of demarcation between the past and the present; for I saw but too plainly, that the future was dependant on the past; and I was the more wretched, as a police, who have not always due powers of discernment, would not permit me to forget myself. I saw myself again on the point of being snared like a deer. The persuasion that I was interdicted from becoming an honest man drove me to despair; I was silent, morose, and disheartened. Annette perceived it, and sought to console me; she offered to devote herself for me, pressed me with questions, and my secret escaped me; but I never had cause to regret my confidence. The activity, the zeal, and presence of mind of this woman became very useful to me. I was in want of a passport, and she persuaded Jacquelin to lend me his, and to teach me how to make use of it; she gave me the most complete accounts of her family and connexions. Thus instructed, I set out on my journey, and traversed the whole of Lower Burgundy. Almost everywhere I was examined as to my passport, which if they had compared with my person, would have at once detected the fraud; but this was nowhere done, and for more than a year, with trifling exceptions not worth detailing, the name of Jacquelin was propitious to me.

One day that I had unpacked at Auxerre, and was walking peaceably on the quay, I met one Paquay, a robber by profession, whom I had seen at the Bicêtre, where he was confined for six years. I would rather have avoided him, but he addressed me abruptly, and from his first salutation, I found that it would not be safe to pretend no acquaintance with him. He was