Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/135

 tremble with an involuntary shudder. Lieutenant Thierry my neighbour! He might recognize me, detect me; a gesture might betray me; and it was therefore expedient to avoid a rencontre if possible. The necessity of completing my inventory was an excuse for my apparent want of curiosity. I passed a frightful night, and it was not until four o'clock in the morning that the departure of the infernal procession was announced to me, that I breathed freely again.

He has never suffered, who has not experienced horrors similar to those into which the presence of this troop of banditti and their guards threw me. To be again invested with those fetters which I had broken at the cost of so much endurance and exertion, was an idea which haunted me incessantly. I was not the sole possessor of my own secret, for there were galley-slaves everywhere, who, if I sought to flee from them would infallibly betray me: my repose, my very existence was menaced on all sides, and at all times. The glance of an eye, the name of a commissary, the appearance of a gendarme, the perusal of a sentence, all roused and excited my alarm. How often did I curse the perverse fate which, deceiving my youth, had smiled at the disorderly license of my passions; and that tribunal which, by an unjust sentence, had plunged me into a gulf whence I could not extricate myself, nor cleanse myself of the foul imputations which clung to me; and those institutions which close for ever the door of repentance! I was excluded from society, and yet I was anxious to give it proofs of good conduct; I had given them; and I attest my invariable honourable behaviour after every escape, my habits of regularity, and my punctilious fidelity in fulfilling all my engagements.

Now some fears arose in my mind concerning Paquay, in whose arrest I had been instrumental; and, on reflection, it seemed that I had acted inconsiderately in this circumstance; I felt a forewarning