Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/170

, had just been apprehended; and as this girl was known as France's mistress it was conjectured that these two had a common residence. France was in consequence conducted to the spot, and recognized by the neighbours. He pretended that he had been taken by surprise, and that they were mistaken, but the jury before whom he was taken decided otherwise, and he was condemned to the gallies for eight years.

France once convicted, it was easy to follow up the traces of his comrades, two of whom were named Fossard and Legagneur. They were watched, but the negligence and want of address in the officers enabled them to escape the pursuit which I directed. The former was a man the more dangerous, as he was very skilful in making false keys. For fifteen months he seemed to defy the police, when one day I learnt that he resided with a hair-dresser in Rue du Temple, facing the common sewer. To apprehend him from home was almost impossible, for he was skilful in disguises, and could detect an officer a hundred paces off; on the other hand, it would be better to seize him in the midst of his professional apparatus, and the produce of his robberies. But the undertaking presented obstacles: Fossard never answered when they knocked at his door, and it was most likely that he had a means of egress and facilities for getting over the roofs. It appeared to me, that the only mode of seizing him was to profit by his absence, and hide in his lodging. M. Henry was of my opinion; and the door being broken open in the presence of a commissary, three agents placed themselves in a closet adjoining a recess. Nearly seventy-two hours elapsed, and nobody arrived; at the end of the third day, the officers having exhausted their provisions, were going away, when they heard a key turn in the lock, and Fossard entered. Immediately two of the officers, in conformity with their instructions, darted from the closet and threw themselves upon him; but Fossard, arming himself with a knife which they had left on the table,