Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/189

 bottles of wine, we separated. At parting St Germain having observed that I was but meanly clad, enquired what I was doing, and as I carelessly answered that at present I had no occupation, he promised to do his best for me, and to push my interest the first opportunity that offered. I suggested that, as I very rarely ventured out for fear of being arrested, we might not possibly meet again for some time. You can see me, whenever you choose, said he; I shall expect that you will call on me frequently. Upon my promise to do so, he gave me his address, without once thinking of asking for mine.

St Germain was no longer an object of such excessive terror as formerly in my eyes; I even thought it my interest to keep him in sight, for if I applied myself to scrutinizing the actions of suspicious persons, who better than he called for the most vigilant attention? In a word, I resolved upon purging society of such a monster. Meanwhile I waged a determined war with all the crowd of rogues who infested the capital. About this time robberies of every species were multiplying to a frightful extent: nothing was talked of but stolen palisades, out-houses broken open, roofs stripped of their lead; more than twenty reflecting lamps were successively stolen from the Rue Fontaine au Roi, without the plunderers being detected. For a whole month the inspectors had been lying in wait in order to surprise them, and the first night of their discontinuing their vigilance the same depredations took place. In this state, which appeared like setting the police at defiance, I accepted the task which none seemed able to accomplish, and in a very short time (to the great disappointment of all the Arguses of the Quai du Nord) I was enabled to bring the whole band of these shameless plunderers to public justice, which immediately consigned them to the gallies. One amongst them was named Cartouche. I do not know whether the name he bore had any particular influence over him, or whether he possessed any quality peculiar to