Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/217



I not the only secret agent of the police of safety: a Jew named Gaffré was my coadjutor; he had been employed before me by the police, but as our principles did not agree, we did not long go on with harmony together. I perceived that he was a bad fellow, and mentioned my opinion to the chief of the division, who, having ascertained the justice of my report, expelled him, and ordered him to quit Paris. Some individuals without any other qualification than a sort of low cunning acquired in prison, were likewise attached to the police of safety, but they had no fixed employment, and were only paid according to the captures they made. There were also thieves who constantly followed their profession, and whose presence was tolerated on condition of their giving up to justice the malefactors they might by chance fall in with; sometimes it happened that for lack of other objects, they would denounce their own comrades. After these tolerated thieves, came, in the third or fourth gradation, that swarm of abandoned profligates who lived with girls of infamous character. This ignoble caste occasionally supplied important directions for the taking of pickpockets and swindlers; generally, they came forward and offered the most useful information when they were anxious to procure the release of their mistresses who chanced to fall under the surveillance of the police. The women who lived with well-known