Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/243

 first idea was to employ me in discovering him; but the informers having suggested to M. Henry that I was too well known to Fossard and his concubine not to defeat an operation which must be most delicately effected, it was decided that the affair should be intrusted to the skill of some police-officers. To them therefore were given all the necessary instructions to regulate their searches; but, either they were not lucky, or they did not especially approbate a rencontre with Fossard, who was 'armed to the teeth,' for he continued his exploits, and the numerous complaints to which his activity gave rise, announced, that in spite of their apparent zeal, these gentlemen, as usual, made more noise than work.

The result was, that the préfet, who preferred doings to sayings, sent for them one day, and reprimanded them in a manner which must have been severe, to judge by the discontent which they could not help testifying.

They had just received this official proof of disapprobation, when I happened to meet, in the market of Saint-Jean, M. Yvrier, one of the officers in question, whom I saluted, and he thereupon accosted me, almost bursting with rage, saying, "Ah! there you are, Mr Do-so-much; you are the cause of our having been reprimanded about that Fossard, the fugitive galley-slave, who they say is in Paris. If we are to believe monsieur le préfet, there is no one but you who can do anything. If Vidocq, he said to us, had been ordered to this business, we should have had this fellow apprehended long ago. Well, then, let us see, M. Vidocq; set your wits to work to find him, you who are so very clever, and prove that you have all the talent that they say you have."

M. Yvrier was an old man, and it was respect for his age which checked my reply to his impertinence; and although I was wounded by the tone of his address, I did not care to show it, contenting myself with replying, that I had not then the leisure to occupy