Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/252

 to watch him closely, and to prevent his returning to the vintner's. As well as I remember, to preclude all possibility of his so doing, they put him in the guard-house: in such cases we are not over particular; and, to be sincere, it was I who put him in the stone doublet, which was but a just retaliation. "My friend," I said to him, "I have left with the police a note of five hundred francs, destined to reward the man who shall successfully aid me in recovering my wife. It is now yours; and I will give you a note which will enable you to secure it;" and I gave him a small note to M. Henry, who, on perusal, said to a police-officer, "Conduct this gentleman to the chest." The chest was, in this instance, the Sylvestre-Chamber (a place of confinement) where my friend, the porter, had a little leisure for salutary reflection.

I was not certain of Fossard's residence, but yet relied on the indications given to me, and I was provided with the necessary power for his apprehension. Then the "richard du Marais" (the rich old man of the Marais) was suddenly metamorphosed into a coal-man; and in this costume, under which neither the mother who bore me, nor any of the agents of the police who saw me daily, could have recognised me, I employed myself in studying the ground on which I should so shortly be compelled to manœuvre.

The friends of Fossard—that is, his denouncers—had advised that the agents employed in his apprehension should be warned that he was always provided with a dagger and pistols, one of which latter, with double barrels, was concealed in a cambric handkerchief which he always held in his hand. This information called for precaution; and, besides, from the known desperation of Fossard's character, it was certain that to avoid a confinement worse than death, he would not hesitate about a murder. I felt no anxiety to become his victim; and thought that it would sensibly diminish my chance of peril, if I came to a previous understanding with the vintner whose tenant Fossard