Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/269

 'Brigade de Sureté,' under the orders of Sieur Vidocq, chief of this brigade.

"They shall continue to keep the gambling-table, but six other persons shall be added to their numbers, who shall also perform the services of secret agents.

"The councillor of state, préfet, &c.

"Copied by the secretaire-general.

"L. Defougères [sic]."

It was with a troop so small as this that I had to watch over more than twelve hundred pardoned convicts, freed, some from public prisons, others from solitary confinement: to put in execution, annually, from four to five hundred warrants, as well from the préfet as the judicial authorities; to procure information, to undertake searches, and obtain particulars of every description; to make nightly rounds, so perpetual and arduous during the winter season; to assist the commissaries of police in their searches, or in the execution of search-warrants; to explore the various rendezvous in every part; to go to the theatres, the boulevards, the barriers, and all other public places, the haunts of thieves and pickpockets. What activity must be exercised when only twenty-eight men were appointed for such details on so vast a space, and at so many points at once! My agents had almost the talent of ubiquity, and I, to keep alive the spirit of emulation and zeal amongst them, incited them by unremitting exertions. In no expedition, however perilous, did I spare myself; and if the most notorious criminals have been brought to justice by my vigilance, I may say, without boasting, that the most daring were the capture of my own hands, the prize of my bow and spear. As principal agent of 'La police particulière de sureté,' I might, as chief, have kept quiet at my office in Rue Sainte-Anne: but more actively, and moreover, more usefully employed, I only went there