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 personal affairs, but it was a necessary preliminary that I should impart a knowledge of the vicissitudes through which I have passed to become the Hercules for whom was reserved the purging the earth of dire monsters, and cleansing out the Augean stable. I did not reach the eminence in a single day, but have furnished a long career of observation and painful experience. Soon,—and I have given some trifling specimens of my means to do so,—I will detail my labours, the efforts I have made, the perils I have confronted, the plots and stratagems to which I have had recourse, to fulfil the utmost of my duty, and to render Paris the safest residence in the world. I will unfold the expedients resorted to by the thieves, and the signs by which they may be detected; I will write of their manners and their habits; I will explain their language and their costume, according to the peculiarities of each; for thieves have a costume adapted to the enterprizes in which they are engaged. I will propose infallible measures for the destruction of all rogueries, and putting a stop to the destructive skill of all those swindlers, cheats, impostors, &c. &c. who, in spite of Sainte Pelagie, and despite the useless and barbarous custom of personal arrest (contrainte par corps), daily cheat to the extent of millions (francs). I will lay open all the modes and tactics practised by all these scoundrels to catch their 'gudgeons.' I will do 'all this, aye, more;' I will mention by name the principal of them, and thus brand them in the forehead with a distinguishing mark. I will class the different grades of malefactors, from the murderer to the pickpocket, and form of them lists more useful than those of La Bourdonnaie for the use of the proscribers of 1815; for mine will, at least, have the advantage to pointing out at the first glance, the persons and places to whom mistrust should be attached. I will expose to the eyes of the honest man, all the snares laid to catch him; and I will note down, for the use of the criminal accuser,