Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/88

 scarcely permitted me to cut any figure; besides, on shore I daily ran the risk of some unpleasant rencontre. Boulogne was infested with a great many bad fellows: Mansui, Tribout, Salé, were carrying on their trade in the port, where they despoiled the conscripts under the orders of another thief named Canivet, who, in the face of the army and its commander, ventured to call himself the Decapitator (bourreau des crânes.) I think I still see the legend on his police-cap, where were depicted a death's head, swords, and thigh-bones crossed. Canivet was the collector, or rather lord paramount, and had a large number of sub-agents, cabin-boys, and petty fellows who payed him a tax for the privilege of thieving: he watched them incessantly, and if he suspected them of deceiving him, he generally chastised them with his sword. I thought it likely that in this gang there might be some fugitive from the gallies, and I feared recognition. My apprehensions were the better founded, as I had heard a report that many freed galley slaves had been placed either in the corps of sappers, or that of the military workmen in the fleet.

For some time nothing was talked of but murders, assassinations, robberies; and all those crimes were evidences of the presence of hardened villains, amongst whom, perchance, might be some with whom I had compulsorily associated when at Toulon. It was absolutely necessary to avoid them; for to come again in contact would have given me much trouble, from the difficulty of not compromising myself. Robbers are like women; when we would escape their vices and their society, all league against us to prevent it; all seek to retain the comrade who would fly from evil; and it is a glory for them to keep him in the abject state whence they themselves wish not to be emancipated, nor would allow others to escape; I recalled to mind the comrades who denounced me at Lyons, and the motives that induced them to have me apprehended. As my experience was fresh, I was