Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/148

 for becoming thieves again. Some freed convicts (this is an exception) obtained, at the expiration of their sentence, leave not to be sent to Bicêtre on suspicion; but even then they had no testimonials given to them, so that it was impossible for them to procure work. They had the resource of dying from hunger; but people do not voluntarily resign themselves to so cruel a punishment: they could not die, and therefore plundered, and most frequently plundered and denounced at the same time.

This rage for turning spy made incredible progress; the facts that prove it are so abundant, that I have no difficulty in selecting them. Frequently, in a scarcity of thefts to denounce to me, the spies revealed, whilst imputing them to others, crimes which should have led to their own condemnation. I will give instances.

A female named Bailly, an old thief confined at St. Lazare, sent for me to give information. I went to her, and she told me that if I would undertake to set her at liberty, she would point out to me the authors of five robberies, two of which were forcible burglaries. I agreed; and the details she gave me were so exact, that I believed I had nothing to do but to perform my promise. But, on reflection on the various circumstances which she had narrated, I was somewhat astonished at the accuracy of her information. She had told me the persons robbed, one of whom was a Sieur FredericFrédéric [sic], Rue St. HonoreHonoré [sic], passage Virginie; I went immediately to him, and, in the course of conversation, learned that the denouncer was the sole perpetrator of the robbery committed on this man. I followed up my inquiry and was still more assured of my woman.

I had then only to proceed to the verification of the whole. The plaintiffs were taken to Saint Lazare; when, without being seen by the woman Bailly, whom I showed them in the midst of her companions, they recognised her instantly. A legal confrontation then, followed; and Bailly, overwhelmed by evidence, made