Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/149

 confessions, which led to a sentence of eight years' confinement. She had all the time to say "Meâ culpâ." This woman had accused two of her companions of her robberies, and their suspected conduct might have led to their convictions. Another female robber, called La Belle Bouchère, having made similar disclosures to me as Bailly had done, was not more fortunate.

One Ouasse, whose father was subsequently implicated in the affair of Poulain, the grocer, pointed out to me three individuals as the perpetrators of a robbery, committed at nightfall, in the Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, at a tobacco-dealer's. I went to the spot to acquire information, and soon obtained incontestable proof that Ouasse, recently liberated, was no stranger to the crime; I dissembled with him; but in making use of him I managed so well, that he was apprehended as an accomplice, and sentenced to close confinement. This mishap should have checked his mania for denouncements; but anxious at all risks to turn spy, he made, to the attorney-general of Versailles, several lying informations, which cost him two or three years' imprisonment.

I have already observed that thieves nourish no rancour; and scarcely had Ouasse been liberated, than he came to me, and again gave me information concerning a robbery. I went to verify the information, and found it true. But will it be believed? Ouasse himself was the thief, who, apprehended and convicted, was again sentenced. During his detention, this wretched man, having learnt the arrest of his father, hastened to address to me information in support of the accusation against his parent. It was my duty to transmit it to the authorities; and I did so, but not without experiencing all the indignation which the conduct of so denaturalized a son could create.

In my situation, I should have deprived myself of a most efficacious system of police, had I come to open rupture with the thieves. I therefore did not entirely keep aloof from them; and sometimes, when in full cry