Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/150

 after them, I appeared still to take an interest in their fate. Was I dog or wolf? This was the doubt which I left in their minds; and this doubt, so favourable to calumny whenever I was accused of connivance, which in reality did not exist, was never manifest to them. This accounts for why the thieves were in some measure the contributors to that renown which I have acquired; they imagined that I was openly their enemy, but in fact only wished to protect them; and they sometimes even pitied me for being compelled to follow the business I did, and yet they themselves aided me in transacting it.

Amongst professed robbers, there were but few who did not consider it fortunate to be consulted by the police for information, or employed in some enterprise. Nearly the whole of them would have been cut into quarters to evince their zeal, under the persuasion that they thereby obtained, if not entire immunity, at least some little allowance. Those who most feared its powers were always most ready to serve it. I remember, as a case in point, the adventure of a liberated galley-slave, called Boucher, alias Cadet Poignon. For more than three weeks I had been on the look out for him, when by chance I met him at a cabaret in the Rue Saint Antoine, at the sign of the Bras d'Or (Golden Arm.) I was alone, and he was in .a large company. To attempt to seize him ex abrupto would have been to risk a failure, for he could have defended himself, and ensured assistance. Boucher had been an agent of police. I had known him as such, and we were on very good terms together. It occurred to me that I would accost him in a friendly manner, and give him a specimen of my craft. On entering the cabaret, I went directly up to the table where he was sitting, and offered him my hand, saying, "Good day, friend Cadet."

"Ah, Jules, my boy, will you have any thing? call for a glass, or take mine."

"Yours is good; there is no gall on your lips. (I drank.) I want to say a word in your ear."