Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/185

 I thought I had him, and my disappointment was great; but I did not despair of catching my gentleman. Some time afterwards I learnt that he was to be at the Café Hardi, in the Boulevard des Italiens. I went thither with some of my agents, and when he arrived all was so well arranged, that he had only to get into a hackney-coach, of which I paid the fare. Led before a commissary of police, he asserted that he was not Winter; but, despite the insignia of the rank he had conferred on himself, and the long string of orders hanging on his breast, he was properly and officially identified as the individual mentioned in the warrant which I had for his apprehension.

Winter was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, and would now be at liberty but for a forgery which he committed while at Bicêtre, which, bringing on him a fresh sentence of eight years at the galleys, he was conducted to the Bagne at the expiration of his original sentence, and is there at present.

This adventurer does not want wit: he is, I am told, the author of a vast many songs, much in fashion with the galley-slaves, who consider him as their Anacreon. I append one of his productions:—