Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/20

 Some were selected, as private agents: they were not required to give up their lucrative profession of plundering, but only expected to denounce their comrades who seconded them in these expeditions: on these terms, they were to remain possessors of all the booty they obtained, and never brought to justice for the crimes in which they had participated. Such were the conditional agreements made by the police; as to salary they had none, it was a sufficient favour to be allowed to give themselves up to rapine with impunity. This impunity was only terminated by the commission of some flagrant crime, when the judicial authority intervened, which was but rare.

For a long period none were admitted to the police of safety but robbers not sentenced or liberated: about the year six of the Republic, a certain number of fugitive galley-slaves were added, who solicited the employment of secret agents, whereby they could support themselves in the metropolis. They were edgetools to handle, and, as such, used with much distrust; and the moment they ceased to be useful, they were got rid of. They usually set some other agent to watch them, who, leading them on by false manœuvres, compromised them, and thus furnished a pretext for their arrest. The Richards, Cliquets, Mouille-Farine, Beaumonts, and many others who had been police spies, were all conducted again to the Bagne, where they terminated their career, broken down by the ill usage of their ancient companions whom they had betrayed; again, it was customary for agent to plot against agent, and the most crafty was left in possession of the field.

A hundred of these individuals, whom I have already cited, Compère, CesarCésar [sic] Viocque, Longueville, Simon, Bouthey, Goupil, Coco-Lacour, Henri Lami, Doré, Guillet, called Bombance, Cadet Pommé, Mingot, Dalisson, EdouardÉdouard [sic] Goreau, Isaac, Mayer, Cavin, Bernard Lazarre, Lanlaire, Florentin, Cadet, Herries, Gaffré, Manigant, Nazon, Levesque, Bordarie, were, in a measure, the purveyors to the prisons, to which they sent