Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/24

 plices, with or without proof it was impossible for them to dear themselves.

I could state a volume of circumstances, in which, although strangers to the crimes with which they are charged, secret agents have been condemned bv the tribunals, but I shall confine myself to the two following facts.

M. Hémart, the first president, went into the country; on alighting from his carriage, he saw that the portmanteau containing his property was carried off. Enraged with the authors of this deed he determined to use all means to detect them, and bring down on their heads all the severity of the laws. They had only incurred a correctional punishment, but M. Hémart could not resolve on considering as a simple larceny a robbery which was effected to his individual loss; chastisement would be too lenient, it was a crime which he wished to make it, and, with this intent, he presented a petition to the chief judge, that he might decide the question, if the breaking open after committing the robbery did not constitute an aggravation of the case?

M. Hémart sought an affirmative decision, and as he desired so was the judge's sentence. Thereupon the robbers, whose audacity had roused the anger of the president, were discovered and apprehended. They had been found with the property, and it was difficult to deny it; but they suspected an old pal of having denounced them, named Bonnet, a secret agent; they pointed him out as their accomplice, and Bonnet, although innocent, was sentenced with them to twelve years' imprisonment and fetters.

At a subsequent period two other secret agents, Herrioz the younger, and Ledran, his brother-in-law, had stolen some portmanteaus, and having emptied them to divide the spoil, deposited them with two colleagues, Tormel the father and son, who, afterwards denounced by them, were tried and convicted of a robbery of which the perpetrators alone had the booty. Whether at the Bicêtre or La Force, not a day arrived