Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/25

 that I did not see some of these worthies arrive, and hear them mutually reproach each other with their bad conduct. From morn till eve these supernumerary spies were quarrelling, and their violent debates unfolded to me how perilous was the path which I had chalked out for myself. But I did not despair of avoiding the dangers of the profession, and all the mishaps of which I was witness were so many examples to me, from which I formed my own line of conduct, which would render my fate less precarious than that of my predecessors.

In the second volume of these memoirs I have spoken of the Jew Gaffré, under whose control I was, in some measure, placed at the moment of my entering the police. Gaffré was the only secret agent with a salary. I was no sooner united with him than he tried to get rid of me; I pretended not to see through his intention, and if he contemplated my destruction, I resolved, on my side, to defeat his plans. I had a dangerous game to play: Gaffré was wily as a snake. When I knew him he was called the high-priest of thieves. He had begun at eight years of age, at eighteen he was whipped and marked on the Place du Vieux-Marché, at Rouen. His mother, who was mistress of the famous Flambard, chief of the police in that city, had endeavoured to save him: but although one of the handsomest Jewesses of her time, the magistrates would grant nothing to her charms: Gaffré was too culpable; Venus in person could not have prevailed upon his judges. He was banished. However, he did not quit France, and when the revolution burst forth, he was not slow in resuming the old course of his exploits in a band of chauffeurs, amongst whom he figured under the name of Caille.

Like the majority of his confederates, Gaffré had completed his education in the prisons, and then he had become an universal genius, that is to say, there was no species of prigging in which he was not fully expert. Contrary to custom, he adopted no special