Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/257

 When he was stripped I really doubted his belonging to the human race; the whole of his body was covered with a thick bushy glossy hair; he might, indeed, have been mistaken for the Hercules Farnèse, enveloped in the skin of a bear.

Pons appeared perfectly tranquil, nor did anything more than common arise till the following day, when I ascertained that, during the night, he had eaten more than a quarter of a pound of tobacco. I had, from previous observation, noticed, that men who are greatly accustomed to the use of either tobacco or snuff, make an immoderate use of it in times of great peril or emergency. I knew well that a pipe is never more quickly consumed than when in the hands of a condemned criminal, whether it be immediately after receiving his sentence, or on the eve of its being put into execution; but I had never yet seen a prisoner, situated as Pons was, introduce into his stomach a substance, which, taken in so large a quantity, might produce the most fatal effects. I very much feared that he would suffer from his excess, and even suspected he had committed it in the hope of its acting as poison. I, therefore, took from him what tobacco he had remaining, and gave orders that it should only be dealt out to him in small doses, and this on condition that he would engage only to chew it. Pons yielded with a tolerably good grace to this regulation; he ceased to devour his tobacco, although I never had any reason to suppose he had experienced the slightest inconvenience from what he had previously taken.