Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/259

 "Oh!" returned the other, "do not mention it; it makes no one rich in the end but the executioner."

"And that is not the worst part of it—to be in continual misery from constant alarm—never to know one moment's tranquillity—to tremble at the sight of a stranger."

"True, indeed! I used to fancy I saw spies or disguised gendarmes in all who approached me, and the least noise, nay, my own shadow, would sometimes frighten me out of my senses."

"And, for my part, if I perceived myself an object of notice to any person, I instantly supposed he was taking down the description of my person, and the blood would rush to my face with such impetuosity as to suffuse my eyeballs with a guilty blush."

"Little, indeed, are the pangs of remorse and the terrors of a guilty conscience guessed by those who are innocent of crime; for my own part, rather than endure them as I have done for years past, I would blow out my brains."

"I have two children, but if I thought they were likely to tread in the steps of their unhappy father, I would implore of their mother to strangle them."

"Ah, my friend! had we but employed half the care and reflection in doing well it has cost us to prosecute our wicked schemes, we might now be enjoying a very different lot, and anticipating far brighter prospects than those before us."

"Well, well! 'tis useless repining, I suppose it was our fate."

"Don't tell me that, there is no such thing as fate; we are the workers of our own destinies, depend upon it; and I do not seek such a weak excuse for my crimes; no, I acknowledge that to a love of bad company alone I may attribute my being the wretch I am: do you not remember how, after every fresh act of wickedness, I sought to drown the whispers of a reproachful conscience by drunken excess? I felt as though the weight of a mountain were upon me, and had I swallowed gallons it would have been insufficient to remove it."