Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/32

 "On the word of a thief."

"Yes, make yourself easy."

Goupil immediately took the road to the. Courtille, where he very frequently went, and I that of the prefecture of police, when I informed M. Henry of the proposal made to me. "I hope," said he, "that you will not lend yourself to the plot." I protested that I was not at all inclined to do so, and he evinced his pleasure at my free communication. "Now," he added, "I will give you a proof of the interest that I take in you;" and he arose to reach from his chest a packet of papers, which he opened. "You see it is full, and they are all reports against you: they are in abundance, but yet I employ you, because I do not believe one word of what they say."

These reports were the production of the inspectors and peace officers, who, through a spirit of jealousy, continually accused me of robbery. That was the burden of their song, as well as that of the robbers whom I had detected in the very act: they denounced me as their accomplice, but when I was on every side exposed to unfavourable representations, I defied calumny, I braved its assaults, and its teeth were broken against the brazen buckler of truth, which, by the means of incontestable alibis, or impossibilities of another nature, became resplendent by the evidence of facts. Accused daily for sixteen years, I was never betrayed by it: once only I was interrogated by M. Vigny the judge. The complaint laid before him had some colouring of truth, but I had only to appear before him and the whole was proved false, and I was instantly freed from all suspicion.