Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/40

 respectable gentlemen to silence, I could not cut off the arms of my agents, for they were absolutely needful to them: but to conciliate all, I told them that in future they must constantly wear leather gloves, and I declared that if I met any one of them ungloved I would instantly dismiss him.

This entirely disconcerted the malevolents; henceforward it was impossible to reproach my agents for working in the crowd. The peace-officers, who well knew that the hand cannot act adroitly when covered, kept their mouths closed, remembering the proverb, "a cat in gloves catches no mice." One morning I gave this order to my agents as one which I had bit upon to put a stop to all the tattle of which they were the object.

"Gentlemen," said I, "they will no more credit your probity than they will the chastity of priests. Well, then, to prove how wrong they are, I have thought that nothing would be so natural as, in any case, to paralyze the limb which is the instrument of sin; in this instance, gentlemen, it is your hands; I know you are incapable of making improper use of them, but to avoid a shadow of suspicion, I expect that henceforward you will not appear abroad without gloves."

This precaution, I must say, was not called for by any conduct of my agents, for no robber, or galley-slave, whom I employed ever compromised himself as long as he formed one of my brigade; some have fallen again into evil ways, but their return to guilt was after having been dismissed from my band. Knowing the former course and situation of these men my power over them was arbitrarily exercised; to keep them to their duty, a will of iron and most determined resolution was required. My ascendancy over them arose from their not having any acquaintance with me previous to my entering into the police service: many had seen me at La Force or Bicêtre; but I had never been otherwise than a brother prisoner, and I could defy them to produce one affair in which I had participated, either with others or with themselves.