Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/46

 not accustomed to be so used." Desplanques had just left the Bagne, where he had passed six years.

In admitting him into the brigade, I thought I had made an admirable acquisition, but I was not slow in being convinced that he was incorrigible, and I found myself compelled to dismiss him. Being then without resource, he betook himself to the only mode of existence which in such a situation can be reconciled with the love of ease. Passing one evening through the Rue du Bac, he broke a square of glass in a money changer's shop, and ran off with a wooden bowl full of money. At the same moment he heard a cry of "stop thief," and was warmly pursued. At the words "stop, stop," officiously repeated from all quarters, Desplanques redoubled his speed, and would soon have been out of reach, but at a turning in the street, he fell completely into the arms of two agents, his old comrades: the rencontre was fatal. He tried to escape, but his efforts were useless; the agents fastened on him and dragged him to the commissary, where the positive commission was immediately sworn to. Desplanques was an old offender, and condemned to the galleys for life: he is now at Toulon, where he is undergoing his sentence.

People who judge of all without having any knowledge of individual facts, have asserted that agents who have been originally robbers, must, necessarily, have an understanding with them, or at least temporize with them as long as they are sufficiently adroit as not to expose themselves. I can attest that robbers have no more cruel enemies than the freed convicts who have assembled under the banner of the police; and that they, following the usual examples in such cases, never exert more zeal than when they are serving a friend; that is to say, seeking to apprehend an ex-comrade. In general, a robber who thinks himself reformed is without pity for his ancient comrades; the more he has been intrepid in his time, the more implacable he will be.

One day, Cerf, Macolein, and Dorlé were brought