Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/50

 prove that I was the instigator of the crime which had led them to the galleys.

Peyois said, "that having addressed me, to ask me if I knew a recruiter who wanted a substitute, I had proposed that he should rob on my account, and that I had even given him three francs to buy the crow-bar, with which he had been taken when forcibly entering the house of Sieur Labatty." Berthelet and Lefebvre confirmed Peyois's statement; and a vintner named Leblanc who, implicated as well as they, appeared to have been the real provider of funds for procuring the instrument, encouraged them to persevere in a system of defence, which, if allowed, would have the effect of clearing him. The advocates who pleaded in this cause, did not fail to draw all possible argument from this imputation against me, and as they spoke from conviction, if they did not determine the jury to come to a decision favourable to their clients, at least they contrived to insinuate into the minds of the judges and the public most terrible prejudices against me. I therefore felt it incumbent on me to exculpate myself, and, sure of my innocence, I begged M. the préfet of police to grant me an inquiry, that the truth might be made evident.

Peyois, Berthelet, and Lefebvre were condemned, and I imagined that not having henceforward any motive for persisting in falsehood, they would confess that they had calumniated me; I presumed, besides, that in case their conduct should have been the result of suggestion, they would not make much difficulty in naming the advisers of the imposture which they had so impudently supported in the presence of justice. The préfet allowed the inquiry I solicited, and at the moment when he confided the care of directing it to M. Fleuriais, commissary of police for that quarter of the city, a previous document, on which I had not counted, preceded my justification; it was a letter of Berthelet to the vintner Leblanc, who had been declared not guilty; I transcribe it here, because it shows to what are reduced the accusations which were perpetually made