Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/60

 crush me, an assemblage of apparent truths resulting from my intercourse with robbers previously to their apprehension. According to all appearances it was not impossible but that they had, for some time, winked at the exploits of Peyois and his gang, on condition that if they were apprehended in the act, they should adopt a system of defence conformable to their interest. Not a trace of such an understanding could be made out, but it is most probable; and the measures of my agents, both during the proceedings and after the conviction of the culprits, do not allow any doubt on the point. Peyois is arrested, and instantly Utinet and Chrestien go to La Force and have a conversation with him, in which they persuade him that it is only by accusing me that he can give a favourable turn to his affair: that if he would escape a sentence he must call them both as witnesses of what they agreed that he should assert: that they will support his assertion, and will depose exactly the same as he did: that they will even state that they have seen me give him the sum of three francs.

The two agents do not confine themselves to this only; but to make assurance doubly sure of the non-retraction of Peyois, they tell him that they have a powerful protector at their disposal, whose influence will preserve them from every kind of sentence, and who, if by chance a sentence was inevitable, would still have arms long enough to overturn the sentence.

The pleadings opened, Utinet, Chrestien, Lacour, and Decostard hastened to attest the facts which were imputed to me by Peyois. But this young man, to whom they promised impunity, was overwhelmed by the verdict: then apprehending that, now seeing his fate, he would make them repent having deceived him, by exposing their treachery, they hastened to animate his hope, and not only required of him that he should appeal to the court of cassation, but, still more, they offered to give him a counsel at their own expense, and engaged to pay all expenses of the appeal. The mother of Peyois was equally assailed by these intrigues: