Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/165

These facts and documents militated strongly in my favour. M. Henry submitted my proposal to the prefect of the police, M. Pasquier, who decided on granting it. After a residence of two months at Bicêtre, I was removed to the Force; and, to avoid suspicion, it was stated amongst the prisoners, that I was kept back in consequence of being implicated in a very bad affair, which was to be enquired into. This precaution, joined to my renown, put me entirely in good odour. Not a prisoner dared breathe a doubt of the gravity of the charge against me. Since I had shown so much boldness and perseverance to escape from a sentence of eight years in irons, I must of necessity have a conscience charged with some great crime, capable, if I should be discovered as the author, of sending me to the scaffold. It was then whispered, and at last stated openly at the Force, in speaking of me, "He is a cut-throat!" And as, in the place where I was confined, an assassin inspires great confidence, I took care not to refute an error so useful to my plans. I was then far from seeing that an imposture, which I allowed freely to he charged upon me, would be thence perpetuated; and that one day, in publishing my Memoirs, it would be necessary to state that I had never committed murder. Since I have been a subject of conversation with the public, how many absurd titles have not been disseminated about me! What lies have not been invented to defame me, by agents interested in representing me as a vile wretch! Sometimes the tale runs, that I had been branded and condemned to perpetual labour at the galleys. Sometimes I was only freed from the guillotine, on condition of giving up to the police a certain number of persons every month; and if one was wanting, the bargain was to be declared void; and that was the reason, they affirm, that for want of real delinquents, I selected them at my pleasure. Did they not go so far as to accuse me of having, at the Café Lamblin, put a silver fork in the pocket of