shopkeeper and her husband were of the number. They were all committed to solitary confinement; Blignon and Chante à l'heure in the new building, the others in the infirmary, where they remained a very long time. The public authorities had enquired into it, and I no longer troubled myself with the affair. Nothing material resulted from the investigation, which had been badly begun from the first, and finally the accused were pardoned. My abode at Bicêtre and La Force embraced a point of twenty-one months, during which not a single day passed without my rendering some important service. I believe I might have become a perpetual spy, so far was every one from supposing that any connivance existed between the agents of the public authority and myself. Even the porters and keepers were in ignorance ef the mission with which I was entrusted. Adored by the thieves, esteemed by the most determined bandits (for even these hardened wretches have a sentiment which they call esteem), I could always rely on their devotion to me; they would have been torn to pieces in my service, a proof of which occurred at Bicêtre, where Mardargent, of whom I have before spoken, had several severe battles with some of the prisoners who had dared to assert that I had I had only quitted La Force to serve the police. Coco-Lacour and Goreau, prisoners in the same jail as incorrigible thieves, with no less ardour and generous intrepidity undertook my defence. Perhaps at that time they might have taxed me with ingratitude, that I did not evince to them any greater partiality than I showed to others; but my duty was imperious. Let them now receive the tribute of my gratitude; they have had a more powerful influence than they imagine in the advantages which society has derived from my services.
M. Henry did not allow the préfet to remain in ignorance of the numerous discoveries effected by my sagacity. This functionary, to whom I was represented as a person on whom he might depend, consented at last to
