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MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.
189

beings. I frequented their society; I became to outward semblance one of themselves; and soon gained the advantage of being treated with so much confidence as to be admitted to their nocturnal meetings, where they openly discussed the crimes they had committed, as well as those they meditated. I managed so skilfully, that I easily drew from them the particulars of their own abode, or that of the females with whom they cohabited. I may go still further, and assert, that so boundless was the confidence with which I inspired them, that had any one of their members dared to express the shadow of a suspicion respecting me, he would have been punished on the spot. In this manner I obtained every requisite information; so that, when I had once indicated any fit object for arrest, his conviction and condemnation became matters of course. My researches 'intra muros' were not less successful. I frequented every tennis-court in the environs of the Palais-Royal, the Hotel d'Angleterre, the boulevards of the Temple; the streets of la Vannerie, of la Mortellerie, of la Planche Mibray; the market St Jaques, Petite Chaise; the Rues de la Juiverie, la Calandre, le Châtelet; the Place Maubert, and in fact the whole city. Not a day passed in which I did not effect some important discovery. Nothing escaped me, either relating to crimes which had been committed, or were in contemplation. I was in all places; I knew all that was passing or projecting; and never were the police idly or unprofitably employed when set to work upon my suggestions.

M. Henry openly expressed his surprise as well as satisfaction at my zeal and success; it was not so with many of the peace-officers and sub-agents of police, for, little accustomed to the hard duty and constant watchfulness my plans induced, they openly murmured. Some of them, in their anxiety to be rid of the irksomeness of my direction, were cowardly enough to betray the secret of the disguise under