Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/280

restored to me, I will omit nothing, I will disguise nothing which it is fitting to say; and it shall still be for the service of the state and the public, that I will be indiscreet: this intention will be evident in every subsequent page. That I may perform it in a way which will leave me nothing to desire, and not to deceive the general expectation in any way, I have imposed on myself a task very painful for a man more accustomed to do than to narrate, that of revising the greater part of these Memoirs. They were terminated, and I might have given them as they were; but, in addition to the inadequacy of a careless style, the reader would therein detect the mark of a strange influence which I must have submitted to unwillingly. Distrusting myself, and little accustomed to the requisites of the literary world, I had submitted my work to the revision of a soi-disant man of letters. Unfortunately, in this censor, whose private orders I was far from suspecting, I met with one who, for a bribe, had undertaken to emasculate my manuscript, and only to present me under the most odious colours; to pervert my meaning, and deprive all I wished to say of its due importance. A very severe accident, the fracture of my right arm, which I was on the point of having amputated in consequence, was a favourable occurrence in aid of the perpetration of such a project; and therefore all haste was made to profit by the period of my excessive sufferings. The first volume and part of the second were already printed, when all this intrigue was discovered. To render it perfect, I must have re-commenced, at a fresh expense; but to that time only my private adventures were detailed; and although I am drawn in the most unfavourable colours, I hope that in spite of the expressions and bad arrangement, since the facts are told, the just estimation will be set on them, and the most correct inferences drawn. All that portion of the narrative which only relates to my private life, I have allowed to remain. I had the right to subscribe to a sacrifice of my self-love; a