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MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.
17

for the guard." The two gendarmes ascended quickly, and I made off.

It was plain that I had been sold to the police. My friend was incapable of such a black deed, but she had, without doubt, been guilty of some indiscretion. Now that the cry was raised against me, ought I to tarry longer at Arras? It would be in vain to say, that I would always remain in my place of concealment; I could not reconcile myself to a life so wretched, and I determined on quitting the city. My little lady mercer insisted on accompanying me; she had means of conveyance; her commodities were soon packed, and we set out together, and, as usually happens in such cases, the police was informed last of the disappearance of a female, whose measures they ought not to have been in ignorance of. According to some old notions, they imagined that we should go towards Belgium, as if Belgium had still been the country of refuge; and whilst they were pursuing us in the direction of the old frontier, we were quietly progressing towards Normandy, by cross roads, which my companion had obtained a knowledge of in her mercantile journies.

It was at Rouen that we had made up our minds to fix our abode. Arrived in this city, I had with me the passport of Blondel, which I had procured at Arras: the description which it gave was so different from mine, that it was indispensably necessary to make myself a little more like it.

To achieve this, it was necessary to deceive the police, now become the more vigilant and inquisitive, as the communications of the emigrants in England were made through the Normandy coast. Thus did I contrive it. I went to the town-hall, where I had my passport visé for Havre. A visa was obtained without difficulty; it was sufficient that the passport was not entirely contradictory, and mine was not so. The formality gone through, I departed, and two minutes afterwards I entered ue office, and asked if any person had found a pocket-book. No one could give me any