Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/160

caped, and had nothing to fear; but unable to endure a separation from her friend, she had herself denounced, and was not happy until she heard the sentence read which was to reunite them for two years. The majority of these creatures make a sport of prison; I have seen many, sentenced for a crime which they had committed alone, accuse a comrade, and she, although innocent, make a merit of resigning herself to her sentence.

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CHAPTER XL.

Our friends our enemies—The jeweller and the clergyman—The honest man—The hiding place and the coffer—The blessing from heaven and the finger of God—Fatal intelligence—We are undone—The love of our neighbour—The cossacks are innocent—100,000 francs, 50,000 francs, 10,000 francs, or recompense in abatement—The false soldier—The pretended sprain—The cooper's wife at Livry—Local reputation—I am a Jew—My pilgrimage with the nun of Dourdans—The phœnix of women—My metamorphosis into a German servant—My arrest—I am imprisoned—The straw cutter—My entrance to prison—Strangers have friends every where—The church rat—The flesh-coloured coat—The buttons of my great coat—A drunkard's meaning—My history—The battle of Montereau—I have robbed my master—Projects of escape—Journey to Germany—The black hen—Confidence in the attorney-general—My release—Flight with an unfortunate companion—A hundred thousand crowns worth of diamonds—The minimum.

A short time before the first invasion M. Senard, one of the richest jewellers of the Palais Royal, having gone to pay a visit to his friend the Curé of Livry, found him in one of those perplexities which are generally caused by the approach of our good friends the enemy. He was anxious to secrete from the rapacity of the cossacks first the consecrated vessels, and then his own little treasures. After much hesitation, although in his situation he must have been used to interments, monsieur le Curé decided on burying the objects which he was anxious to save, and M. Senard, who, like the other gossips and misers, imagined that Paris would be given over to pillage, determined to cover up, in a similar