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MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.

on account of those goguettes^[1] which you have persisted in holding in your cabaret, spite of the formal prohibition issued by the police against them. Information has been given that every Sunday there are meetings held in your house, at which seditious toasts and songs libelling government are permitted. Not only is it known that you countenance the assembling of a mass of suspicious characters, but it is understood that this very day a more than usual number is expected to collect within these walls from twelve to four o'clock. You see there is no blinding the police as to your goings on. This is not all; you are further accused of having in your possession a vast quantity of disloyal and immoral songs, which are so carefully con-

↑ In the years 1815 and 1816, there were in Paris a great number of singing clubs, called goguettes. This species of political rat-trap was at first formed under the auspices of the police, who peopled it with their agents. There it was, that, whilst drinking with mechanics and persons composing the inferior class, these spies of government worked upon them in order to involve them in false conspiracies. I have witnessed several of these mock patriotic meetings, at which those who pretended to the greatest share of enthusiasm were the tools of the police, and were easily distinguished by the gross and vulgar hatred expressed in their songs against the royal family. These intemperate rhapsodies were the productions of the same authors as the hymns of Saint Louis and Saint Charles, and were paid for out of the secret funds of the Rue de Jerusalem. Since the time of the late Chevalier Piïs, M. Esménard, and M. Chaget, it has been well understood that the bards of the Quai du Nord possess the privilege of contradictory inspirations. The police has its laureates, its minstrels, and its troubadours; it is, as may be seen, an institution of great gaiety and hilarity, but unfortunately not always in a state sufficiently harmonious to hear celebrating in verse. Three heads were by these machinations brought to the scaffold,—those of Carbonneau, Pleignier, and Tolleron; after which the goguettes were closed—there was no further occasion for them—sufficient blood had been shed.

[1] In the years 1815 and 1816, there were in Paris a great number of singing clubs, called goguettes. This species of political rat-trap was at first formed under the auspices of the police, who peopled it with their agents. There it was, that, whilst drinking with mechanics and persons composing the inferior class, these spies of government worked upon them in order to involve them in false conspiracies. I have witnessed several of these mock patriotic meetings, at which those who pretended to the greatest share of enthusiasm were the tools of the police, and were easily distinguished by the gross and vulgar hatred expressed in their songs against the royal family. These intemperate rhapsodies were the productions of the same authors as the hymns of Saint Louis and Saint Charles, and were paid for out of the secret funds of the Rue de Jerusalem. Since the time of the late Chevalier Piïs, M. Esménard, and M. Chaget, it has been well understood that the bards of the Quai du Nord possess the privilege of contradictory inspirations. The police has its laureates, its minstrels, and its troubadours; it is, as may be seen, an institution of great gaiety and hilarity, but unfortunately not always in a state sufficiently harmonious to hear celebrating in verse. Three heads were by these machinations brought to the scaffold,—those of Carbonneau, Pleignier, and Tolleron; after which the goguettes were closed—there was no further occasion for them—sufficient blood had been shed.

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