him to conceal a part of the affair, but he confessed that I knew nothing of the purchase of the crow-bar.
"During," said he, "all the time that preceded our trial, and before the court of. assizes, I have affirmed and declared that M. Vidocq gave me the three francs to buy the crow-bar, by the aid of which the robbery has been committed, which caused the apprehension of myself, Berthelet, Leblanc, Lefebvre, and others. I have persisted in saying the same thing, hoping that it might defer or diminish my term of sentence. I had thought of this plan because, some prisoners had told me that it might be of use to me. I will now truly declare that M. Vidocq gave me no money to buy the crow-bar, and I purchased it with my own money: this bar cost me forty-eight sous, and I bought it at a smith's shop in the first street on the right hand, on entering the Rue des Arcis on the side of the bridge of Notre-Dame. I do not know the name of the smith, but I could easily point out the shop, which is the second on the right on going down the street. It was on the eighth or ninth of March last that I made the purchase; the smith and his wife were in the shop; it was the first time I ever bought any thing of them."
Three days afterwards Peyois, having been transferred to Bicêtre, wrote to the chief of the second division of the prefecture of police a letter, in which he confessed that he had constantly imposed on justice, and testified a wish to make sincere disclosures: this time the whole truth did really come to light. Utinet, Chrestien, Decostard, and Coco-Lacour, who had come to the court to depose in favour of the imposture, were at once dragged to light: it became evident that Chrestien had planned the whole intrigue, which was to lead to my expulsion from the police. A declaration which the mayor of Gentilly received, exposed the whole infamy of the machination, from which Lacour, Chrestien, Decostard, and Utinet, had promised themselves the greatest success. This declaration, to which I could add a great many
