54 Memoirs and Confessions of [Jan. 
Before we proceed to give a notice of the contents of M. Vidocq’s 
book, we should observe, in justice to him, that he makes a very heavy 
complaint against a literary gentleman, who, it appears, was engaged by 
the bookseller to revise the manuscript of the author, and to perform for 
him that office which Dr. Pangloss undertakes with respect to Lord 
Duberly’s style, and which other great men of our own day find it expe- 
dient to have done for them—for all our Cezsars are not tam Marti quam 
Mercurio. Vidocq says, this gentleman has been bribed to be-devil his 
work, and that the ministers of the existing police, with whom, be it 
observed, M. Vidocgq is at daggers-drawn, are at the bottom of it. That 
the fracture of his arm having prevented him from personally superin- 
tending the progress of the work, he did not discover the trick which 
had been played until the first volume, and part of the second, were in 
the press, and it was too late to repair the error. He immediately, how- 
ever, suspended his assistant, and took the matter into his own hands. 
He declares, he thinks his own prose, which had been much approved of 
in the reports his former office called upon him to make, is infinitely 
superior to that of his literary agent, whom he accuses of having repre- 
sented him as a much greater knave than he confesses to have been, for 
the base purpose of blackening his character, and thereby diminishing 
the weight of the discoveries he has already made, and those which he 
promises to continue. It is impossible to decide whether this complaint 
is well founded ; but it is quite clear that the variety and interest of the 
adventures in the Jatter part of the second volume are far superior to - 
those of the first, and they are certainly not worse written. Vidocq com= 
plains too, that his mutilator, instead of representing him as the victim 
first of boyish imprudences, and afterwards of an unjust accusation, and 
his adventures as casual, and, on his part, involuntary, has placed him in 
the light of a determined, calculating, meditative rogue—an injustice he 
seems to feel very sensibly, and really, as he tells the tale, il n’est pas st 
diable qvil est noir. 
Vidocq was the son of a baker at Arras, where he was born in July 
1775. He wasa big boy, and of a very robust constitution. His educa- 
tion and early feats were well calculated to lead to the adventures which 
subsequently befel him. He began by frequenting the fencing schools 
and the taverns, where he learnt a great deal more than any honest lad 
ought to know. This led, in the natural course of things, to robbing the 
till, in which, as his brother was a participator, he could not long con- 
tinue without detection. This happened, and the brother was sent away. 
Vidocq continued, nevertheless, to plunder his father, until his ingenuity 
being baffled by the old man’s caution, he had recourse, under the advice 
of a more experienced knave, to open violence ; and having stripped the 
house of all the money he could lay his hands on, he decamped, and 
went to Dunkirk, whence he imtended to sail for America. Here he © 
was in turn the victim of sharpers, who fleeced him; and being thus 
without any other means of existence, he hired himself as servant to an 
itinerant showman. As, however, he was found not docile enough to 
learn tumbling, he was kicked out of this employment, and then became 
principal assistant to a man who acted Punch ; but an unfortunate pas- 
sion which he conceived for the frail moiety of this manager of wooden 
actors being detected, he again lost his place. He next undertook to 
carry the knapsack of an old corn-doctor ; and having thus got near to 
Arras, he went home, another prodigal son, obtained his father’s forgive- 
ness, and enlisted in the Bourbon regiment He behaved ill, was 
ee a 
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