62 Memoirs and Confessions of a Police Officer. [Jan. 
he would fulfil if he could. Besides this danger, his abode was not known ; 
and for a long time all Vidocq’s efforts to discover it were fruitless. The 
manner in which he paraded, for several days, in the disguise of a well 
dressed old gentleman, the quarter in which he expected to find his prey, 
is very whimsically told. At length he ferretted him out, and found he 
was living in a house at the corner of the Rue Duphot, the ground 
floor of which was occupied as a wine shop. Here Vidocq presented 
himself in the dress of a charcoal porter, which effectually concealed him 
even from his most intimate acquaintance. His first step was to make 
friends with the proprietor, and then to alarm him by a suggestion that his 
lodger meant to rob and murder him and his wife. Having thus made 
sure of their assistance he began his watch, and convinced himself that 
Fossard never went without pistols. He then abandoned the notion of 
seizing him alone, and having arranged a different plan, he watched Fossard 
home one night, saw him put out his candle, by which he concluded he 
was in bed, when he immediately brought down a commissary of police, 
and some gens-d’armes, whom he posted on the stairease. The dénoue- 
ment he tells thus :— 
“ The mistress of the wine-shop, to whom Fossard had been abundantly 
civil, had alittle nephew living with her, a boy of about ten years old, very 
intelligent for his age ; and, being of Norman birth, he was naturally gifted 
with a precocious love of money. 1 promised him a reward if, under the pre- 
text of his aunt being ill, he would knock at the door of Fossard’s room, 
and ask Madame Fossard, as the woman living with him was called, to give 
him alittle Haw de Cologne. I made the little fellow rehearse, several times 
over, the speech, and the tone in which it was to be given, and being quite 
perfect, I made all my companions take off their shoes, a precaution which I 
followed myself. We then ascended, and the boy began to knock at the door. 
At first there was no answer ; at length some one asked, ‘ Who’s there ?’ ‘ Its 
me, Madame,” replied the boy; “it’s Louis. My aunt is taken very ill, and 
begs you to give her a little Haw de Cologne. She isvery bad, indeed. I have 
got a candle here.’ 
“ The door was opened, and as soon as the woman appeared, she was 
seized by two vigorous gens-d'armes, who placed a napkin round her mouth, to 
prevent her crying out. At the same moment, with the rapidity ofa lion spring- 
ing on his prey, I rushed upon Fossard, who, amazed at the suddenness of the 
affair, was bound and handcuffed, and my prisoner, before he could stir from 
his bed. He was so surprised and confounded, that an hour elapsed before he 
found his utterance. When the light was brought, and he saw my face 
blacked with charcoal, and my coal-porter’s dress, he was so terrified that 
I believe he thought he had fallen into the hands of the devil himself. His 
first thought, when he recovered his senses, appeared to be for his arms; he 
glanced towards the pistols and dagger, which lay on a night-table beside the 
bed, and made an effort to reach them ; but he soon found it was impossible, 
and lay passive. Between eighteen and twenty thousand francs in money, 
besides jewels and property toa large amount, were found in this man’s rooms.” 
In the subsequent part of his memoirs, which are to consist of two 
other volumes, Vidocq promises some still more curious details relative 
to the execution of his important duty. He says, that he can speak out, 
and he will—a promise which we rely upon for several reasons. He 
has quarrelled with the existing police, and makes no secret of the 
hatred he bears them, and their agent, his successor, M. Coco Lacour ; 
he has been attacked in a recent publication called Vidocg Dévoilé, and 
in self-defence will be obliged to enter into the secrets of the administra- 
tion ; and he has to rectify some of the mischief which, he says, his 
literary friend has done. ‘The work is in every respect curious and 
amusing. Of its veracity we entertain some doubts; but as lying is a 
vice to which “ great men” have been notoriously addicted in all times, 
that fact will not weigh much to the author’s prejudice in the mind of 
the liberal reader. 
ee 
