I was there perfectly safe, if I could resolve on keeping concealed; but how could I submit to a slavery almost as severe as that of St. Peter’s Tower.  As for three months I had been enclosed within four walls, I was now desirous to exercise the activity so long repressed.  I announced my intention of going out; and, as with me an inflexible determination was always the auxiliary of the most capricious fancy, I did go.  My first excursion was safely performed, but the next morning, as I was crossing the Rue Ecremoise, a sergeant named Louis, who had seen me during my imprisonment, met me, and asked if I was free.  He was a severe practical man, and by a motion of his hand could summon twenty persons.  I said that I would follow him; and begging him to allow me to bid adieu to my mistress, who was in a house of Rue de l’Hopital, he consented, and we really met Francine, who was much surprised to see me in such company; and when I told her that having reflected, that my escape might injure me in the estimation of my judges, I had decided on returning to St. Peter’s Tower, to wait the result of the process.

Francine did not at first comprehend why I had expended three hundred francs, to return at the end of four months to prison.  A sign put her on her guard, and I found an opportunity of desiring her to put some cinders in my pocket whilst Louis and I took a glass of rum, and then set out for the prison.  Having reached a deserted street, I blinded my guide with a handful of cinders, and regained my asylum with all speed.

Louis having made his declaration, the gendarmes and police-officers were on the full cry after me; and there was one Jacquard amongst them who undertook to secure me if I were in the city.  I was not unacquainted with these particulars, and instead of being more circumspect in my behaviour, I affected a ridiculous bravado.  It might have been said that I ought to have had a portion of the premium promised for my apprehension.  I was certainly hotly pursued, as may be judged from the following incident:—­

Jacquard learnt one day that I was going to dine in Rue Notre-Dame.  He immediately went with four assistants, whom he left on the ground-floor, and ascended the staircase to the room where I was about to sit down to table with two females.  A recruiting sergeant, who was to have made the fourth, had not yet arrived.  I recognised Jacquard, who never having seen me, had not the same advantage, and besides my disguise would have bid defiance to any description of my person.  Without being at all uneasy, I approached, and with a most natural tone I begged him to pass into a closet, the glass door of which looked on the banquetroom.  “It is Vidocq whom you are looking for,” said I; “if you will wait for ten minutes you will see him.  There is his cover, he cannot be long.  When he enters, I will make you a sign; but if you are alone, I doubt if you can seize him, as he is armed, and resolved to defend himself.”—­“I have