At the moment of entering a farm with six of his comrades, he thrust his left hand through an opening in the shutter to lift the latch, but when he was drawing it back, he found that his wrist had been caught in a slip knot.  Awakened by the noise, the inhabitants of the farm had laid this snare, although too weak to go out against a band of robbers which report had magnified as to numbers.  But the attempt being thus defeated, day was fast approaching, and Bruxellois saw his dismayed comrades looking at each other with doubt, when the idea occurred to him that to avoid discovery they would knock out his brains.  With his right hand he drew out his clasp knife with a sharp point, which he always had about him, and cutting off his wrist at the joint, fled with his comrades without being stopped by the excessive pain of his horrid wound.  This remarkable deed, which has been attributed to a thousand different spots, really occurred in the vicinity of Lille, and is well authenticated in the northern districts, where many persons yet remember to have seen the hero of this tale, who was thence called Manchot, (or one-armed,) executed.

[Vidocq at length escapes, quits Lille, and flies to Ostend, where he joins a crew of smugglers.]

It was with real repugnance that I went to the house of a man named Peters, to whom I was directed, as one deeply engaged in the pursuit, and able to introduce me to it.  A sea-gull nailed on his door with extended wings, like the owls and weasels that we see on barns, guided me.  I found the worthy in a sort of cellar, which by the ropes, sails, oars, hammocks, and barrels which filled it, might have been taken for a naval depot.  From the midst of a thick atmosphere of smoke which surrounded him, he viewed me at first with a contempt which had not a good appearance, and my conjectures were soon realized, for I had scarcely offered my services than he fell upon me with a shower of blows.  I could certainly have resisted him effectually, but astonishment had in a measure deprived me of the power of defence; and I saw besides, in the court-yard, half-a-dozen sailors and an enormous Newfoundland dog, which would have been powerful odds.  Turned into the street, I endeavoured to account for this singular reception, when it occurred to me that Peters had mistaken me for a spy, and treated me accordingly.

This idea determined me on returning to a dealer in hollands, who had told me of him, and he, laughing at the results of my visit, gave me a pass-word that would procure me free access to Peters.—­[He succeeds.]—­I slept at Peters’s house with a dozen or fifteen smugglers, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, and Russian; there were no Englishmen, and only two Frenchmen.  The day after my installation, as we were all getting into our hammocks, or flock beds, Peters entered suddenly into our chamber, which was only a cellar contiguous to his own, and so filled with barrels and kegs, that we could scarcely find room to sling our hammocks.  Peters had put off his usual attire, which was that of ship-caulker, or sail-maker, and had on a hairy cap, and a long red shirt, closed at the breast with a silver pin, fire-arms in his belt, and a pair of thick large, fisherman’s boots, which reach the top of the thigh, or may be folded down beneath the knee.