< Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu
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MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.

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wards hard at work. This time I thought it best to address his fellow-labourer, to whom I represented, in the most glaring colours, the dangers which he ran. "I see," answered the doctor, "that you are one of those cowardly fellows of whom there are so great a number. Suppose we are detected, what then? There are many others who make their exit at the Place de Grève, and we are not there yet; for fifteen years I have used these 'chamber gentlemen' as my bankers, and nobody has yet doubted me; it will do yet. And besides, my friend," he added in an ill-humoured tone, "do you meddle with your own affairs."

After the turn which this discussion took, I saw that it would be superfluous to continue it, and that I should do wisely to be on my guard, feeling still more the necessity of quitting Paris as speedily as possible. It was Tuesday, and I purposed starting on the following day; but having learnt that Annette would be set at liberty at the end of the week, I proposed deferring my departure until her release, when on Friday, about three o'clock in the morning, I heard a light knock at the street-door; the nature of the rap, the hour, and circumstance, all combined to make me think that they were coming to take me; and saying nothing to Bouhin, I went out on the staircase, and getting to the top, I got hold of the gutter, and climbing on the roof, hastened to conceal myself behind a stack of chimnies.

My presentiments had not deceived me, and in an instant the house was filled with police-agents, who searched everywhere. Surprised at not finding me, and doubtless informed by my clothes, left near my bed, that I had escaped in my shirt, which would not allow me to go far, they imagined that I would not have escaped by the usual way. For want of cavaliers to send in pursuit of me, they sent for some bricklayers, who went all over the roof, where I was found and seized, without the nature of the place allowing me to offer any resistance, which could only have been

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