‘Is it not as I have said?’ resumed he, still looking at my agitated face; ‘is it not as I have said—-monsieur is in the web of the mouchards?’
‘Good heavens! is such baseness possible?’ was all that I could utter.
‘I’ll wager a piece of five francs I can read the mystery,’ said Jacques. ‘You served on Moreau’s staff, or with Pichegru in Holland; you either have some of the general’s letters, or you can be supposed to have them, at all events; you remember many private conversations held with him on politics; you can charge your memory with a number of strong facts; and you can, if needed, draw up a memoir of all your intercourse. I know the system well, for I was a mouchard myself.’
‘You a police spy, Jacques?’
‘Ay, sir; I was appointed without knowing what services were expected from me, or the duties of my station. Two months’ trial, however, showed that I was “incapable,” and proved that a smart, sous-offieier is not necessarily a scoundrel. They dismissed me as impracticable, and made me garde-chasse; and they were right, too. Whether I was dressed up in a snuff-brown suit, like a bourgeois of the Rue St. Denis; whether they attired me as a farmer from the provinces, a retired maître de poste, an old officer, or the conducteur of a diligence, I was always Jacques Gaillon. Through everything—wigs and beards, lace or rags, jackboots or sabots, it was all alike; and while others could pass weeks in the Pays Latin as students, country doctors, or notaires de village, I was certain to be detected by every brat that walked the streets.’
‘What a system! And so these fellows assume every disguise?’ asked I, my mind full of my late rencontre.
‘That they do, monsieur. There is one fellow, a Provencal by birth, has played more characters than ever did Brunet himself. I have known him as a laquais de place, a cook to an English nobleman, a letter-carrier, a flower-girl, a cornet-à-piston in the opera, and a curé from the Ardèche.’
‘A curé from the Ardèche!’ exclaimed I. ‘Then I am a ruined man.’
‘What! has monsieur fallen in with Paul?’ cried he, laughing. ‘Was he begging for a small contribution to repair the roof of his little chapel, or was it a fire that had devastated his poor village? Did the altar want a new covering, or the curé a vestment? Was it a canopy for the Fête of the Virgin, or a few sous towards the “Orphelines de St. Jude?”’
‘None of these,’ said I, half angrily, for the theme was no jesting one to me. ‘It was a poor girl that had been carried away.’