"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-officier is not necessarily a scoundrel. They dismissed me as impracticable, and made me Garde de 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 maitre-de-poste, an old officer, or the conducteur of a diligence, I was always Jacques Caillon. Through every thing, wigs and beards, lace or rags, jack-boots 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 Provençal 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 Ardëche."
"A curé from the Ardëche!" 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 toward 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."