MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.
The French Thief-taker
This is as full-charged a portrait of human depravity as the gloomiest misanthrope could wish for. But it has much wider claims on public attention than the gratification of the misanthropic few who mope in corners or stalk up and down leafless and almost solitary walks during this hanging and drowning season. Nevertheless, all men are more or less misanthropes, or they affect to be so; for only skim off the bile of a true critic, or the minds of the hundred thousand who read newspapers, and look first for the bankrupts and deaths. Sugar and wormwood and wormwood and sugar are the standing dishes, but as we read the other day, "there is a certain hankering for the gloomy side of nature, whence the trials and convictions of vice become so much more attractive than the brightest successes of virtue." People with macadamized minds, and their histories (scarce as the originals are) are mere nonentities, and food for the trunk-maker; whereas a book of hair-breadth escapes, thrilling with horror and romantic narrative will tempt people to sit up reading in their beds, till like Rousseau, they are reminded of morning by the stone-chatters at their window. To the last class belong the Memoirs of Vidocq, an analysis of which would be "utterly impossible, so powerful are the descriptions, and so continuous the thread of their history." The original work was published a short time since in Paris, and republished here; but, we believe the present is the first translation that has appeared in England. The newspapers have, from time to time, translated a few extracts, when their Old Bailey news was at a stand, so that the name of Vidocq must be somewhat familiar to many of our readers.[11]
Eugene Francois Vidocq is a native of Arras, where his father was a baker; and from early associations he fell into courses of excess which led to the necessity of his flying from the parental roof. After various, rapid, and unexampled events in the romance of real life, in which he was everything by turns and nothing long, he was liberated from prison, and became the principal and most active agent of police. He was made Chief of the Police de Surete under Messrs. Delavau and Franchet, and continued in that capacity from the year 1810 till 1827, during which period he extirpated the most formidable of those ruffians and villains to whom the excesses of the revolution and subsequent events had given full scope for the perpetration of the most daring robberies and inquitous excesses. Removed from employment, in which he had accumulated a handsome independence, he could not determine on leading a life of ease, for which his career of perpetual vigilance and adventure had unfitted him, and he built a paper manufactory at St. Mandeé, about two leagues from Paris, where he employs from forty to fifty persons, principally, it is asserted, liberated convicts, who having passed through the term of their sentence, are cast upon society without home, shelter, or character, and would be compelled to resort to dishonest practices did not this asylum offer them its protection and afford them opportunity of earning an honest living by industrious labour. One additional point of interest in the present volume is, that the author is still living.
[We cannot follow Vidocq through his career of crime, neither would it be altogether profitable to our readers; but the links may be recapitulated in a few words. He must have been born a thief, and perhaps stole the spoon with which he was fed; but the penchant runs in the family, for Vidocq and his brother rob the same till of a fencing-room, but his brother is first detected, and sent off "in a hurry," to a baker at Lille. Of course Vidocq soon gets partners in sin, and on the same day that he has been detected by the living evidence of two fowls which he had stolen, he sweeps from the dinner table ten forks and as many spoons, pawns them for 150 francs, spends the money in a few hours, and is imprisoned four days. He is then released; one of his pals gives a false alarm to Vidocq's mother, and during her temporary absence, Vidocq enters his home with a false key, steals 2,000 francs from a strong chest, with which he escapes to Ostend, (intending to embark for America,) where he is decoyed by a soi-disant ship-broker, and loses all his ill-gotten wealth. He then resolves to betroth the sea, though not after the Venetian fashion, by giving her a dowry; the "sound of a trumpet" disturbs his attention, as it would of any other hero. But this proves to be the note of Paillasse, a merry-andrew. The "director," as the opera bills would say, was Cotte-Comus, belonging to a troop of rope-dancers.
He next joins a player of Punch, to whose wife he enacts Romeo with better grace, and during one of the representations, the married people break each others heads, and Vidocq runs off during the affray. He then becomes assistant to a quack doctor, and the favoured swain of an actress; gets into the Bourbon regiment, where he is nicknamed Reckless, and kills two men, and fights fifteen duels in six months. His other exploits are as a corporal of grenadiers, of course, a deserter, and a prisoner of the revolution. He then marries, but does not reform. Of course a wife is but a temporary incumbrance to a man of Vidocq's dexterity. In chapter iii, we find him at Brussels, where he joins a set of nefarious gamblers at the Cafes, and has a most romantic adventure with a woman named Rosine. But we can follow him no further, except to add that his other comrades in Vol. I, are gipsies, smugglers, players, galley-slaves, drovers, Dutch sailors, and highwaymen.
We must, therefore, confine ourselves to a few detached extracts from the most interesting portion of the volume. At Lille, Vidocq meets with a chere amie, Francine; he suspects her fidelity, thrashes his rival, gets imprisoned, and is betrayed as an accomplice in a forgery. His "reflections" during his imprisonment in St. Peter's Tower, bring on a severe illness.]
I was scarcely convalescent, when, unable to support the state of incertitude in which I found my affairs, I resolved on escaping, and to escape by the door, although that may appear a difficult step. Some particular observations made me choose this method in preference to any other. The wicket-keeper at St. Peter's Tower was a galley-slave from the Bagne (place of confinement) at Brest, sentenced for life. In a word, I relied on passing by him under the disguise of a superior officer, charged with visiting St. Peter's Tower, which was used as a military prison, twice a week.
Francine, whom I saw daily, got me the requisite clothing, which she brought me in her muff. I immediately tried them on, and they suited me exactly. Some of the prisoners who saw me thus attired assured me that it was impossible to detect me. I was the same height as the officer whose character I was about to assume, and I made myself appear twenty-five years of age. At the end of a few days, he made his usual round, and whilst one of my friends occupied his attention, under pretext of examining his food, I disguised myself hastily, and presented myself at the door, which the gaolkeeper, taking off his cap, opened, and I went out into the street. I ran to a friend of Francine's, as agreed on in case I should succeed, and she soon joined me there.
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'Hôpital, 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.