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.
"A-hoy! a-hoy!" cried he, at the door, striking the ground with the butt end of his carbine! "down with the hammocks, down with the hammocks! We will sleep some other day. The Squirrel has made signals for a landing this evening, and we must see what she has in her, muslin or tobacco. Come, come, turn out, my sea-boys."
In a twinkling every body was ready. They opened an arm-chest, and every man took out a carbine or blunderbuss, a brace of pistols, and a cutlass or boarding pike, and we set out, after having drunk so many glasses of brandy and arrack that the bottles were empty. At this time there were not more than twenty of us, but we were joined or met, at one place or another, by so many individuals, that on reaching the sea side we were forty-seven in number, exclusive of two females and some countrymen from the adjacent villages, who brought hired horses, which they concealed in a hollow behind some rocks.
It was night, and the wind was shifting, whilst the sea dashed with so much force, that I did not understand how any vessels could approach without being cast on shore. What confirmed this idea was, that by the starlight I saw a small boat rowing backwards and forwards, as if it feared to land. They told me afterwards that this was only a manoeuvre to ascertain if all was ready for the unloading, and no danger to be apprehended. Peters now lighted a reflecting lantern, which one of the men had brought, and immediately extinguished it; the Squirrel raised a lantern at her mizen, which only shone for a moment, and then disappeared like a glow-worm on a summer's night. We then saw it approach, and anchor about a gun-shot off from the spot where we were. Our troop then divided into three companies, two of which were placed five hundred paces in front, to resist the revenue officers if they should present themselves. The men of these companies were then placed at intervals along the ground, having at the left arm a packthread which ran from one to the other: in case of alarm, it was announced by a slight pull, and each being ordered to answer this signal by firing his gun, a line of firing was thus kept up, which perplexed the revenue officers. The third company, of which I was one, remained by the sea-side, to cover the landing and the transport of the cargo.
All being thus arranged, the Newfoundland dog already mentioned, and who was with us, dashed at a word into the midst of the waves, and swam powerfully in the direction of the Squirrel, and in an instant afterwards returned with the end of a rope in his mouth. Peters instantly seized it, and began to draw it towards him, making us signs to assist him, which I obeyed mechanically. After a few tugs, I saw that at the end of the cable were a dozen small casks, which floated towards us. I then perceived that the vessel thus contrived to keep sufficiently far from the shore, not to run a risk of being stranded. In an instant the casks, smeared over with something that made them waterproof, were unfastened and placed on horses, which immediately dashed off for the interior of the country. A second cargo arrived with the same success; but as we were landing the third, some reports of fire-arms announced that our outposts were attacked. "There is the beginning of the ball," said Peters, calmly; "I must go and see who will dance;" and taking up his carbine, he joined the outposts, which had by this time joined each other. The firing became rapid, and we had two men killed, and others slightly wounded. At the fire of the revenue officers, we soon found that they exceeded us in number; but alarmed, and fearing an ambuscade, they dared not to approach, and we effected our retreat without any attempt on their part to prevent it. From the beginning of the fight the Squirrel had weighed anchor and stood out to sea, for fear that the noise of the firing should bring down on her the government cruiser. I was told that most probably she would unload her cargo in some other part of the coast, where the owners had numerous agents.
[Vidocq returns to Lille, where he is taken by two gendarmes, and concerts the following stratagem for escape:—]
This escape, however, was not so very easy a matter as may be surmised, when I say that our dungeons, seven feet square, had walls six feet thick, strengthened with planking crossed and rivetted with iron; a window, two feet by one, closed with three iron gratings placed one after the other, and the door cased with wrought iron. With such precautions, a jailor might depend on the safe keeping of his charge, but yet we overcame it all.
I was in a cell on the second floor with Duhamel. For six francs, a prisoner, who was also a turnkey, procured us two files, a ripping chisel, and two turnscrews. We had pewter spoons, and our jailor was probably ignorant of the use which prisoners could make of them. I knew the dungeon key; it was the counterpart of all the others on the same story; and I cut a model of it from a large carrot; then I made a mould with crumb of bread and potatoes. We wanted fire, and we procured it by making a lamp with a piece of fat and the rags of a cotton cap. The key was at last made of pewter, but it was not yet perfect; and it was only after many trials and various alterations that it fitted at last. Thus masters of the doors, we were compelled to work a hole in the wall, near the barns of the town-hall. Sallambier, who was in the dungeons below, found a way to cut the hole, by working through the planking.
THE PRISON OF BICETRE AT PARIS.
The prison of Bicêtre is a neat quadrangular building, enclosing many other structures and many courts, which have each a different name; there is the grande cour (great court) where the prisoners walk; the cour de cuisine (or kitchen court;) the cour des chiens (or dog's court;) the cour de correction (or court of punishment;) and the cour des fers (or iron court.) In this last is a new building five stories high; each story contains forty cells, capable of holding four prisoners. On the platform, which supplies the place of a roof, was night and day a dog named Dragon, who passed in the prison for the most watchful and incorruptible of his kind; but some prisoners managed at a subsequent period to corrupt him through the medium of a roasted leg of mutton, which he had the culpable weakness to accept. The Amphytrions escaped whilst Dragon was swallowing the mutton; he was beaten and taken into the cour des chiens, where, chained up and deprived of the free air which he breathed on the platform, he was inconsolable for his fault, and perished piecemeal, a victim of remorse at his weakness in yielding to a moment of gluttony and error.