ons fell on the clerks, sometimes
on one, sometimes on another, when Beaumont, betrayed by a
friend, was apprehended, and sentenced a second time. The
robbery he had committed might be estimated at some hundred
thousand francs, the greater part of which were found on him.

"Beaumont enjoyed amongst his confraternity a colossal
reputation; and even now, when a rogue boasts of his lofty
exploits,--'Hold your tongue,' they say, 'you are not worthy to
untie the shoe-strings of Beaumont!' In effect, to have robbed
the police was the height of address."

We now proceed to make the reader acquainted with the habits and
exertions of police-officers, who perform exploits equal in craft and
danger to those of thieves. In order to detect the latter, they often
resort to the vilest places, and associate with the vilest of mankind;
assume various characters and occupations; and sometimes,
perhaps,--stimulated by the hope of reward,--lead others to commit
crimes in order to entrap them. Vidocq, however, professes in every case
to have acted without any desire to entice. He says that he himself
never proposed any scheme of robbery; but took care to concur in such as
were proposed by others. This declaration must, we suppose, be received
with some qualification, as without an occasional suggestion, he would
probably have been suspected in his designs. Be that as it may, he was
eminently successful in securing villains; for having practised villainy
himself, he knew their ways and devices, thus verifying the propriety of
the maxim,--"Set a thief to catch a thief." Some of the convicts at
Botany Bay make the best police-officers. Of this we have an instance
in Barrington, the famous London pick-pocket, who rendered such
essential services to the colony, that in his old age he was pensioned
by the government. By what means Vidocq, after all his devotion, came to
lose his office, he has not mentioned; an omission rather singular,
which lays his character open to suspicion, especially as he has given
the circumstances that first led him to offer himself to the police.
These circumstances it may be proper to glance at, as they exhibit a
view of the dangers attendant on a lawless course of life.

"At this period, it seemed as if the whole world was leagued
against me; I was compelled to draw my purse-strings at every
moment, and for whom? For creatures who, looking on my
libe