of the
objects it had served to envelope, removed from her mind every
doubt as to the truth of the message I had brought her; and she
easily fell into the snare I had laid to entrap her. She
thanked me for the trouble I had taken, and begged I would go
and engage three hackney coaches, and return to her with as
little delay as possible. I left the house to execute my
commission, but on the road, I stopped to give one of my people
instructions to keep the coaches in sight, and to seize them,
with their contents, directly I should give the signal. The
vehicles drew up to the door, and, upon re-entering the house,
I found things in a high state of preparation for removing. The
floor was strewed with articles of every description;
time-pieces, candelabra, Etruscan vases, cloths, cachemires,
linen, muslin, &c. All these things had been taken from a
closet, the entrance to which was cleverly concealed by a large
press, so skilfully contrived, that the most practised eye
could not have discovered the deception. I assisted in the
removal, and, when it was completed, the press having been
carefully replaced, the woman begged of me to accompany her,
which I did; and no sooner was she in one of the coaches, ready
to start, than I suddenly pulled up the window, and, at this
previously concerted signal, we were immediately surrounded by
the police. The husband and wife were tried at the assizes,
and, as may be easily conceived, were overwhelmed beneath the
weight of an accusation, in support of which there existed a
formidable mass of convicting testimony."

We must extract one more account from Vidocq, to show the desperate
hazards which police-officers sometimes run, in capturing criminals;
hazards which, when surmounted, they naturally exult in. Information had
been received at the police-office, that one Fossard, who had several
times effected escapes from jail, was living with his mistress in a
certain district of Paris; that the windows of his apartment had yellow
curtains; and that a hump-backed seamstress lived in the same house.
This was very indefinite; for neither the street, nor the number of the
house was known, and curtains might be changed. However, Vidocq was not
deterred from undertaking a search; accordingly, disguised as an
old-fashioned gentleman, he began the enterprise. He went fro