sacristan, bell-ringer, and factotum. Never
during the whole course of his life had old
Moiselet given the slightest ground for suspicion,
either with respect to his devotion or his
morality.

M. Sénard conceived the idea of taking
advantage of the good curé's hiding-place
to ensure the safety of three hundred thousand
francs' worth (£12,000) of diamonds,
which he brought the next morning in a little
box. The joint treasure was deposited in the
ground six feet deep, covered and concealed
in such a way as to throw any curious inquirer
off the scent. The Cossacks did not fail to pay
a visit to Livry and its environs, where they
made a few discoveries; but, thanks to old
Moiselet's ingenuity, the precious deposit
escaped their cupidity.

The good curé rubbed his hands, and
congratulated himself on his innocent trick, when
one fine day—it ought to have been a Friday—
Moiselet rushed in more dead than alive, and
announced that the treasure had been abstracted.
Both rushed to the spot. All they gained from
their inspection of it was the wretched certainty
that the robbery was complete; the rascally
Cossacks had not done things by halves; the
heretics, the pagans! They had carried off
all, even the sacred vessels. The poor curé
nearly fell backwards when he beheld the full
extent of his loss; Moiselet, for his part,
was frightful to look at; he sighed and
groaned as if he were giving up the ghost.
This dreadful misfortune could not have afflicted
him more keenly had it been his own personal
loss. The violence of his grief prevented his
accompanying Monsieur le Curé, who took the
first vehicle to acquaint his friend Sénard with
the terrible news.

Sénard cleared the distance between the
Palais Royal and the Préfecture of Police at a
single bound. He did not scruple to lay the
theft of the treasure on the shoulders of the
very person who had hidden it: on the smooth-
spoken, the pious, the afflicted old Moiselet. M.
Henry was of the same opinion, in spite of all
the curé could say to testify to his sacristan's
honour; also was it Vidocq's opinion, at the
first word he heard about the business; but
mentioned that the affair was beset with thorns.
Yet, he would undertake it, and did not despair
of coming off with flying colours.

Incur," said M. Sénard, " whatever expense
you think necessary. My purse is at your
disposal, and I am ready to make any sacrifice. Only
find me my box of diamonds, and there are ten
thousand francs for you."

In spite of M. Sénard's successive abatements
in proportion as the discovery seemed
more probable, Vidocq promised to do
everything in his power. M. Sénard and the
curé returned to Pontoise, and the result of
their depositions was the arrest and examination
of Moiselet. They tried him in all ways
to get him to confess his guilt, but he persisted
in declaring his innocence; and the accusation
was on the point of melting into air, when
Vidocq set one of his cleverest agents to
work. This person, wearing a military
uniform and with his left arm in a sling,
presented himself to Moiselet's wife, with a billet
for lodgings. He was supposed to be just
discharged from the hospital, and that it had
been his intention to remain at Livry only
eight-and-forty hours; but a few minutes after
his arrival, he had a fall, and an artificial sprain,
which prevented the possibility of his continuing
his journey. The mayor, therefore, decided that
he should be the cooperess's guest till further
orders.

Madame Moiselet was one of those hearty
jovial bodies who have no scruple about living
under the same roof with a wounded conscript;
and she was not yet thirty-six. Moreover, evil
tongues reproached her with a weakness for a
cheerful glass. The pretended soldier did not fail
to flatter every foible through which she was
accessible, even opening his purse to pay for her
bottles of wine. He acted as her secretary, and
wrote letters at her dictation to her husband in
prison. He practised on her vanity and love of
show, by sending a female pedlar to tempt her
with gaudy goods, which might perhaps draw
some of the curé's cash out of its hidden retreat,
or bring forward some of the church plate by
way of exchange; but all in vain. Madame
Moiselet was discretion itself; she was a phœnix,
of prudence. Her guarded resistance put Vidocq
on his mettle; he ordered the agent to cure his
sprain and come back immediately, and resolved
to experimentalise in person on the husband.

Disguised as a sort of German man-servant,
and without having given the least previous
notice to the local authorities, Vidocq began
prowling about the environs of Pontoise, with
the intention of getting himself taken up.
Nothing in the world was more easy for him to
manage; he had so often given gendarmes the
dodge that he knew perfectly well how to fall
into their clutches. As he had no papers or passport
to show, and as the commissary of police
could not understand a word of his gibberish,
the prison doors opened to receive him, almost
of their own accord. As soon as he was introduced
into the prison yard, he recognised Moiselet.
Feigning to find his countenance more
agreeable and engaging than the faces of the
other prisoners, he made him understand, rather
by gestures than by words, that he wished to
treat him to a bottle of wine, by way of paying
his footing. Moiselet conducted him to
his chamber, and the bottles were emptied
one after the other. Vidocq pretended to be
dead drunk; so that the gaoler, who took part in
the libations, very naturally set up a bed for
him in his new friend's room. It was all he
wanted, for the present. Moiselet was delighted;
besides the slight gratification of personal pride
which a professed drinker feels when he has put
a rival under the table, he found Vidocq an
amiable and a generous companion.

When the two first bottles were paid for,
Vidocq, unstitching a button off his coat, had
extracted from it a Napoleon. Next morning