The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829

They immediately flocked about me, and I was accosted with salutations of Landsman and Meinheer without end. During this reception, I looked out for the cooper of Livry.

[He meets with him.]

"Mossié, Mossié," I said, addressing the prisoner, who seemed to think I said Moiselet, "Mossié Fine Hapit, (not knowing his name, I so designated him, because his coat was the colour of flesh,) sacrement, ter teufle, no tongue to me; yer François, I miseraple, I trink vine; faut trink for gelt, plack vine."

I pointed to his hat, which was black; he did not understand me; but on making a gesture that I wanted to drink, he found me perfectly intelligible. All the buttons of my great coat were twenty-franc pieces; I gave him one: he asked if they had brought the wine, and soon afterwards I heard a turnkey say,

"Father Moiselet, I have taken up two bottles for you." The flesh-coloured coat was then Moiselet. I followed him into his room, and we began to drink with all our might. Two other bottles arrived; we only went on in couples. Moiselet, in his capacity of chorister, cooper, sexton, &c. &c. was no less a sot than gossip; he got tipsy with great good-will, and incessantly spoke to me in the jargon I had assumed.

Matters progressed well; after two or three hours such as these I pretended to get stupid. Moiselet, to set me to rights, gave me a cup of coffee without sugar; after coffee came glasses of water. No one can conceive the care which my new friend took of me; but when drunkenness is of such a nature it is like death—all care is useless. Drunkenness overpowered me. I went to bed and slept; at least Moiselet thought so; but I saw him many times fill my glass and his own, and gulp them both down. The next day, when I awoke, he paid me the balance, three francs and fifty centimes, which, according to him, remained from the twenty-franc piece. I was an excellent companion; Moiselet found me so, and never quitted me. I finished the twenty-franc piece with him, and then produced one of forty francs, which vanished as quickly. When he saw it drunk out also he feared it was the last.

"Your button again," said he to me, in a tone of extreme anxiety, and yet very comical.

I showed him another coin. "Ah, your large button again," he shouted out, jumping for joy.

This button went the same way as all the other buttons, until at length, by dint of drinking together, Moiselet understood and spoke my language almost as well as I did myself, and we could then disclose our troubles to each other. Moiselet was very curious to know my history, and that which I trumped up was exactly adapted to inspire the confidence I wished to create.

"My master and I come to France—I was tomestic—master of mein Austrian marechal—Austrian with de gelt in family. Master always roving, always gay, joint regiment at Montreau. Montreau, oh, mein Gott, great, great pattle—many sleep no more but in death. Napoleon coom—poum, poum go gannon. Prusse, Austrian, Rousse all disturb. I, too, much disturb. Go on my ways with master mein, with my havresac on mein horse—poor teufel was I—but there was gelt in it. Master mein say, 'Galop, Fritz.' I called Fritz in home mein. Fritz galop to Pondi—there halt Fritz—place havresac not visible; and if I get again to Yarmany with havresac, me rich becomen, mistress mein rich, father mein rich, you too rich."

Although the narrative was not the cleverest in the world, father Moiselet swallowed it all as gospel; he saw well that during the battle of Montereau, I had fled with my master's portmanteau, and hidden it in the forest of Bondy. The confidence did not astonish him, and had the effect of acquiring for me an increase of his affection. This augmentation of friendship, after a confession which exposed me as a thief, proved to me that he had an accommodating conscience. I thenceforth remained convinced that he knew better than any other person what had become of the diamonds of M. Senard, and that it only depended on him to give me full and accurate information.

One evening, after a good dinner, I was boasting to him of the delicacies of the Rhine: he heaved a deep sigh, and then asked me if there was good wine in that country.

"Yes, yes," I answered, "goot vine and charming girl."

"Charming girl too!"

"Ya, ya."

"Landsman, shall I go with you."

"Ya, ya, me grat content."

"Ah, you content, well! I quit France, yield the old woman, (he showed me by his fingers that Madame Moiselet was three-and-thirty,) and in your land I take little girl no more as fifteen years."

"Ya, bien, a girl no infant: a! you is a brave lad."

Moiselet returned more than once to his project of emigration; he thought seriously of it, but to emigrate liberty was requisite, and they were not inclined to let us go out. I suggested to him that he should escape with me on the first opportunity—and when he had promised me that we would not separate, not even to take a last adieu of his wife, I was certain that I should soon have him in my toils. This certainly was the result of very simple reasoning. Moiselet, said I to myself, will follow me to Germany: people do not travel or live on air: he relies on living well there: he is old, and, like king Solomon, proposes to tickle his fancy with some little Abishag of Sunem. Oh, father Moiselet has found the black hen; here he has no money, therefore his black hen is not here; but where is she? We shall soon learn, for we are to be henceforward inseparable.

As soon as my man had made all his reflections, and that, with his head full of his castles in Germany, he had so soon resolved to expatriate himself, I addressed to the king's attorney-general a letter, in which, making myself known as the superior agent of the Police de Sûreté, I begged him to give an order that I should be sent away with Moiselet, he to go to Livry, and I to Paris.

We did not wait long for the order, and the jailer announced it to us, on the eve of its being put into execution; and I had the night before me to fortify Moiselet in his resolutions. He persisted in them more strongly than ever, and acceded with rapture to the proposition I made him of effecting an escape from our escort as soon as it was feasible.

So anxious was he to commence his journey, that he could not sleep. At daybreak, I gave him to understand that I took him for a thief as well as myself.

"Ah, ah, grip also," said I to him, "deep, deep François, you not spoken, but tief all as von."

He made me no answer; but when, with my fingers squeezed together à la Normande, he saw me make a gesture of grasping something, he could not prevent himself from smiling, with that bashful expression of Yes, which he had not courage to utter. The hypocrite had some shame about him, the shame of a devotee. I was understood.

At length the wished-for moment of departure came, which was to enable us to accomplish our designs. Moiselet was ready three whole hours beforehand, and to give him courage, I had not neglected to push about the wine and brandy, and he did not leave the prison until after having received all his sacraments.

We were tied with a very thin cord, and on our way he made me a signal that there would be no difficulty in breaking it. He did not think that he should break the charm which had till then preserved him. The further we went the more he testified that he placed his hopes of safety in me; at each minute he reiterated a prayer that I would not abandon him; and I as often replied, "Ya, François, ya, I not leave you." At length the decisive moment came, the cord was broken. I leaped a ditch, which separated us from a thicket. Moiselet, who seemed young again, jumped after me: one of the gendarmes alighted to follow us, but to run and jump in jack-boots and with a heavy sword was difficult; and whilst he made a circuit to join us, we disappeared in a hollow, and were soon lost to view.

A path into which we struck led us to the wood of Vaujours. There Moiselet stopped, and having looked carefully about him, went towards some bushes. I saw him then stoop, plunge his arm into a thick tuft, whence he took out a spade: arising quickly, he went on some paces without saying a word; and when we reached a birch tree, several of the boughs of which I observed were broken, he took off his hat and coat, and began to dig. He went to work with so much good-will, that his labour rapidly advanced. Suddenly he stooped down, and then escaped from him that ha! which betokens satisfaction, and which informed me, without the use of a conjuror's rod, that he had found his treasure. I thought the cooper would have fainted; but recovering himself, he made two or three more strokes with his spade, and the box was exposed to view. I seized on the instrument of his toil, and suddenly changing my language, declared, in very good French, that he was my prisoner.

"No resistance," I said, "or I will cleave your skull in two."

At this threat he seemed in a dream; but when he knew that he was gripped by that iron hand which had subdued the most vigorous malefactors, he was convinced that it was no vision. Moiselet was as quiet as a lamb. I had sworn not to leave him, and kept my word. During the journey to the station of the brigade of gendarmerie, where I deposited him, he frequently cried out,

"I am done—who could have thought it? and he had such a simple look too!"

At the assizes of Versailles, Moiselet was sentenced to six months' solitary confinement.

M. Senard was overpowered with joy at having recovered his hundred thousand crowns worth of diamonds. Faithful to his system of abatement, he reduced the reward one-half; and still there was difficulty in getting five thousand francs from him, out of which I had been compelled to expend more than two thousand: in fact, at one moment I really thought I should have been compelled to bear the expenses myself.