“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 Surete, I begged him to give an order that I should be sent away with Moiselet, he to go to Livry, and I to Paris.