PREFACE.
VIDOCQ TO THE READER.
It was in the month of January 1828, that I finished these Memoirs, of which it was my wish to direct the publication personally. Unfortunately, in the month of February I broke my right arm; and as it was fractured in five places, it was thought that amputation must ensue. For more than six weeks my life was in danger, and I was in the most racking agonies. In this distressing situation I was scarcely in condition to re-write my manuscript, and give it the finishing touches: but I had sold it, and the bookseller was anxious to publish, and offered me a reviser. Deceived by the recommendation of a writer well spoken of in the literary world, to perform a work, which under no other circumstances would I have trusted to other hands, he introduced to me one of those pretended men of letters, whose excessive impudence conceals their stupidity, and who had no other object in view than to make money. This pretended literatus boasted so much of his individual
