Memoirs, reports, pamphlets, speeches, letters, novels,--all suited me; and I devoured them.

So much so, that little by little I became attracted towards the mysterious power which, from the obscurity of the Rue de Jerusalem, watches over and protects society, which penetrates everywhere, lifts the most impervious veils, sees through every plot, divines what is kept hidden, knows exactly the value of a man, the price of a conscience, and which accumulates in its portfolios the most terrible, as well as the most shameful secrets! In reading the memoirs of celebrated detectives, more attractive to me than the fables of our best authors I became inspired by an enthusiastic admiration for those men, so keen scented, so subtle, flexible as steel, artful and penetrating, fertile in expedients, who follow crime on the trail, armed with the law, through the rushwood of legality, as relentlessly as the savages of Cooper pursue their enemies in the depths of the American forests.

The desire seized me to become a wheel of this admirable machine,--a small assistance in the punishment of crime and the triumph of innocence.

I made the essay; and I found I did not succeed too badly." "And does this employment please you ?" "I owe to it, sir, my liveliest enjoyments.

Adieu weariness! since I have abandoned the search for books to the search for men.