Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 Pickwick Abroad. dote of which the notorious Vidocq was the hero,—“ you may marvel at the apparant intimacy of my acquaintance with the private history of the French police ; but your wonder will cease when I inform you that I myself am a Gendarme !” ‘¢A Gendarme!” exclaimed Mr. Winkle, turning ashy pale, and almost falling forward on Mr. Adolphus Crashem, who uttered a simi- lar ejaculation, and gave a similar start. “y entlemen—a Gendarme!” added M. Dumont, with a laugh, for his oral organs had caught the sound of the sudden movement the declaration of his profession had occasioned, although it was too dark to distinguish the countenances which turned so very pale. ‘‘ But you need not be afraid of me: I am in plain clothes now—and am return- ing to Paris to resume my functions as lieutenant of Gendarmes.”’ “A si life, Sir—is it not?’ enquired Mr. Pickwick. ‘¢ Very,’ replied Dumont, with something of bitterness in his man- ner; “so singular, that when I first became a Gendarme, I had to sfeel my heart against the supplications of beauty, the tears of inno- cence, the murmurs of despair! In the exercise of my duty, I had to tear a son away from his widowed mother—a daughter from her de- pendent sire—a parent from his young family. I dared not connive at the concealment of a crime—'twas mine to before a severe tri- bunal the young and the inexperienced as well as the old and hardened. Oh! Sir—at my knees I have seen an agonizing wife, imploring the release of a criminal husband—or a fond husband supplicating me to cheat justice of its due, and allow his wife to remain with him and her children. I have separated lovers—by leaving one to pine away in misery and woe, and by dragging the other to an ignominious doom. I have, in fine, closed my breast against those sympathies and ameni- ties which fill your’s and your companions’ !”’ There was a pause of some minutes, when the Gendarme had ceased speaking, and a shudder passed over the individuals who listened to this strange avowal. The silence was at length broken by Mr. Pick- wick, who enquired of M. Dumont how he had first become a member of the corps; and the interrogation, being readily answered, gave rise to the following tale. CHAPTER VI. THE GENDARME'’S TALE. HIS EARLY REMINISCENCES.—HECTOR DUMONT.—THE PREFECT OF POLICE.--HOW HE BECOMES A GENDARME, My earliest recollections were none of the most pleasurable de- scription. The noise of cannon thundered in my ears—the clash of deadly weapons filled my infant soul with alarm. As I have been since informed, I was seated on the stump of a tree near a pile of mangled corpses—the body of a woman lay at a little distance—and to those breathless remains I frequently pointed in as great an excess of grief as a child of my tender age could know: indeed, there is every COL q) TOO KS (c@