DURING A DETECTIVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13583, 12 September 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

DURING A DETECTIVE.

THE TMCK OF A CLEVER SCOUNDREL.

MoxsiEUH Cl/AITDK, who was Chief of Police during the reign of Napoleon 111., had some notable experiences, as evidenced by his "Memoirs," recently published by Constable and Co., from translations by Katherine Prescott Wormley. In spite of his many captures, the most interesting pages of his " Memoirs" are those which deal with his failures. There was about this time a famous criminal who had long escaped the hands of justice. It came to Claude's knowledge that ho had just returned to Paris and was living as a rich student in the Latin Quarter—then in the height of its Bohemian splendour. These were the days when the great poet Beranger was the idol of the stage, the university,- and of everyone who read or thought, most of all in the district just mentioned. Claude determined to make a personal triumph over his victim, and one night he presented himself at one of the famous ballrooms, still in existence, at the hour when the dancing was at its height. "I had no difficulty in discovering my man, seated among a swarm of pretty girls and bewitching danseuses whom I knew to be the beauties most in vogue in the Latin Quarter.

" Convinced that there are but two ways of getting the better, of a cunning enemy surprise and audacity—l walked straight up to where my rascal was seated. I walked slowly, with steady steps, my eyes on the eyes of my man. He was a dark-skinned handsome fellow, with a face as brazen as it was cynical. I saw by an imperceptible sign that he recognised me. Ho turned n>le—he was mine! "I was almost near enough to capture him,'when I eaw him bend to the ear of one of his companions. Instantly all the girls surrounded me and stood in a feverish, excited, ardent phalanx before me. They formed an impenetrable barrier, behind which my rascal escaped, while the whole swarm of beauties pressed eagerly upon me crying out: "Beranger! It is Beranger !" "The magic nam© produced upon the youthful spirits there, presented the effect of an electric spark. All the dancers of the establishment stopped dancing and surrounded me with acclamations; . the students, the younjx girls rushed from the groves, some bearing bouquets, others glass in hand. 1 was literally covered with flowers, while the whole place rang with shouts, a hundred times repeated, of 'Vive Bera nger! Vive Beranger V "I was aghast, and yet I understood the trick of my clever scoundrel. On the point of being collared by me, he had recourse to this shrewd game,' which must have succeeded even better than he expected. I certainly had some points of resemblance to the illustrious song-maker, or the whole world of students and grisettes in the Latin Qui!iter would not have' fallen so readily into his trap. 1 was aa bald ax the poet at that time: and at all times I have had a certain good-natured sympathetic benevolence in my appearance, such as the portraits of Beranccr show to this day.

"Well, if the youth of Paris countersigned the intentional error of my clever scamp, I owed it to my resemblance to the poet. Though I was tricked, I was well tricked. It was not for me to own to these giddy-pates that I was not Beranger, but Claude, the policeman, the agent of all the prosecutors, judges, lawyers, who, under, the Restoration, had done so-much harm to their idol. For my dignitv, as well as that of the poet, 1 could not destroy the pedestal that this brave and gallant youth had raised to its hero. 1 escaped from the ovation, which was becoming deliriously under an avalanche of flowers, and while the. orchestra was playing, in my honour, the wellknown air of Beraoger's 'Lisettc.'" Needless to say. this adventure was not at the time made known to his confederates of the police. Something had to be done, however, early next day, when the newspapers announced that " the poet had gone to revive his genius amid the youth of France." Claude determined to call upon the aged poet and explain the circumstances, at the same time asking for silence. He was received graciously, but at the end of his narrative his host was seized with a great tit of hilarity. " Mv dear sir," he said, " I am no more Berascjer than you were. If I take hie place and receive his visitors occasionally, it is to save him from importunate persons, coming from all parts of France, who assume the right to force themselves upon him on the pretext of presenting their homage." Thus was the greatest police agent in Fiance twice completely outwitted in twenty-four hours. * ■