He is then released;
one of his pals gives a false alarm to Vidocq's mother, and during her
temporary absence, Vidocq enters his home with a false key, steals
2,000 francs from a strong chest, with which he escapes to Ostend,
(intending to embark for America,) where he is decoyed by a _soi-disant_
ship-broker, and loses all his ill-gotten wealth. He then resolves to
betroth the sea, though not after the Venetian fashion, by giving her
a dowry; the "sound of a trumpet" disturbs his attention, as it would
of any other hero. But this proves to be the note of Paillasse, a
merry-andrew. The "director," as the opera bills would say, was
Cotte-Comus, belonging to a troop of rope-dancers.
He next joins a player of Punch, to whose wife he enacts Romeo with
better grace, and during one of the representations, the married people
break each others heads, and Vidocq runs off during the affray. He then
becomes assistant to a quack doctor, and the favoured swain of an
actress; gets into the Bourbon regiment, where he is nicknamed Reckless,
and kills two men, and fights fifteen duels in six months. His other
exploits are as a corporal of grenadiers, of course, a deserter, and
a prisoner of the revolution. He then marries, but does not reform.
Of course a wife is but a temporary incumbrance to a man of Vidocq's
dexterity.
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