I became a collector of books. You think, sir, perhaps
that to take an interest in books a man must have studied, must be
learned?"
"I know, dear M. Tabaret, that he must have money. I am acquainted with
an illustrious bibliomaniac who may be able to read, but who is most
certainly unable to sign his own name."
"This is very likely. I, too, can read; and I read all the books I
bought. I collected all I could find which related, no matter how
little, to the police. 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.
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