A rogue recounts a series of episodic memoirs chronicling his comic and often ignoble career in Paris and beyond. Self-described as an unblushing liar, thief and forger who nonetheless served successive regimes as a confidential agent, he narrates petty schemes, narrow escapes and social masquerades with genial vanity and a resigned outlook. Fragmentary notes are framed by an editor's foreword and arranged into short anecdotal chapters that balance humour and pathos, and that highlight his dependence on a meek associate whose loyalty complicates his character.