He Pulled the Bell at No. 33 Bis

"The Little Trap did Work," cried Francois, behind his Screen

*THE ADVENTURES OF FRANCOIS*

FOUNDLING, THIEF, JUGGLER, AND FENCING-MASTER

DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

*I*

_Of how Francois the foundling was cared for by the good fathers of the

Benedictine Asylum for Orphans, and of what manner of lad he was._

In the summer of the year 1777 a lad of about ten years, clad in a suit

of gray, was playing in the high-walled garden of the Benedictine Asylum

for Orphans in Paris. The sun was pleasant, the birds sang overhead,

the roses were many, for the month was June. A hundred lads were

noisily running about. They had the look of being well fed, decently

clothed, and kindly cared for. An old priest walked to and fro, at

times looking up from his breviary to say a pleasant word or to check

some threatening quarrel.

Presently he paused beside the boy who was at the moment intently

watching a bird on a branch overhead. As the priest turned, the boy had

thrown himself on the grass and was laughing heartily.

"What amuses thee, my son?" said the father.

"I am laughing at the birds."

"And why do they make thee laugh, Francois!"

"I do not know."

"And I," said the priest, "do not know why the birds sing, nor why thou

dost laugh. Thou hast a talent that way. The good God grant thee

always cause"; and with his eyes on his breviary, and his lips moving in

prayer, he walked away.

The lad fell back again on the grass, and laughed anew, as if overcome

with some jest he shared with no one but the birds overhead. This was a

kindly little waif brought hither from the Enfants Trouves, nameless

except for the card pinned on the basket in which he lay when the

unknown mother left him, a red-faced baby, to the charity of asylum

life.

His constant mirthfulness was a sad cross to some of the good fathers,

for neither punishment, fast, nor penance got the better of this gaiety,

nor served to repress its instinctive expression. He had, too,--what is

rare in childhood,--quick powers of observation, and a certain joy in

the world of nature, liking to lie on his back and watch the birds at

work, or pleased to note the daily changes of flowers or the puzzling

journeys of the ants which had their crowded homes beneath the lilacs in

undisturbed corners of the garden. His nearest mother, Nature, meant

the boy to be one of those rare beings who find happiness in the use of

keen senses and in a wakeful mind, which might have been trained to

employ its powers for the partial conquest of some of her many kingdoms.

But no friendly hand was here to guide, no example present to incite or

lift him. The simple diet provided for the intellect of these little

ones was like the diet of their table--the same for one and for all.

His head was high, his face long; all his features were of unusual size,

the mouth and ears of disproportionate magnitude; altogether, a quaint

face, not quite of to-day, a something Gothic and medieval in its

general expression.

The dull round of matins and vespers, the routine of lessons, the silent

refectory meals, went on year after year with little variation. The boy

Francois simply accepted them as did the rest; but, unlike some of his

comrades, he found food for mirth, silent, gentle, or boisterous, where

no other saw cause for amusement.

Once a week a sober line of gray-clad boys, with here and there a

watchful priest, filed through the gay streets to mass at St. Eustache

or Notre Dame. He learned, as he grew, to value these chances, and to

look forward with eager anticipation to what they brought him. During

these walks the quick-minded Francois saw and heard a hundred things

which aroused his curiosity. The broad gardens of the Luxembourg, the

young fellows at unrestricted play, the river and the boats, by degrees

filled him with keen desire to see more of this outer world, and to have

easy freedom to roam at will. It was the first flutter of wings longing

for natural flight. Before they set out on these journeys, a good

father at the great gateway said to them as they went by: "Look neither

to the right nor to the left, my children. 'T is a day of prayer.

Remember!" Alas! what eyes so busy as those of Francois? "Look at

this--at that," he would cry to the lads close to him. "Be quiet,

there!" said the priests' low voices; and on this Francis's droll face

would begin to express the unspoken delight he found in the outer world

of men and things. This naughty outside world kept calling him to share

its liberty. The boy liked best the choir, where his was the most

promising voice. Here was happiness such as the use of dexterous hands

or observant eyes also gave him. Religion was to him largely a matter

of formal service. But in this, as in secular education, the

individuality of the creature may not be set aside without risk of

disaster. For all alike there was the same dull round, the same

instruction. Nevertheless, the vast influence of these repeated

services, and of the constant catechism, he continued to feel to his

latest day.

He was emotional and imaginative, fond of color, and sensitive to music;

but the higher lessons of the church, which should control the life of

action, were without effect on a character which was naturally one of

exceptional levity. Such a mind has small power to apply to the conduct

of life the mere rules laid down for its guidance, and is apt to accept

as personally useful only what comes from the lessons of experience.

*II*

_In which Francois becomes a choir-boy, and serves two masters, to the

impairment of his moral sense._

He was about fourteen, and the best of the choir, when a great change

took place in his life. He was sent, with a dozen others, to the vestry

of Notre Dame, and there carefully tested as to the power and quality of

his voice. The masters of the choir were exacting, but, to his great

delight, he was thought the best of the four who were finally selected

to fill vacancies among the boy choristers of the cathedral. This came

about in the autumn of the year 1781.

The next day he received a long lecture on how he should behave himself;

and thus morally provided, was sent, with his small belongings in a bag,

to the house of certain of the choir-masters who lived in the Rue des

Chanteurs. One of the priests who escorted the four boys stood at the

door of the house of the choir, and saying good-by to them as they went

in, bade them come, if they might, and visit their old home; and so,

with a benediction, sent them forth into a larger world.

It was not much larger, nor was it as agreeable. When the good father

left them, one Tomas, who was steward of the choir-house, took the lads

in charge.

"Up with ye, singing-birds!" he cried; "up! up!" And this at each

story: "It will soon be your best chance of heaven; up! up!" until they

reached a large attic under the tiles.

It was a dismal place, and hospitable to every wind that blew. Each of

twelve choir-boys had a straw mattress on the floor, and pegs where hung

his clothes and the white surplice he wore during service. The four

newcomers took possession, and were soon informed by Tomas of their

duties. They must be up at five to sing before breakfast with the

second chanter.

"Before breakfast!" cried one of the recruits.

"Little animal!" said Tomas. "Before thou dost eat there is room to

fill thy chest; but after, what boy hath room? Breakfast at six and a

half; at seven a lesson. Thou wilt intone with Pere Lalatte."

Thus the day was to be filled; for here were lessons a-plenty in Latin,

and all must learn to read and to write, for they might be priests some

blessed day.

Francois reflected as Tomas packed the hours with this and that as one

packs a bag. He made his face as grave as nature would let it be, and

said it was very nice, and that he liked to sing. Was there anything

else? Tomas replied that this first day they might ask questions, but

that after that he (Tomas) had only one answer, because to have only one

saved thinking.

This amused Francois, who was prematurely capable of seeing the fun of

things.

When a duller boy who did not apprehend asked to know more he received

an illustration in the form of a smart smack, which proved convincingly

instructive, and silenced all but Francois, who asked, "Please,

monsieur, when may we play?" and "Is there anything more?"

Tomas replied that there was a free hour before supper, and a little

while somewhere about noon in the garden; also, they must wait on table;

and oh, he forgot the prayers; and then went on to complete the packing

of the day with various small duties in the nature of attentions to the

comfort of Tomas. With some last words as to the time of the next meal,

the steward left them.

The lads, silent and anxious, arranged their small possessions. A

little goldfinch in a wicker cage was Francis's most valued property; he

had taught it many pretty tricks, and now he had been allowed to bring

it with him. Francois put the cage on the window-ledge, and fed his

brightly tinted bird from a small store of millet with which he had

filled his pocket. Then he looked out to see what prospect the view

from the attic afforded.

The home of the master-choristers was an ancient house of the days of

Henri IV, and leaned so far over that as the boy looked out he had a

sudden fear lest it should be about to tumble. The street was not more

than twelve feet wide. The opposite dwellings were a full story below

the attic from which the boy looked. The nearest house across the way

had an ancient stoop. Others bent back from the line of the street, and

the open windows gave them a look of yawning weariness which set the boy

to gaping in sympathy.

Above was a mottled wilderness of discolored tiles, chimney-pots, and

here and there gray corner turrets with vanes which seemed to entertain

diverse views as to the direction whence the wind blew. Below was the

sunless well of the street. As he gazed he saw the broad hats of

priests hiding the figures beneath them. It interested the boy. It was

new and strange. He was too intent to notice that all but he had gone,

obedient to an order of Tomas.

A woman at a window over the way let fall a skirt she had been drying.

It sailed to and fro, and fell on the head of a reflective abbe. The

boy broke into laughter. A cat climbed on to a chimney-pot, and was met

by a gust of smoke from the flue beside it. She scrambled off, sneezing.

"What fun!" cried the boy, and laughed again.

"Little beast!" shouted Tomas. "Must I come for thee? 'T is not

permitted to laugh. It is forbid to laugh. It spoils the voice"--a

queer notion which, to his sorrow, the boy found to prevail in the house

of the choristers.

"How can that be?" said Francois, boldly.

The man gave him to understand that he was to obey his betters without

answering, and then, taking the cage from the window, said:

"Come--quick, too! Thou art late for the dinner, and must do without

it. There is a singing-lesson. Off with thee!"

He was leaving the room when, suddenly, a strange fury of anger came on

the boy. He snatched the cage from the man's hand, crying, "My bird!

It is my bird!"

Tomas caught him, and began to administer a smart cuffing; but the lad

was vigorous and of feline agility. He used nails, teeth, and feet.

Then, of a sudden, he ceased to struggle, and fell on a mattress in an

agony of tears. The man had set his foot on the fallen cage, crying:

"I will teach thee a lesson, little animal!"

There lay in the crushed cage the dead bird, still quivering, a

shapeless mass of green and yellow with a splotch of red. It was the

first lesson of that larger world toward which the foundling had been so

joyfully looking.

He made no further resistance to the discipline which followed. Then

came a dark cell and bread and water for a weary day, and much profit in

the way of experience. It was a gentle home he had left. He had known

there no unkindness, nor had he ever so sinned as to suffer more than

some mild punishment. The new life was hard, the diet spare. As the

winter came on, the attic proved to be cold. The winds came in from the

tiles above and through the shrunken window-frames. Once within, they

seemed to stay and to wander in chilly gusts. The dark suits worn by

the choir-boys were none too warm. If the white surplice were clean,

little more was asked in that direction. There were long services twice

a day at the great cathedral near by, and three hours of practice under

the eye of a junior chorister. The boys were abed at eight, and up at

five; and for play, there were two uncertain hours--after the noon meal

and at seven in the evening--when they were free to move about a small

court behind the house, or to rest, if they pleased, in the attic. Four

days in the week there were lessons in Latin and in reading and writing.

Assuredly the devil had little of the chance which idle hours are

presumed to give. But this fallen angel has also the industry of the

minute, and knows how to profit by the many chances of life. He

provided suggestive lessons in the habits of the choristers who dwelt in

the stories above the wine-shop on the first floor. Sounds of gay

carouses reached the small garret saints at night, and gay voices were

heard which had other than masculine notes. At meal-times the

choir-boys waited on their masters, and fetched their food from the

kitchen. The lads soon learned to take toll on the way, and to comfort

their shrunken stomachs with a modest share of the diet of their

betters.

"Little rats!" said Tomas the steward, "you will squeal in purgatory for

this; and 't were better to give you a dose of it here." And so certain

of the rats, on account of temporary excess of feed, were given none for

a day, and left in a cold cellar to such moral aids as reflection might

fetch.

Francois sat with his comrades of mishap in the gloom, and devised new

ways of procuring food and concealing their thefts.

"Rats we are," said Francois, gaily; "and rats had need be smart; and

who ever heard that the _bon Dieu_ sent rats to purgatory?" Then he

hatched queer stories to keep up the spirits of the too penitent; and

whether full or empty, cold or warm, took all that came with perpetual

solace of good-humored laughter. It was not in him to bear malice. The

choir-masters liked him, and with the boys he was the leader.

Most of the dozen choir-bays were dull fellows; but this sharp-witted

Francois was of other make, and found in the table-talk of the

choristers, and of the cure's who came now and then to share their ample

fare, food for such thoughts as a boy thinks. He soon learned, as he

grew older, how difficult is complete sin; how many outlets there are

for him who, being penitent, desires to create new opportunities for

penitence. Francois was fast forming his character. He had small need

to look for excuses, and a meager talent for regret. When his stomach

was full he was good, and when it was empty he must, as he said in after

years, "fill it to squeeze out Satan."

There were singular books about, and for his education, now that he read

Latin fairly well, a manual on confession. It was not meant for

half-fed choir-boys. More fascinating were the confessions of one

Rousseau--a highly educative book for a clever boy of sixteen. At this

age Francois was a long-legged, active fellow, a keen-witted domestic

brigand, expert in providing for his wants, and eagerly desirous of

seeing more of the outside world, of the ways of which he was so

ignorant. The procession of closely watched boys went to church and

back again to the old house at least once a day, and this was his only

glimpse of the entertaining life of the streets. When left to himself,

he liked best in good weather to sit at the open attic window and watch

the cats on the roofs across the way. So near were the houses that he

could toss a bone or a crust on to the roof opposite, and delight to see

these Ishmaelites contend for the prize. He grew to know them, so that

they would come at dusk to the roof-edge, and contemplate dietetic

possibilities with eager and luminous eyes. Being versed in the Bible,

as all good choir-boys should be, he found names for his feline friends

which fitted their qualities; for there, among the chimneys, was a small

world of stirring life which no man disturbed. He saw battles,

jealousies, greediness, and loves. Constancy was not there. Solomon of

the many wives was king of the tiles; a demure blue cat was Susannah,

for good reasons; and there, too, were the elders. It might have seemed

to some pitiful angel a sad picture--this poor lad in the grasp of

temptations, but made for better chances, finding his utmost joy in the

distant company of these lean Arabs of the desert housetops.

*III*

_Of the misfortunes caused by loss of a voice, and of how a cat and a

damsel got Francois into trouble--whereupon, preferring the world to a

monastery, he ran away from the choristers of Notre Dame._

It was in the month of June, in the year 1784, that a female got him

into trouble, and aided to bring about a decision as to his future.

This was, however, only one of the distressing incidents which at the

time affected his career, and was not his final experience of the perils

to which attention to the other sex may expose the unwary. A few days

before the sad event which brought about a change in Francois's life, he

was engaged in singing one of the noble Gregorian chants. Never had he

used his voice with greater satisfaction. He was always pleased and

eagerly ambitious when in the choir, and was then at his best. This day

it seemed to him, as he sang, that his clear tones rose like a bird, and

that something of him was soaring high among the resonant arches

overhead. Of a sudden his voice broke into a shrill squeak. The

choir-master shook a finger at him, and he fell into a dead silence, and

sang no more that morning. The little white-robed procession marched

out, and when it reached the gray old house there was wrath and

consternation over the broken treble. He was blamed and beaten; but,

after all, it was a too likely misfortune. If it chanced again he must

go to the Dominican convent at Auteuil, and perhaps in a year or two

would be lucky enough to get back his voice. Meanwhile let him take

care. Poor Francois did his best; but a week later, amid the solemnity

of a mass for the dead, came once more that fatal break in the voice.

He knew that his fate was sealed.

Little was said this time, but he overheard the head of the choir

arranging with Tomas the steward that the boy should go to Auteuil.

Until then he was no longer to serve in the choir.

Francois had seen all this occur before, when, as was common, some

little singer lost control of his changing voice. His case was

hopeless. Yet here was an idle time and no more singing-lessons. But a

part of the small joys of a life not rich in happy moments was gone, to

come back no more, as he knew too well. Of late his fine quality of

song had won him some indulgence, and he had learned how much a fine

voice might mean. Dim visions began to open before him, as he heard of

how choir-boys had conquered fame and wealth in France or elsewhere.

One day the leader of the choir had praised him and his diligence, and

hoped he would never leave them. He was told what a great possession

was a voice like his, and had even been envied by the less gifted. Now

this possession was taken from him, and he was at once made sadly aware

of his loss. His vanity, always great, was wounded to the quick. A

little kindness would have led him to go to the convent and hopefully

bide his time; but nobody cared, or seemed to care, for him, or to pity

what to his active imagination was a fatal wreck of goodly chances.

For a day or two he went about disconsolate, and was set to serve in the

kitchen or to wait on the man Tomas, who jeered at his squeaky voice,

and called him "little pig," with additions of some coarser amenities of

language, and certain information as to the convent life of a lay

servant ill calculated to make Auteuil appear desirable.

In his leisure hours, which now were many, Francois took refuge from the

jests of his fellows in the lonely garret. The people across the way in

their rooms amused him. The cats were never long absent. He watched

their cunning search for the nests of the sparrows, and very soon began

to feel again the invincible lifting power of his comic nature. Some

remembrance of the alarm in the choir-master's face when his voice broke

came upon Francois, and he began to laugh. Just then he saw Solomon on

the roof opposite. The master of a populous harem was in the company of

the two naughty elders. Susannah, behind a chimney, was making her

modest toilet with a skilful tongue. He called her, and held up a

tempting bone. The shy maiden hesitated. He called, "Suzanne, Suzanne!"

to bring her to the edge of the tiled roof and near enough to make sure

that the elders would not capture her desired prize.

As he called, a little grisette who was hanging out clothes to dry

kissed her hand to the boy. Francois had seen her before. She was not

attractive. He liked his cats better. "Suzanne, Suzanne!" he called,

as the virgin, looking about her, daintily picked her way to the edge.

High on the roof-top, Solomon exhorted the elders, and in a moment backs

were humped, and claws out, and there was bad language used, which may

have been Hebrew, but at all events appeared to be sufficiently

expressive; for the elders and Solomon, of a sudden rolling over in a

wild scuffle, disappeared on the farther side of the roof. This was the

maid's opportunity, and gratefully licking her anticipative chops, she

crawled to the gutter.

"_Bonne Suzanne_! _Viens donc_! Come, come, Suzanne!" cried the boy.

Of a sudden a smart box on the ear broke up this pretty love-affair.

There stood Tomas.

"A nice choir-boy! Talking with that beast of a grisette!" Then there

were more liberal whacks as the boy, in a rage, was dragged away, and

bidden to come down-stairs and carry to market the nets used in place of

baskets. Tomas usually went alone to buy provisions, but now the

choir-boy was free and could be made of use.

Francois uttered no complaint. It was literally the only time he had

had a chance to be in the streets, except as part of the procession to

and from the church. He was sore, angry, and resentful of the ill usage

which in the last few days had taken the place of the growing respect

his talent had created. He took the nets and his cap, and followed

Tomas. "What a chance!" he thought to himself.

The boy concealed the delight he felt, and followed the steward, who

went down to the river and across it to the open market on the farther

bank. He stopped here and there to buy provisions and to chat with the

market-women. When one of them, pleased with the odd-looking lad, gave

him an apple, Tomas took it from him. Francois laughed, which seemed

always to offend the saturnine steward. He could not destroy the

pleasure of the gay market for Francois, who made queer faces at the

mistresses of the stalls, teased the dogs and cats for sale in cages,

and generally made himself happy until they came home again.

But from this time onward, except for these excursions, his life was

made miserable enough. He was the slave of Tomas, and was cruelly

reminded day after day of the misery of him who has a servant for his

master.

At last he learned that the time was near when he must go to Auteuil.

His voice had been tested again, and he had been told that there was

small hope of its return. He began to think of escape. Once he was

sent alone on an errand to a shop near by. He lingered to see some

street-jugglers, and paid for it with a day in a damp cellar. Within

this sad home he now found only reproaches and unthanked labor. The

choristers laughed at him, and the happier boys mocked his changed

voice. On the day after his last experience of the cellar, he was told

by Tomas to be ready to go to Auteuil, and was ordered once again to

follow the steward to market. He took up the nets and went after him.

The lad looked back at the choir-house. He meant to see it no more. He

was now seventeen, and in the three years of his stay had learned many

things, some good and some bad.

They went past Notre Dame to the quai, and through rows of stalls along

the shores of the Seine. Tomas soon filled the nets, which were hung

over Francois's shoulders. Meanwhile the chattering women, the birds

and cages, the flowers, the moving, many-colored crowd, amused or

pleased the boy, but by no means turned him from his purpose.

"Come!" cried Tomas, and began to elbow his way through the noisy people

on the river-bank. Presently Francois got behind him, and noting his

chances with a ready eye, slipped through between the booths and darted

up the Seine.

*IV*

_Of how the world used Francois, and of the reward of virtue. He makes

his first friend._

When Tomas, having won his way out of the press about a fortune-teller,

looked for Francois, there was a lost choir-boy and two days' diet gone

none knew whither--least of all the fugitive. He moved away with the

speed of fear, and was soon in the somber network of narrow streets

which in those days made a part of the Ile de la Cite the refuge of the

finest assortment of thieves, bravos, gypsies, and low women to be found

in any capital of Europe.

His scared looks and decent black suit betrayed him. An old fellow

issued from a doorway like a spider. "Ha, ha, little thief!" he said;

"I will buy thy plunder."

Francois was well pleased. He took eagerly the ten sous offered, and

saw the spider poke a long red beak into the loaded nets as he passed

out of sight in the dark doorway. Francois looked at the money. It was

the first he had ever owned. He walked away in haste, happy to be free,

and so over a bridge to the Ile St. Louis, with its pretty gardens and

the palaces of the great nobles. At the far end of the isle he sat down

in the sun and watched the red barges go by, and took no more care for

to-morrow than does a moth just out of its cocoon. He caught up the

song of a man near by who was mending a bateau. He whistled as he cast

stones into the water. It was June, and warm, and before him the river

playing with the sunset gold, and behind him the dull roar of Paris.

Ah, the pleasure to do as he would! Why had he waited so long?

Toward night he wandered back into the Cite, and saw an old woman

selling fried potatoes, and crying, "Two sous, two sous!" He asked for

thus much, and received them in the top of his cap. The hag took his

ten-sou piece, and told him to begone. Amazed at this bit of villainy,

poor Francois entreated her to give him his change. She called him a

thief, and when a dreadful man sallied out of a wine-shop and made

murderous threats, the boy ran as fast as he could go, and never ceased

until he got to the river again. There, like Suzanne, he kept watch for

the foes of property, and at last ate his potatoes, and began to reflect

on this last lesson in morality. He had stolen many morsels, many

dinners, and his fair share of wine; but to be himself robbed of his

entire means was calculated to enlarge his views of what is possible in

life, and also undesirable. The night was warm; he slept well in an

abandoned barge, but woke up early to feel that liberty had its

drawbacks, and that emptiness of stomach was one of the large family of

needs which stimulate the ingenuity of man or boy.

Quite at a loss, he wandered once more through the slums of the Cite,

and soon lost himself in the network of narrow streets to the north of

the cathedral, hearing, as he went, strange slang, which his namesake

Francois Villon would have better understood than he. The filth of the

roadways and that of the tongue were here comparable. Some boys, seeing

his sober suit of the dark cloth worn by the choir, pelted him with

stones. He ran for his life, and falling over a man who was sawing

wood, received a kick for remembrance. Far away he paused breathless in

a dark lane which seemed unpeopled, and where the houses leaned over

like palsied old scoundrels who whisper to one another of ancient crime.

Even to a boy the place was of a sudden terrible. There was murder in

the air.

He felt, without knowing why, the danger of the place. A painted

creature, half clad, came out of a house--a base animal whom the

accident of sex had made a woman. She called to him to come in. He

turned and went by her in haste and horror. A man in a red shirt ran

toward him, crying out some ordures of speech. As he fled there was a

sudden peopling of window and doorway with half-naked drunken men and

women. He had never before seen such faces. He was in that pit of

crime and bestiality which before long was to overflow and riot in a

limitless debauch of blood. The boy's long legs served him well. He

dodged and ran this way and that. At the mouth of the _cul-de-sac_ a

lank boy caught him by the arm. Francois struck him fiercely, and with

a sense of joy in the competence of the first blow he had ever given one

of his own years, he fled again; nor did he pause until, free from foes,

he stood panting in the open sunshine below the great buttresses of

Notre Dame.

He saw here that no one took notice of him, and, once more at ease,

crossed from the Cite to the right bank of the Seine. Thus wandering he

came at last to one of the low bridges which spanned the broad ditches

then bounding the Place Louis XV, where now is the Place de la Concorde.

The ducks and swans in these canals delighted him. He lingered, liking

the gaiety and careless joy of the children with their nurses. The

dogs, acrobats, musketeers, and the pomp of heavy, painted carriages

rolling by with servants in liveries, the Swiss guards, the magnificence

of the king's palace, were all to him as a new world might have been.

He went on, and at last along the Rue St. Honore and to the Palais

Royal, where, amid its splendid shops, cafes, jugglers, fortune-tellers,

and richly clad people, he forgot for an hour his poor little stomach

and its claims. By and by he took note of the success of a blind

beggar. He watched him for an hour, and knew that he had in this time

gathered in sous at least a franc. The shrunken stomach of the boy

began to convert its claims into demands, and with this hint he put on a

sad face and began to beg. It was not a very prosperous business; but

he stated his emptiness so pitifully, and his voice had such sweet,

pleading notes, that at last he thus acquired six or eight sous, and

retired to the outer gate to count them.

The imprudence of estimating wealth in public was soon made clear to

him. He was seated back of the open grille, his cap on his lap, when a

quick, clawlike hand, thrust between the railings, darted over his

shoulder, and seized two thirds of his gains. He started up in time to

see that the thief was the blind beggar, who was away and lost in the

crowd and among the horses and carriages, to all appearances in

excellent possession of the sense of sight. Pursuit was vain.

Francois's education was progressing. Most lads thus tormented by fate

would have given way to rage or tears. Francois cried out,

"_Sathanas!_" not knowing as yet any worse expletive, and burst into a

roar of laughter. At least there were three sous left, and these he put

into his pocket. His lessons were not over. The crowd thinned at noon,

and he rose to go in search of food. At this moment a gentleman in very

gorgeous dress, with ruffles, sword, and a variety of dazzling

splendors, went by, and at the boy's feet let fall a lace handkerchief.

Francois seized it, and stood still a moment. Then he put it in his

breast, and again stood still. To take food is one thing; to steal a

handkerchief is quite another. He was weak with hunger, but he had three

sous. He ran after the gentleman, and cried:

"Here is your handkerchief!"

"A very honest lad," said its owner; "you will do well in the world ";

and so went his way, leaving to virtue the proverbial reward of virtue.

This time Francois did not laugh. In the Rue St. Honore he bought some

boiled beans for two sous, and retired to eat them in peace on the steps

of St. Roch. Soon he saw a woman with a tin pan come out of a little

shop and after her a half-grown black poodle. She set down the pan, and

left the dog to his meal. Francois reconnoitered cautiously, and giving

the dog a little kick, fled with the pan, and was shortly safe in an

unfrequented passage behind the church. Here he found that he was master

of a chop and a half-eaten leg of chicken. He had eaten the chop and

some crusts, as well as the beans, when he became aware of the black

poodle, which, being young, still had confidence in human nature, and

now, with sense of ownership, thrust his black nose in the pan of

lessening viands.

Francois laughed gaily. The touch of friendly trust gave the lonely boy

a thrill of joy, and, with some reluctance doubtless, he gave the dog

what was left, feeding him in bits, and talking as a comrade to a

comrade. The poodle was clearly satisfied. This was very delightful

society, and he was receiving such attention as flatters a decent dog's

sense of his social position. The diet was less than usual, but the

company was of the best, and inspired the extreme of confidence. There

is a charm of equality as between dog and boy. Both are of Bohemia.

The poodle stood up when asked to beg. He was invited to reveal his

name. He received with the sympathetic sadness of the motionless tail

the legend of Francois's woes.

When at last Francois rose, the dog followed him a little way, saying

plainly, "Where thou goest I will go." But the unlicked pan needed

attention; he turned back to the fleshpots. Seeing himself deserted, a

vague sadness came upon Francois. It was the shadow of an

uncomprehended emotion. He said, "Adieu, _mon ami!_" and left the

little black fellow with his nose in the pan.

An hour of wandering here and there brought Francois to the palisades

around the strong foundations of the new church of the Madeleine.

Beyond were scattered country houses, the Pepinieres of the king, and

the great English garden of Monceaux belonging to the Duc d'Orleans.

This fascinating stretch of trees and green and boundless country was

like a heavenly land to the boy. No dream could be more strange. He

set out by the Rue de la Pologne, and at last went with timid doubt

through the _barriere_, and was soon in the open country. To his

surprise, he heard a yap at his side, and there was the little black

poodle, apparently as well pleased as he. Francois had no scruples as

to ownership. _Mon Dieu!_ had he stolen the dog, or had the dog stolen

him? They ran along happy, the boy as little troubled as the dog by

questions of conscience. The country was not productive of easily won

food, but a few stolen plums were to be had. A girl coming from milking

gave a jug of milk, which Francois, despite keen hunger, shared with his

friend. When a couple of miles from Paris, he sat down to rest by the

roadside. The dog leaped on to his lap, and the boy, as he lay in the

sun, began to think of a name for this new friend. He tried merrily all

the dog-names he could think of; but when at last he called, "Toto!" the

poodle barked so cordially that Francois sagaciously inclined to the

belief that he must have hit upon the poodle's name. "Toto it shall

be," he cried. All that day they wandered joyfully, begged a crust, and

at night slept in an orchard, the poodle clasped to the boy's bosom--a

pair of happy vagabonds.

When, next day, the pair of them, half starved, were disconsolately

returning toward Paris, an old woman bade Francois earn a few sous by

picking strawberries. But the dog must not range the garden; he should

be tied in the kitchen. Francois worked hard at the matter in hand,

taking good toll of the berries, and at noon went back with the old dame

to her cottage.

"It is five sous, _mon garcon_, and a bowl of milk thou shalt have, and

a bit of meat; and how merry thou art!"

Alas! as she opened the door the poodle fled past her with a whole steak

in his mouth. Hot it was, but of such delicate savor that it gave him

courage to hold on. The old woman threw a stool after him, and cried

out in wrath that they were both thieves. Then she turned on poor

Francois with fury and a broom, so that he had scarce time to leap the

fence and follow the dog. He found him at last with his rather dusty

prize; and seeing no better thing to do, he went deep into a wood, and

there filled himself as he had not done for days. The brigand Toto had

his share, and thus reinforced, they set out again to return to Paris.

*V*

_Of the immorality which may come of an empty stomach, and of how

Francois became acquainted with a human crab._

This nomad life was sadly uncertain; but Toto was a sharp forager, and

what with a sou begged here and there, and the hospitality of summer,

for a while they were not ill contented. But at last Francois passed

two days of such lean living as set his wits to work. There was clearly

no help for it, and with a rueful face he entered the shop whence Toto

had followed his uncertain fortunes.

The owner was a pleasant little woman who took honesty for granted.

Yes, it was her dog; and how long he had been gone! Here was a great

piece of twenty sous; and where did he find the poodle? Francois

declared that he lived near by and knew the dog. He had found him in

the Rue du Faubourg St. Lazare. And was it so far away as that? He

must be tired, and for his honesty should be well fed. Thus, rich as

never before, and with a full stomach, he left Toto tied up, and went

out into the world again, lonely and sad.

Needless is it to describe his wanderings, or to relate how the lonely

lad acquired the sharp ways of a gamin of the streets. For a while he

begged or stole what food he required. Some four months later, a

combination of motives led him into theft which was not mere foraging.

On a cold November day he was again in the crowded gardens and arcades

of the Palais Royal. He was shabby enough by this time, and was sharply

reminded by the cool nights of the need for shelter. By chance his eye

lighted on the man who shammed blindness and had stolen his precious

sous. The beggar was kneeling, cap in hand, with closed eyes, his head

turned upward, entreating pity for his loss of sight. There were some

sous in his cap. A Francois passed he made believe to add another sou,

and as he did so deftly scooped up the greater part of the coins.

The blind man cried out; but the boy skipped aside, laughing, well aware

that for the beggar to pursue him would be hardly advisable, as he might

lose more than he could gain.

A few sous were of small account. They insured a meal, but not a

lodging. As he was thus reflecting, he saw near by and presently beside

him the gentleman who had so highly appreciated the return of his

handkerchief. The coat pockets were large in those days, and the crowd

was great. A little white corner of lace besought Master Francois,

crying, "I am food and lodging for thee!" Whereupon it was done, and a

lace handkerchief changed owners.

It cannot be said that these downward steps cost Francois any moral

discomfort. He grinned as he thought of the beggar's perplexity, and

laughed outright as he felt how complete had been his own joy in the

satisfaction of possession could he have made the owner of the kerchief

understand that he had suffered not merely a theft, but the punishment

of injustice.

Francois was now too well versed in the ways of the street-boy, too

dirty and too ragged, to fear the Cite. Thither he went, and found a

thieves' shop, where he sold the handkerchief, and got ten francs for

what was worth thirty.

The question of a place where he could be sure of a bed was his first

consideration on coming into his fortune. In the long, warm summers of

France one who was not particular could find numerous roosting-places,

but in winter a more constant home was to be desired.

In the Cite Francois had occasionally lodged here and there when he

could afford to pay, and had been turned out when he had no more sous.

Now, being affluent, and therefore hard to please, he wandered until he

came upon the lodging-house of an old woman in the Rue Perpignan. He

knew of her as a dealer in thieves' goods, and as ever ready to shelter

the lucky--and, it was suspected, as willing to betray those who were

persistently unfortunate.

What drew him to this woman's house it were hard to tell. She was

repulsive in appearance, but, strangely enough, was clean as to her

person, dress, and abode. Asylum life had taught Francois to be

cleanly. He declares in his memoirs that he was by habit neat, and that

it was the absence of dirt which first tempted him into a relation which

was so largely to affect his after life.

When he became one of this woman's lodgers he took a step which was for

him of moment. Now for the first time he was to be in the company of

old and practised thieves; but he was not yet of an age to be troubled

as to the future or to reflect upon the past. The horizon of youth is

small.

He found plenty of masters to educate him in the evil business into

which he had been driven by relentless fate. Never was pupil more

ready. His hostess appreciated the cleverness of her new lodger, but it

was long before he himself realized how strange was the aspect and how

sinister the nature of this mother of evil.

Certain historical epochs create types of face. This was a period which

manufactured many singular visages. None was more strange than that

which Mme. Quatre Pattes carried on a body quite as remarkable.

Francois speaks of her over and over in his memoirs, and dwells upon the

peculiarities of her appearance. I recall well what he said to me, one

evening, of this creature:

"You see, monsieur, I went to one den of thieves and another until I

chanced upon the Crab. It is not to be described; for here in a little

room was a witch, crumpled and deformed, sharply bent forward as to the

back from the waist, and--ah, _diablement_ thin! She was cleanly and

even neat, and her room was a marvel, because over there in the Cite men

were born and lived and died, and never saw a clean thing. And she was

of a strangeness--consider, monsieur; imagine you a bald head, and a

lean face below, very red, and the skin drawn so tight over the bones as

to shine. Her eyes were little and of a dull gray; but they held you.

Her lips were lean, and she kept them moving in a queer way as if

chewing. I did laugh when first I saw her, but not often afterward."

When he confided to this clean and horrible creature what he wanted, she

made him welcome. She rattled the two sticks which her bent form made

needful for support. She would house him cheaply; but he must be

industrious--and to sell a lace handkerchief for ten francs--_tonnerre_!

He needed caution. She would be a _bonne maman_ to him--she, Quatre

Pattes, "four paws"; the Crab, they called her, too, for short, and

because of her red leanness and spite; but what was her real name he did

not learn for many a day. At first her appearance excited in his mind

no emotion except amazement and mirth. A terrible old crab it was when

she showed her toothless gums and howled obscenities, while her sticks

were used with strange agility. The quarter feared her. M. Francois

had a fortune in his face, she said; and did he know the _savate_, the

art to kick? There was a master next door. And again, what a face!

With that face he might lie all day, and who would disbelieve him?

Better to fetch her what he stole. She would see that no one cheated

him but herself, and that would be ever so little. One must live. When

she laughed, which was not often, Francois felt that a curse were more

gay. There were devil-women in those days, as the mad world of Paris

soon came to know; and the Crab, with her purple nose and crooked red

claws, was of the worst.

*VI*

_Of how Francois regained a lost friend, and of his adventure with the

poet Horace and another gentleman._

Thus Francois was launched on what he was pleased to call the business

of life, and soon became expert in the transfer of property. Strange to

say, he had little pleasure in the debauchery of successful crime, and

was too good-natured to like violence. When he had enough for his

moderate wants he wandered in the country, here and there, in an

aimless, drifting way. Simple things gave him pleasure. He could lie

in the woods or on the highway half a day, only moving to keep in the

sun. He liked to watch any living creature--to see the cows feed, to

observe the birds. He had a charm for all animals. When the wagons went

by, dogs deserted them, and came to him for a touch and a word. Best of

all it was to sit beside some peasant's beehive, finding there no

enmity, and smiling at the laborious lives he had no mind to imitate.

Sometimes he yearned for the lost poodle, and had a pang of loneliness.

That this man should have had gentle tastes, a liking for nature, a

regard for some of the decencies of life, will not surprise those who

know well the many varieties of the young criminal class; neither will

these be amazed to learn that now and then he heard mass, and crossed

himself devoutly when there was occasion. Children he fascinated; a

glance of his long, odd face would make them leave nurse and toy, and

sidle up to him. In the Cite these singularities made him avoided, while

his growing strength caused him to be feared. He sought no friends

among the thieves. "Very prudent, that," said Mme. Quatre Pattes; "the

more friends, the more enemies."

He was quick and active, and a shrewd observer; for the hard life of the

streets had sharpened his naturally ready wits, and he looked far older

than his years. Of a Sunday in May he was walking down the Rue St.

Honore, feeling a bit lonely, as was not often the case, when he saw

Toto. He whistled, and the poodle ran to him, and would no more of the

shop or fat food he liked.

"Toto! _Mon Dieu_!" he laughed, hugging the dog, his eyes full with the

tears of joy. "Hast stolen me again! Wilt never return me? 'T is no

honest dog. _Viens donc_. Come, then, old friend." Joyous in the

company of his comrade, who was now well grown, he strolled out into the

fields, where Toto caught a rabbit--a terrible crime in those days.

During the next two years the pair fairly prospered. Francois, as he

used to relate, having risen in his profession, found a certain pleasure

in good clothes, and being of a dramatic turn, could put on an air of

bourgeois sobriety, or, with a sword at his side and a bit of lace here

and there, swagger as a lesser gentleman. If things were very bad, he

sold Toto and all his fine tricks for a round sum, and in a day or two

was sure to find the dog overjoyed and back again at the garret door.

The pair were full of devices. There was Toto, a plated snuff-box in

his mouth, capering before some old gentle or some slow-pacing merchant;

appears Francois, resistlessly smiling.

"Has monsieur lost a snuff-box? My dog? Yes, monsieur. He is honest,

and clever too."

Monsieur, hastily searching, produces his own snuff-box--the

indispensable snuff-box of the day.

"No; thanks." And it is noted that the box he shows is of gold, and

into what pocket it falls. In the next crowd Toto knows how to make a

disturbance with some fat lap-dog, and in the confusion thus created the

snuff-box changes owners.

"If the man be sorry, I at least am made happy," says Francois; "and he

hath been the better for a lesson in caution. I got what I needed, and

he what he required. Things are very even in this world." Francois had

learned philosophy among the cures and priests of the choir-house. As

he avoided great risks, and, as I have said, was averse to violence, he

kept clear of detection, and could deceive the police of the king if by

rare chance he were in peril of arrest. When the missing property was

some minor article, such as a handkerchief, it was instantly hid in

Toto's mouth. The dog skipped away, the outraged master was searched;

the bewildered owner apologized, and the officers were shocked at such a

needless charge. Francois talked about his offended honor, and as he

looked at twenty to be a strong man of full age, the affair was apt to

go no further.

Half the cleverness and thought thus devoted to an ignoble pursuit would

have given him success in more honest ways. But for a long while no

angel chance tempted him, and it must be admitted that he enjoyed the

game he pursued, and was easily contented, not eagerly caring to find a

less precarious and less risky mode of life.

Temperament is merely a permanent mood. Francois was like the month of

June in his dear Paris. There might be storms and changes, but his

mental weather had the pleasant insurance of what was in the order of

despotic nature. And yet to be owner of the continual sunshine of

cheerfulness has its drawbacks. It deprives a man of some of the

wholesome lures of life. It dulls the spurs which goad us to resolve.

It may make calamity too easy of endurance. To be too consistently

cheerful may be in itself a misfortune. It had for this vagrant all its

values and some of its defects. His simple, gay existence, and his flow

of effervescent merriment, kept him happy and thoughtless. Most persons

of this rare type like company; but Francois was an exception. He was

better pleased to be alone with his dog, and usually desired no other

society. As the poodle could not talk, his master was given to making

answer for him, and finding no one to his taste among the Crab's

villainous lodgers, kept to himself, and was satisfied. Nor did he ever

appear to have imagined what the larger world he knew not held of such

human society as would have comforted that sense of void in his heart

which he acknowledged at times, but had no way to fill. When fortune

played him some sorry trick, he laughed, and unconsciously quoted La

Rochefoucauld. "Toto, ah, my Toto, one can never be as cunning as

everybody." This was apropos of an incident which greatly amused him.

He was in his favorite resort, the Palais Royal, one June morning, and

was at this time somewhat short of cash. The Crab had preached him a

sharp sermon on his lack of industry, and he had liked neither the

sermon nor the preacher. At this moment a young fellow in fine clothes

came by. Francois, producing, as usual, a gaudy snuff-box worth some

ten francs, politely asked of monsieur had he lost this box. Monsieur

took it in his hand. Yes, yes; he had just missed it, the gift of his

god-father, and was much obliged. He let it fall into his pocket, and

walked away. Francois looked after him. "Toto, _nous sommes voles_--we

are sold!" Then the fun of it, as usual, overcame him, and he wandered

away to the garden of the Luxembourg, and at last threw himself on a

bench, and laughed as a child laughs, being for moments quiet, and then

given over to uncontrolled mirth. Having feasted with honest comfort on

all the humorous aspects of the situation, his hand chanced to fall on a

little book left by some one on the seat. He had long ceased to read,

for no books fell in his way, nor could he often have afforded to buy

them even had he had a keen appetite for their contents.

[Illustration: FRANCOIS AND TOTO IN THE LUXEMBOURG.]

The little vellum-bound volume opened to his touch, as if used to be

generous of what it held. It was Latin, and verse. He knew, or had

known, more than most choir-boys needed of this tongue, and the talk of

the choir-house was, by stringent rule, in Latin. But this book was not

of a religious kind; it half puzzled his mind as he read. Unaccustomed

to profane Latin verse, and yet wholly pleased, he began to murmur aloud

the rhythmic measures:

"Poseimus, si quid vacui sub umbra

Lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum

Vivat, et plures: age, dic Latinum,

Barbite, carmen.

"It hath a fine sound, _mon ami_; and who was this Quintus?" He went on

reading aloud the delicious rhythms for the joy of hearing their billowy

flow. Now and then he smiled as he caught the full meaning of a line.

The keen-faced poodle sat on the bench beside him, with a caressing head

laid against his shoulder; the sun was sweet and warm, the roses were

many. The time suited the book, and the book the man. He read on, page

after page of the beautiful Aldine type, now and then pausing, vexed to

be so puzzled by these half-guessed beautiful riddles.

"Toto, my dog, I would thou didst know Latin. This man he loved the

country, and good wine, and girls; and he had friends--friends, which

you and I have not."

Then he was lost for an hour. At last he ceased to read, and sat with a

finger in the book, idly drifting on the immortal stream of golden song.

"That must have been a merry companion, Toto. I did hear of him once in

the choir-house. He must be dead a mighty while ago. If a man is as

gay as that, it must be horrid to die."

My poor thief was one of the myriad who through the long centuries had

come into kindly touch of the friend of Maecenas. For the first time in

his uncertain life he felt the charm of genius.

Indulgent opportunity was for Francois always near to some fatal enmity

of chance. So does fate deal with the unlucky. He saw coming swiftly

toward him a tall, strongly built man of middle age. He was richly

dressed, and as he drew near he smiled.

"Ah, monsieur," he said; "I came back in haste to reclaim my little

Horace. I missed it only when I got home. I am most fortunate."

Francois rose. He returned the small volume, but did not speak.

"Monsieur of course knows Horace," said the gentleman, looking him over,

a little curious and more than a little interested. Too sure of his own

position to shun any intercourse which promised amusement, he went on:

"No; not know Horace? Let us sit awhile. The sun is pleasant."

Francois, rather shy, and suspicious of a manner of man he had never

before encountered, sat down, saying, "I was a choir-boy once. I know

some Latin, not much; but this sounded pleasant to the ear."

"Yes; it is immortal music. A choir-boy, you said; and pardon me, but,

_mon Dieu_, I heard you laugh as I was searching for my book. You have

a fine gift that way, and there is little to laugh at nowadays in

France."

"Monsieur will excuse me; I am so made that I laugh at everything and at

nothing. I believe I do laugh in my sleep. And just now I laughed

because--because--"

"Well, why did you laugh?"

Francois glanced at the questioner. Something authoritative in his ways

made it seem needful to answer, and what this or any man thought of him

he cared little--perhaps because in his world opinions went for nothing.

And still he hesitated a moment.

"Well?" There was a note of strong surprise in the voice, as if the

owner felt it to be unusual that a query he put should not evoke instant

reply.

"I laughed because I was cheated."

"Charming, that! May I ask how? But perhaps--"

"No," said Francois; "if it amuse monsieur, why should I care?" He

calmly related his adventure.

The gentleman threw himself back on the seat in an ecstasy of amusement.

He was out of humor with the time and with his own world, and bored by

the incessant politics of the day; here was a pleasant diversion.

"By St. Denis! my friend, you are like the great Chicot that was fool to

King Henry of merry memory."

"And how, monsieur?"

"How? He had a long face that laughed ever, long legs, and a shrewd way

of seeming more simple than he was."

"Monsieur flatters me."

"Ah, and a smart rogue, too. I may conclude your profession to be that

of relieving the rich of their too excessive luxuries."

Francois was enchanted with this ingenious and unprejudiced companion,

who had, like himself, a sense of the laughable aspects of life.

"Monsieur has hit it," he said gaily; "I am a thief."

No one had taught him to be ashamed of anything but failure in his

illegal enterprises.

"_Tiens_! That is droll;--not that you are a thief: I have known many

in my own world. They steal a variety of things, each after his taste

in theft--the money of the poor, the character of a man, a woman's

honor."

"I scarcely comprehend," said Francois, who was puzzled.

"They lack your honesty of confession. Could you be altogether honest

if a man trusted you?"

"I do not know. No man ever trusted me, and one must live, monsieur."

The gentleman hesitated, and relapsed into the indifference of a too

easy life. He had been on the point of offering this outcast a chance.

"_Enfin_, no doubt you are right. I wish you every success. The deuce!

Have you my snuff-box and my handkerchief?"

"Both," said Francois.

"Then don't run away. I could never catch you. Long legs must be of use

in your profession. The snuff-box I will ransom. Let us say fifty

francs. It is worth more, but it bears my name, and there are risks."

"Certainly," said Francois. "And the handkerchief. Monsieur is

_enrhume_--has a cold; I could not deprive monsieur."

The gentleman thanked him, paid over the money for the box, and, greatly

pleased, rose, saying: "You are a dangerous acquaintance; but I trust we

may meet again. _Au revoir!_"

Francois remained on the bench, Toto at his feet in the sun. This

meeting affected him strangely. It had been the first touch of a world

remote from his own. He did not recognize the fact that he had gifts

which enable men to rise in life. At times he had had vague ambitions,

but he was at the foot of a ladder, and the rungs above were broken or

not to be seen. These moods were brief, and as to their cause not always

clear to him. He was by nature social, and able to like or to love; but

the people of the Cite were dreadful, and if now and then some broken

refugee from a higher class delighted him for a time, the eventful hand

of justice or what not was apt to separate them.

As he looked after the gentleman he felt his charm and the courtesy of

his ways as something to be desired. His own form of attractiveness,

the influence of joyous laughter and frank approach, he had often and

usefully tested; and perhaps this sense of his own power to please made

him intelligently apprehensive of what he had just experienced. Had he

seized eagerly the half-offered help the gentleman suggested rather than

offered, he had been wiser; but it was literally true that, being when

possible honest as to speech, he had obeyed the moment's impulse. A

better man than the gentleman would have gone further. He had lazily

reflected, and concluded that to help this poor devil might be

troublesome, and thus the jewel opportunity lay lost at their feet.

They were to meet again, and then it was to be the thief's turn.

Now he sat in thought, kicking the ground with his boot. Out of the

past came remembrances of the asylum, and how he had been told to be

good, and not to kill or to steal, or to do certain other naughty things

less clear to him then than now. But this was a far-away time. At the

choir-house were the same moral lessons, but they who taught were they

who sinned. Since then no one had said a word of reproach to the waif;

nor had this great gentleman, and yet he had left him in the rare mood

of thought-filled depression.

"Wake up, Toto," he cried; "thou art become too fat. _En avant aux

champs!_" And, followed by the poodle, he went away up the Seine, and

was gone so long that Quatre Pattes began to think he had taken to

honest courses and would return no more.

He came back in a fortnight, the better for certain prosperous ventures.

And thus the days ran on. If fortune were against him, and even diet

hard to get, Toto went with the Crab to some distant market after dusk,

and, while she bargained, knew to steal a cutlet, and to run away with

his prize, and make for home or the next dark lane. But these devices

failed at times, and thus Francois's life consisted of a series of ups

and downs. When lucky he bought good clothes, for which he had a

liking; when unlucky he pawned them, and went back to garments no one

would take in pledge.

It was in the year 1788 that this adventure occurred. He was, as far as

was to be guessed, fully twenty-one years of age. His life of

adventure, of occasional hardships, and of incessant watchfulness had

already given him the appearance of being a far older person.

Always an odd-looking lad, as he grew to maturity his great length of

limb, his long face, and ears of unnatural bigness, gave him such

singularity of aspect as made disguises impossible.

The poodle was an added danger, and for this reason, when in pursuit of

prey, Francois was forced to leave the dog with Mother Crab. Thus time

ran on with such perils as attend the life he led, but with better

fortune than could have been expected. As to these later years up to

1790, Francois, in his memoirs, says little. Once--indeed, twice--he

left the Crab's house, only to be driven back by stress of circumstance.

After 1790 his account is more complete, and here it is that we take up

again the fuller story of his life.

The turmoil of vast governmental and social changes was disturbing all

ranks of life. If the Revolution was nursed in the salons, as some say,

it was born in the furrows of the tax-tormented peasant, and in the

seething caldron of the Cite and the quarters of the starving poor.

Francois, who cared little what ruler was on top, or who paid taxes, was

aware of the uneasy stir in his own neighborhood. Men were more savage.

Murder and all violent crimes were more common. That hungry beast, the

mob, began to show its fangs, soon to be red with blood. The clubs of

all opinions were busy. The church was toppling to ruin, its centuries

of greedy gain at an end. Political lines were sharply drawn. The

white cockade and the tricolor were the badges of hostile ranks, still

more distinctly marked by costume. The cafes were divided: some were

Royalist, some Jacobin or neutral. Too many who were of the noble class

were flying, or, if more courageous or less forethoughtful, were

gathering into bitterly opponent camps. So much of that lower Paris as

felt, yearned, hated, and was hungry, glad of any change, was pleased

amid tumult to find its chance to plunder and to kill.

The fall of the Bastille in the preceding year had not seemed important

to Francois. He had interested himself in the purses of the vast crowd

which looked on and was too much taken up with the event to guard the

contents of its pockets. The violence which came after was not to

Francois's taste; but these street crowds were admirable for business

until money became scarce, and the snuff-box and the lace handkerchief

disappeared with armorial bearings, and with the decree of the people

that great dames must no more go in fine carriages.

*VII*

_Wherein is told how Francois saved a man's neck and learned to juggle._

In the early spring of this year Francois found himself, one day, in a

crowd near to the Porte St. Denis. He stood high on his long legs,

looking on, while men on ladders broke up the royal escutcheon on the

stone archway. It amused him a little to see how furious they were, and

how crazy were the foolish _poissardes_: these fishwomen, who had so

many privileges under the monarchy, at every blow of the hammer yelled

with delight; and behold, here was the Crab, Quatre Pattes, far away

from her quarter, hoarse with screaming, a horrible edition of woman as

she stood under the arch, careless of the falling fragments. On the

edge of the more prudent crowd, an old man was guilty of some rash

protest in the way of speech. Francois heard the cry, "_A bas

l'aristocrate! a la lanterne!_" and saw the Crab leap on the man like

some fierce insect, horribly agile, a thin gray tress down her back.

Swift and terrible it was. In a moment he swung writhing from the chain

of the street-lantern, fighting with vain hands to loosen the rope. A

red-haired woman leaped up and caught his leg. There was laughter. The

man above her hung limp. Francois did not laugh. He tried to get out

of the crowd, away from this quivering horror. To do so was not easy.

The crowd was noisy and turbulent, swaying to and fro, intent on

mischief. As he moved he saw a small, stout man take, with some lack of

skill, a purse from the side-pouch of a huge fishwoman. Francois, being

close to the thief, saw him seized by the woman he had robbed. In the

press, which was great, Francois slipped a hand into the thief's pocket,

and took out the purse. Meanwhile there were again wild cries of "To

the lantern!" "Up with him!" the woman lamenting her loss, and

denouncing the man who had stolen. His life was like to be brief.

Surrounded by these she-devils, he stood, white, shaking, and swearing

he was innocent. The man's anguish of fear moved Francois. "_Dame!_" he

cried, "search the man before you hang him! I say, search him!" While

one of them began to act on his hint, Francois let the purse fall into

the pocket of the original owner--an easy feat for a practised hand.

"The man has it not. Look again in thy pouch, maman," he cried. "The

man has it not; that is plain." When the dame of the market found her

purse, she turned on Francois, amid the laughter of her friends. "Thou

art a confederate. Thou didst put it back thyself." Indeed, things were

like to go ill. The crowd was of a mind to hang some one. A dozen

hands fell on him, while the man he had aided slipped away quietly.

Francois shook off the women, and with foot and fist cleared a space,

for he was of great strength of body. He would have earned but a short

reprieve had he not seen the Crab. He called to her: "_A moi_! Quatre

Pattes!" The ring of red-faced furies fell back for a moment before the

rage and power of a man defending his life. Half dismayed, but furious,

they shouted: "Hang him! rail him!" and called to the men to help them.

Again Francois was hustled and struck as the crowd closed in on him. He

struggled, and called to Toto, whom nothing so disturbed as to see a

rude touch laid on his master. In an instant the dog was busy with the

stout calves about him, biting, letting go, and biting again. The

diversion was valuable, but brief; and soon Toto, who was not

over-valiant, fled to his master, the crowd yelling: "Kill him! Hang

him and the beast!" Once more Francois exerted his exceptional

strength, crying, "Not while I live!" and catching up the dog under his

arm. Then he heard the shrill voice of the Crab. "_A moi!_" he shouted,

and struck right and left as Quatre Pattes, with her sticks, squirmed in

under the great arms of the fishwomen.

"_A moi!_" she cried, "Francois!" With her sticks, and tongue of the

vilest, she cleared a space as the venomous creatures fell back from one

more hideous than themselves.

Meanwhile the accusing dame shook her purse at the Crab, crying, "He put

it back; I felt him do it." But the rest laughed, and the Crab faced

her with so fierce a look that she shrank away.

"Off with thee!" said the Crab to Francois; "thou wert near to the

lantern."

"'T is a Jacobin of the best," she cried to the mob; "a friend of mine.

You will get into trouble--you cursed fools!"

The crowd cheered her, and Francois, seizing the chance, cried,

laughing, "Adieu, mesdames," and in a moment was out of the crowd and

away. He turned as many corners as possible, and soon, feeling it safe

to move more slowly, set down the dog and readjusted his dress.

A minute later he saw beside him the man he had saved. "Do not speak to

me here," he said; "follow me at a distance." The man, still white and

shaking, obeyed him. At the next turn, as Francois paused in doubt

which way to go, he met Quatre Pattes.

"The devil nearly got thee, my little boy," she said; "but a smart thief

is worth some trouble to save. Pay me for thy long neck, and quick,

too." She was full _eau-de-vie_, and, as usual then, savage and

reckless.

"More!" she cried--"more!" as he gave her a franc. "More, more!

Ungrateful beast, thou art good to feed me, and for little else. More,

more! I say, or I will call them after thee, and this time I shall have

a good pull at the rope. More, more!" and she struck him with her

stick. "_Sacre_, waif of hell! More! more!" she screamed. "And that

fellow who helped thee! I have seen him; I know him."

Francois turned without a word, and ran as fast as his long legs would

carry him. Two blocks away he was overtaken by the other thief. They

pushed on in silence.

At last Francois, getting back his somewhat scattered wits, said: "We

can talk now."

"Ah, I understand," said the other; "thou didst steal her purse from me,

and put it back in her pouch."

"Yes; I took it just as they caught thee; then I let it fall into her

pouch."

"I thank thee, monsieur. _Dieu_! I am all in a sweat. We are of a

trade, I perceive. Why didst thou help me?"

"To keep it was a risk. My turn might have come next. I pitied thee,

too."

"I shall never forget it--never."

Francois laughed. The fat man looked up at him. "_Dame!_ but thou hast

a queer face, and ears like wings. 'T is a fortune. Let us have a

little wine and talk. I have a good idea."

"Presently," said Francois; "I like not the neighborhood."

Soon they found a _guinguette_, or low liquor-shop, in the Rue Neuve des

Petits Champs, and, feeling at last secure, had a long talk over a

bottle of wine.

Francois learned that his new acquaintance was named Pierre Despard, and

that he had, for the most part of his means of living, given up the

business of relieving the rich of their purses. He explained that he

did well as a conjurer, and had a booth near the Pont Neuf. He made

clear to Francois that with his quick fingers, and a face which none

could see and not laugh, he would be a desirable partner.

"Thou must learn to move those huge ears." Would he be his assistant?

When times were bad they might profit by tempting chances in their old

line of life.

Francois was just now as near to penitence as his nature permitted him

to be, and his recent peril disposed him to listen. The more he

reflected as Despard talked, the more he liked it. He ended by saying,

"Yes"; and before the Crab had reached home he had taken away his

slender store of garments, and, with Toto at his heels, found his way to

the room of his new friend, in a little street which ran into the Rue

Basse du Rempart, not far from the Madeleine. Thus began a mode of life

which he found fresh and full of satisfaction.

The pair so strangely brought together took a room in the fifth story,

and, with Toto, set up domestic life on a modest scale. It was much to

Francois's contentment. He had what I may call a side taste for the

respectable, and this new business seemed to him a decided rise in life.

It was varied enough to amuse him; nor was it so conventionally

commercial as to lack such adventure and incident as this wild young

reprobate of the Cite had learned to like. The new business soon gave

the partners more than enough to live upon. After their lodging and

diet were provided for, Pierre Despard took two thirds of what was left,

and put it away in a stocking, at first with some doubt as to his

comrade, but soon with the trust which Francois was apt to inspire.

From early morn until noon, Pierre taught Francois to do tricks with

cards, to juggle with balls, and to tell fortunes by the lines of the

hand. Toto was educated to carry a basket and collect sous, to stand on

his head with a pipe in his mouth, and to pick out a card at a signal.

The rest of the day was spent in the booth, where they rarely failed to

be well paid. At evening there was a quiet cafe and dominoes, and a

modest _petit verre_ of brandy. Meanwhile the peasants burned chateaux,

and Protestant and Catholic hanged one another in the pleasant South.

[Illustration: "PIERRE TAUGHT FRANCOIS TO JUGGLE WITH BALLS."]

Now and then the Paris mob enjoyed a like luxury, and amid unceasing

disorder the past was swept on to the dust-heaps of history.

The little audience of children and nurses in front of the booth was as

yet nowise concerned as to these vast changes; nor was Toto disturbed

when it was thought prudent to robe him with a three-colored ribbon. The

politics of the masters of the show varied as their audiences changed

from the children of the rich at noon to the Jacobin workmen at the

coming of dusk. Francois personally preferred splendor and the finery of

the great. He was by nature a Royalist. Pierre was silent or

depressed, and said little as to his opinions. But both had the

prudence of men always too near to poverty to take risks of loss for the

sake of political sentiments in which they had no immediate interest.

Despard was a somber little man, and nimble, as some fat men are. He

was as red-cheeked as a Norman apple, and, at this time, of unchanging

gravity of face and conduct. Not even Francois's gaiety could tempt him

to relate his history; and although at times a great talker, he became

so terrified when frankly questioned as to his past, that Francois

ceased to urge him. That any one should desire to conceal anything was

to Francois amazing. He was himself a valuable possession to his morose

partner.

"I do not laugh," said Pierre; "nay, not even as a matter of business.

Thou shalt laugh for two. Some day we will go to see the little girl

who is at Sevres, in a school of nuns. 'T is there the money goes."

This was a sudden revelation to Francois. Here was a human being, like

himself a thief, who was sacrificing something for another. The

isolation of his own life came before him with a sense of shock. He said

he should be glad to see the child, and when should they go?

*VIII*

_In which Francois discovers the mercantile value of laughter, and the

Crab takes toll of the jugglers--with the sad history of Despard, the

partner._

Late in the evenings, in the room they shared, the practice of the early

morning was resumed, and, above all, Pierre was overjoyed to see what

tricks of feature were within Francois's control. He had, in fact, some

of the art of the actor, and was the master of such surprises of

expression as were irresistibly comic. By and by the fame of his

wonderful visage spread, and very often the young nobles, with their

white cockades, came to see, or great ladies would pause to have their

palms read. When palmistry was to be used, the booth was closed with

black curtains, between which was seen only this long face, with the

flaring ears and laughing eyes. Presently a huge hand came out below,

the rest of the figure remaining unseen. Then, in the quaintest

language, Francois related wonderful things yet to be, his large mouth

opening so as to divide the merry face as with a gulf.

It was a time eager for the new, and this astonishing mask had a huge

success. The booth grew rich, and raised its prices, so that soon these

two pirates of the Cite sat in wonder over their gains, and Pierre began

to store up a few louis for a bad day, and for the future of the little

maid at Sevres, where two or three of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart

had found a new home, and taken again the charge of some of their

scattered flock.

Francois was fast learning the art of the conjurer; but at times, sad to

say, he yearned for a chance to apply his newly acquired dexterity in

ways which were more perilous. He liked change, and had the pleasure in

risk which is common to daring men. Indeed, he was at times so restless

as to require the urgent counsels of Pierre to keep him tranquil. Once

or twice he must needs insist on a holiday, and went away with Toto for

two days. They came back dirty and happy, but to Pierre's relief. This

uneasy partner was now essential, and more and more Jacobin and Royalist

crowded about the booth to get a laugh out of the sight of the face

which, appearing through the curtain with hair brushed up and long brown

beard combed down, suddenly grew as broad as it had been long. The

laugh into which it broke was so cheery, so catching, so causeless, that

all who saw fell into fits of merriment such as were not common in those

days of danger and anxiety.

Then the partner appeared in front of the booth. So many wished the man

who laughed to read their palms that Pierre declared it must be for the

highest bidder. A gay auction took place; and the winner heard his fate

slyly whispered by the voice of many tones, or it might be that it was

loudly read for the benefit of the crowd, and, amid cries and jeers, the

victim retired with promise of a wife with a negative dowry in some

unexistent section of Paris. Or, again, it was an elderly dame who

consulted the voice of fate. She was to have three husbands, and die

young. Then another broad hand came forth, and on it the black poodle

upright, with a handkerchief to his eyes, and his tail adorned with

crape. It was witty, innocent, and amusing, and delighted this Paris,

which was becoming suspicious, cruel, and grimly devilish.

Very soon the business in which laughter was sold for what it would

bring in laughter, and for what men were willing to pay for an honest

grin, began to have incidents which more than satisfied Francois's taste

for adventure and greatly troubled Pierre. The little room of the two

conjurers had flowers in the window, and a caged bird. These were

Francois's luxuries. Pierre did not care for them. He had begun to read

books about the rights of man, and bits of "The Friend of the People,"

by Marat. When Francois first knew him he liked to gossip gravely of

what went on, as to the changing fashions, or as to the new "baptism" of

the streets, but of the serious aspect of the tumbling monarchy was not

inclined to speak. At times, too, he let it be seen that he was well

educated; but beyond this, Francois still learned nothing of his past.

One evening Francois, gaily whistling, and with Toto after him, turned

the knob of their chamber door. There was some resistance. He called,

"Pierre!" and the door yielded. He went in. Two candles were burning on

their little dining-table. Facing him, in a chair, sat the Crab, Quatre

Pattes, the spine bent forward, the head tilted up to get sight of

Pierre, who was leaning against the wall back of the door. Her eyes, a

dusky red, were wide open to enlarge the view which the bend of her back

limited. The beak between them was purple. Her mouth, grim and

lipless, was set in deep, radiating wrinkles, and the toothless gums

were moving as if she were chewing. Her two wrists rested on the curved

handles of her short canes, and her outstretched hands, lean, eager, and

deformed, were moving like the claws of some ravenous creature of the

jungle.

Francois looked from her to his partner, Despard. He was standing as if

flattened, his eyes upon the woman, his palms, outspread, set hard on

the wall behind him, a pitiful image of alarm and hatred.

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Francois, "what is all this? What does this

she-devil want?"

"Want! I want money, vagabond thief! I saw thee in the booth

yesterday. We are honest, are we? And I know him, too. Him!" and she

pointed at Pierre, who murmured:

"Kill her! Take her away!"

Francois laughed. "Out of this, hag!" and he laughed again.

"I know that man," she cried. "_Sacre_, but he is scared, the coward!

I remind him of old times. He must pay--pay, or I will fetch the

police. He knows me. Out with the money! Empty your pockets!"

Francois shouted: "What, Mother Puzzlebones, dost thou think to scare an

old dog of the Cite? Art fit to be mother-in-law of Satan. Out with

thee! Out of this, I say! Here is to buy flesh to cover thy rattlebone

carcass." He threw two francs before her.

The Crab stood up, and beat with her sticks on the table. "No francs!

It is gold I will have--red louis, or I will set the police on thee, and

on the fat fool yonder. I will find that girl of his. She must be fit

to sell by this time. A beauty was her mother."

"Kill her! Kill her!" said Pierre, wrath in his words, fear in their

tremor. Of a sudden he seized a stool, and, mad with some memory of

wrong, leaped forward. The Crab faced him with courage, as Francois

tore away the stool, and pushed him back. "No murder here. Keep quiet,

idiot! And as to thee, thou gutter Crab, out of this!"

Upon this, Toto set up a dismal howl, and made at the old woman. A

rousing whack from her stick sent him howling under the bed, where he

sat pensive. Then she turned on Francois.

"Look here," she said; "thou hast some sense. That ass has none. Let us

talk. Thou canst give me money or let it alone. You both know me. A

word to the police, and up goes the little show."

"Very likely."

"Then make a bargain. Pay me, and I hold my tongue. No use to call me

names."

"Well, let us have peace, and talk," said Francois. This threat of the

Crab as to the officers of the law might not be vain; she was quite too

well informed; and there was Pierre, white and furious. Francois

foresaw tragedy; comedy was more to his taste.

"What wilt thou have, Quatre Pattes? We are poor. Why threaten thy old

lodger?" He was eager to get her away, in order to understand matters.

Too much was dark. Pierre said no more, but stood staring, angry and

yet afraid.

"A louis a week," cried the Crab.

"Nonsense! These good geese would soon die of starvation, and then no

more golden eggs. Here are ten francs. Each week thou shalt have

five."

"_Nom de Dieu!_" groaned Pierre; "and to kill her were so easy!"

"Not for thee, coward!" shouted the Crab, knocking her sticks together

for emphasis.

"Kill her!" said Pierre, faintly.

"Nonsense!" said Francois. "Come to the booth for it, Crab; not here,

mind you, not here--not a sou here."

"Adieu, my jolly bankers," cried the hag. "For the day this will do;

then we shall see." With this, the sticks rattled on the tiled floor,

and she pattered out of the door, which Francois shut after her.

"Behold us, netted like larks!" he said, and broke into a laugh.

"It is not a thing to laugh at," said Pierre, the sweat rolling down his

face.

"No; perhaps not. Let us take counsel. But what troubled thee? Shall

a crippled old woman ruin two strong men?"

Pierre groaned, and let his face fall on his palms, making no reply.

"What is it, my friend?"

"I cannot tell thee now. It were useless; it would not help. God has

made the little one safe--safe. One of these days I may have the courage

to tell thee."

His natural reticence and some too dreadful past combined to keep him

silent. Francois was puzzled. He knew the man to be a coward; but his

timidity, followed by this sudden outbreak of murderous fury, was

inexplicable; nor did he comprehend it fully until later events revealed

to him, as he looked back at this scene, the nature of the morbid

changes which his partner's character had already begun to feel. "What

does it all mean?" he demanded.

"Ask me no more," said Despard. "Not now--not now. She cannot hurt me

or mine. It is hate, not fear, I have. But thou? Why didst thou pay?"

"For good enough reasons," said Francois; "but I can take care of

myself." He was by no means sure of this. Nevertheless, he laughed as

usual, and said: "Let us have supper; I cannot think when I am empty."

No more was said. They ate in silence, and then Pierre turned to his

"L'Ami du Peuple," and Francois to a pipe and to his thoughts. Must he

give up the booth, and wander? He knew the Crab well enough to fear

her. The price of her silence would rise, and to deny her would bring

about disaster. He began to wish he had been honest. It was too late

now; but France was large, and, after all, he could laugh at his own

embarrassment. There was time to think; he had bought that.

They spoke no further of the Crab; but from this time Pierre became

depressed and suspicious at every knock on the door. Quatre Pattes came

to the booth with her usual eagerness, and if she chanced to be full of

bad brandy, and too noisy and unappeasable, Francois paid her something

out of his own share of their growing profits. Had he been alone, he

might have done otherwise; but Pierre was timid, watchful, and talked

sadly of the little one at Sevres. How should he manage if the show

came to an end? It had not been worth much until Francois joined him.

Before that he had been starving himself to keep the child in careful

hands. He became increasingly melancholy, and this especially in the

early mornings. He was apt to say at night, "A day is gone, and nothing

has happened."

Francois was courageous, and mocked a little at the jade Fortune. "What

could happen?" And yet this shrinking little man, fat, doleful, and

full of fears, sat heavily upon him; and there, too, was this child whom

he had never seen. _Peste_! The children he had known at the asylum

were senseless, greedy little cattle, all of one make. Perhaps this

girl at Sevres was no better.

*IX*

_In which Francois tells the fortune of the Marquis de Ste. Luce and of

Robespierre, and has his own fortune told, and of how Despard saw a man

of whom he was afraid._

Francois was soon to be further amazed by Pierre Despard. To the last

of his life, Francois remembered that day. A cool October had stripped

the king's chestnut-trees of their glory as clean as the king himself

was soon to be shorn. The leaves were rustling at evening across the

Place Louis XV, and covering the water of the canals. Here, of late,

the tent-booth had been set up for the benefit of the better society,

which still wore the white cockade of the Bourbons. A merry group of

the actors of the Comedie was waiting to see Francois, the maker of

faces. There were Chenard of the Opera Comique; Fleury and Saint-Prix,

whose gaiety no prison in after days could lessen, and no fear of death

abate. "Behold, there is the great Talma," said Pierre, peeping out;

"and the aristos are many to-day. Art ready, Francois?"

Francois was delighted. The great Talma here, and actually to see

him--Francois! He had of late been acquiring stage ambitions, and

taking great pains to improve the natural advantages of a face quite

matchless in Paris.

Despard peeped in again. "Yes, Francois; they talk of thee, and there

are many in the crowd. They gather to see Talma. There are Jacobins,

and thy friends the aristocrats. Make thou haste. Art ready?"

"Yes, yes," said Francois. He felt it to be a great, an unusual

occasion. He had a bright idea. He struck with a stick three times on

the floor of the booth, the traditional signal at the Theatre Francais

for the curtain to rise. A roar of applause outside rewarded his shrewd

sense of what was due to this audience.

"_Tiens_! That is good," said La Rive.

The slit in the curtain opened, and, framed in the black drapery,

appeared a face which seemed to have come out of the canvas of Holbein.

It was solemn, and yet grotesque, strong of feature, the face, beard,

and hair white with powder; the eyes were shut.

"_Mon Dieu_," said Talma, "what a mask! 'T is stern as fate." The

crowd stayed motionless and silent.

"Look! look!" said Fleury. "'T is a study. To smile with closed eyes!

Didst thou ever see a man smile in sleep, Talma?"

It was pretty and odd. Little curves of mirthful change crawled

downward from the eyes over the large, grave features; the ears moved;

the eyes opened; and a storm of liberal laughter broke up the quiet

lines of cheek and mouth.

"Bravo! bravo!" cried Talma and the other actors, while the crowd burst

into a roar of applause and responsive mirth.

"Angels of fun!" cried Saint-Prix, "what a face! 'T is a gargoyle come

down from the roof of St. Jacques de la Boucherie. Does it go back of

nights? I wonder what next will he do?"

[Illustration: "''T IS A GARGOYLE COME DOWN FROM THE ROOF OF ST.

JACQUES.'"]

"_Tiens_! Wait," said La Rive.

The white face seen above in the slit of the black curtain became

suddenly serious, with moveless eyes looking past the audience as if

into futurity. Below appeared two large hands, scrupulously clean,

while the man's figure remained hidden. There was something impressive

in this artful pose.

"Fortunes, fortunes, _messieurs et dames_!" cried Pierre. "Who will

have his hand read? _Avancez_--come!"

A shrill voice on the outskirts of the crowd cried, "Read Louis

Capet's!" The white cockades turned to look. "It were easy to read,"

said a tall Jacobin. A gentleman in the black garments of the

unprogressive noblesse turned: "Your card, citizen, or monsieur, as you

like." The crowd was scarcely stirred by this politely managed

difference. It was the year of duels.

Two lads pushed forward their tutor, an abbe, as was plain to see,

although few clerics still ventured to wear their old costume. He

laughed awkwardly, and timidly laid a fat, well-fed hand on that of

Francois's. The grave face of the reader of palms fell forward to see

the fateful lines. For a moment Francois was silent; then the voice

which came from his stolid visage was monotonously solemn, and the words

dropped from it one by one, as if they were the mechanical product of

some machine without interest in the results of its own action. One

long, lean forefinger traversed the abbe's palm, and paused. "An easy

life thou hast had. A woman has troubled it." The two pupils were

delighted; the crowd laughed. "The line of life is

broken--broken"--Francois's hands went through the pantomime of the

snapping of a thread--"like that." The abbe drew back, and could not be

persuaded to hear further. Again there was a pause. A grisette advanced

smiling, and was sent away charmed with the gifts a pleasant future held

in store. Pierre exhorted for a time in vain. Presently the crowd made

way. A slight man in breeches and silk stockings came forward; he was

otherwise dressed in the extreme of the fashion still favored by the

court party, but wore no cockade, and carried two watches, the heavy

seals of which Francois greatly desired to appropriate. His uneasy eyes

were covered with spectacles, and around them his sallow complexion

deepened to a dusky, dull green. Altogether this was a singular and not

a pleasant face, or so, at least, thought the palm-reader, a part of

whose cunning was to study the expressions of those who asked his skill.

The man who laid his hand on Francois's looked up at the motionless

visage of the ex-thief. Francois said: "Is it for the citizen alone to

hear, or for all?"

"For me--for me."

Francois's voice fell to a low whisper.

"Let the past go," said the listener; "what of the future?"

"It is dark. The lines are many. They are--citizen, thou wilt be a

ruler, powerful, dreaded. Thou wilt have admiration, fame, and at last

the hatred of man."

"I--I--what nonsense! Then?"--and he waited,--"then? What then? What

comes after!"'

"I will tell thee"; and Francois whispered.

"No more--no more; enough of such foolishness!" He was clearly enough

disturbed by what he had heard. "Thou must think men fools."

"Fate is always a fool, citizen; but the fools all win, soon or late."

"That, at least, is true, Master Palmister." Then a pair of sinister

eyes, set deep behind spectacles, sought those of Francois. "Thou hast

a strange face, Master Palm-reader. Dost thou believe what thou dost

make believe to read on men's palms?"

"Sometimes."

"Now--now?--this time?"

"Yes; I believe."

"I shall not forget thee."

Francois felt something like a chill between his shoulders. The Jacobin

stepped aside after depositing an ample fee in the basket which Toto

presented.

There was a murmur in the crowd. Several persons looked with curious

eyes after the retreating man, and the conjurer heard some one say:

"_Tiens! C'est drole_. It is Robespierre." His was at this time not

more than a well-known name. For a minute no one else came forward.

Francois saw Pierre slip hastily into the tent; he knew not why. A

gentleman came up gaily. He was dressed splendidly, with no regard for

the leveling tastes of the day.

"The deuce!" he said quickly; "you are my thief!"

"_De grace_, monsieur!" exclaimed Francois; "you will get me into

trouble."

"Not I. Happy to meet you. I am myself fond of palmistry. Come, read

me my hand."

Francois bent over the palm. He began aloud: "Ah, here have been many

loves." Then his voice fell. "Monsieur is a good swordsman."

"So-so," said the gentleman.

"Monsieur has been unfortunate in his duels."

"_Mon Dieu_! Yes; I always kill people."

"Monsieur has one remorse."

"_Sapristi_! Thou art clever, and I lucky to have but one. Go on; 't

is vastly amusing. Shall I live to be old? My people do."

"Monsieur will have troubles, but he will live to be old--very old."

"Will he, indeed? I hardly like that. If I were you, I would tell more

agreeable fortunes. To outlive the joys of life, to be left a stranded

wreck, while the world goes by gay and busy--pshaw! I like not that.

You do it well. Let me read your own palm. I have a taste for this

art."

Francois was at once interested. The gentleman's strong left hand took

that of the thief, and with a wandering forefinger he ran over the lines

of the palm. He let it fall, and looked downward at his own hand. "It

is strange that we shall meet again, and in an hour of danger. You will

be fortunate, and I shall not. You will have--"

"_Tenez_, monsieur--stop!" cried Francois; "I will hear no more"; and he

drew his hands within the tent-folds.

"_Dame_! and you are really a believer in it all, my good thief? Belief

is out of fashion. I hope you did tell that cursed Jacobin he would go

to a place he doesn't believe in, but which is a little like France

to-day. Come and see me if ever you are in trouble and this trade comes

to an end. I like men who can laugh. 'T is a pretty talent, and rather

gone out just now. I am the Marquis de Ste. Luce--or was. Come and

laugh for me, and tell me your story." He let fall a gold louis in

Toto's basket, and elbowed his way through the crowd, with "Pardon,

monsieur," to white cockades, and scant courtesy to the Jacobins and the

_demi-constitutionnels_, who were readily known by their costumes.

As the marquis ceased to speak, Francois heard a singular noise in the

tent back of him. He withdrew his head to see the cause, and a moment

later, reappearing, said he must be excused, because his friend was ill.

The crowd broke up. Within the tent lay Pierre on the ground, in a fit.

Francois, greatly alarmed and utterly at a loss, threw water in his

face, and waited. In a few moments it was over, and the man, flushed

and breathing deeply, lay with red froth on his lips, as if in a deep

sleep. He was no longer convulsed; but what further to do the partner

knew not, and sat beside him, not more competent to deal with this novel

situation than was Toto, who walked about, and scratched his nose, and

gave it up. An hour went by with Pierre's head resting on Francois's

lap.

At last Despard opened his eyes. "Take him away," he said. The man was

delirious.

"Who?"

"Take him away. Will he kill me? He killed her." A half-hour he

wandered in mind, while Francois bathed his flushed face. Then he drew

a deep breath, and said: "What is this? Where am I?"