I have said that our genteel felon was not only refined in manners but
shy towards his new companions; nor, for several weeks, could all our
efforts rub off his reserve. I was not surprised that he kept aloof
from the coarser inmates, but I was not prepared to find that all my
own advances to confidence and companionship, were repulsed with even
more decision than those of my officers. At last, some passing event
disclosed my _true_ character to him, when I learned for the first
time that he had mistaken me for _a government spy_; inasmuch as he
could not otherwise account for my intimacy with Madame Sorret and her
spouse.
Our first move towards confidence was owing to the following
circumstance. I had been engaged one forenoon in writing a letter to
my mother, when Madame Sorret sent for me to see the Sisters of
Charity, who were making their rounds with a few comforts for the
convicts. I made my toilette and repaired to the parlor, where the
charitable women, who heard many kind things of me from the landlady,
bestowed a liberal donation of books. Returning quickly to my letter,
which I had left open on the table, confident that no one in the room
read Italian, I again took up my pen to finish a paragraph. But, as I
observed the page, it seemed that I had not written so much, yet the
sheet was nearly full of words, and all in my handwriting. I
reperused the document and found several lines, which, though in
perfect keeping with the sense and context of the composition, were
certainly not in my natural style. I was sure I had not used the
complimentary language, to which I am always so averse. Still I read
the page again--again--and again! I got up; walked about the room;
took the paper to the window; put it down; walked about again, and
then reperused the letter. For my life, I could not detect the precise
difficulty that puzzled me. The paper was, perhaps, bewitched! It was
mine, and yet it was not! In my dilemma, I rolled out a round Spanish
_carramba_ or two; and, with an _Ave Maria_ of utter bewilderment,
begun to put up my writing materials.
My companions, who had been huddled in a corner, watching my actions,
could stand it no longer, but bursting into peals of hearty laughter,
announced that Monsieur Germaine had taken the liberty to add a
postscript, while I was deep in literature with the Sisters of
Charity!
The ice was broken! Monsieur Germaine was not yet convicted, so we
gave him the benefit of the British law, and resolving to "consider
the fellow innocent till proved to be guilty," we raised him to the
dignity of companionship. His education was far superior to mine, and
his conversational powers were wonderful. He seemed perfectly familiar
with Latin and Greek, and had a commanding knowledge of history,
theology, mathematics, and astronomy. I never met his equal in
penmanship, drawing, and designing.
A few days of sociability sufficed to win a mutual confidence, and to
demand the mutual stories of our lives.
Germaine was born so high up on those picturesque borders of Piedmont,
that it was difficult to say whether the Swiss or Italian predominated
in his blood. The troubles and wars of the region impoverished his
parents, who had been gentlefolks in better times; yet they managed to
bestow the culture that made him the accomplished person I have
described. No opportunity offered, however, for his advancement as he
reached maturity, and it was thought best that he should go abroad in
search of fortune. For a while the quiet and modest youth was
successful in the humbler employments to which he stooped for bread;
but his address and talents, and especially his skill in designing and
penmanship, attracted the notice of a sharper, with whom he
accidentally became intimate; so that, before he knew it, the adroit
scrivener was both _used_ and _compromised_ by the knave. In truth, I
do not suppose that Germaine's will was made of stern and tough
materials. Those soft and gentle beings are generally disposed to
grasp the pleasures of life without labor; and whenever a relaxed
conscience has once allowed its possessor to tamper with crime, its
success is not only a stimulant but a motive for farther enterprise.
Germaine was soon a successful forger. He amassed twenty or thirty
thousand _francs_ by practices so perfect in their execution, that he
never dreamed of detection. But, at last, a daring speculation made
him our companion in the tower.
Three days before his introduction to the _chateau_ of Brest, and a
few hours before the regular departure of the Paris mail, Germaine
called on an exchange broker with seventeen thousand _francs_ in gold,
with which he purchased a sight draft on the capital. Soon after he
called a second time on the broker, and exhibiting a letter of orders,
bearing a regular post-mark, from his principals, who were alleged to
be oil merchants at Marseilles, desired to countermand the
transaction, and receive back his gold for the bill of exchange which
he tendered. The principal partner of the brokers did not happen to be
within at the moment, and the junior declined complying till his
return. _En attendant_, Monsieur Germaine sallied forth, and offered a
neighboring broker an additional half per cent, on the current value
of gold for the cash. He expressed, as the cause of this sacrifice,
extreme anxiety to depart by the four o'clock _diligence_, but the
urgency aroused the broker's suspicion, and led him to request
Germaine's return in half an hour, which he required to collect the
specie.
The incautious forger went off to his hotel with the promise in his
ear, while the wary broker dropped in on the drawers of the draft to
compare notes. The result of the interview was a visit to the _bureau
de police_, whence a couple of officers were despatched to Germaine's
hotel. They entered the dandy's room in disguise, but they were not
quick enough to save from destruction several _proof impressions_ of
blank drafts, which the counterfeiter cast into the fire the moment he
heard a knock at his door. In his trunks, they found engraving tools,
a small press, various acids and a variety of inks; all of which were
duly noted and preserved, while Monsieur Germaine was committed to the
_chateau_.
In those days there were no electric wires, and as the weather became
thick and cloudy, the old-fashioned semaphore or telegraph was useless
in giving notice to the Parisian police to stop the payment of a
suspected draft, and arrest the forger's accomplice in the capital.
Soon after the mail _of that day_ from Brest reached the metropolis, a
lady of most respectable appearance, clad in mourning, presented
herself at the counter of the broker's Parisian correspondent, and
exhibiting an unquestionable draft, drew seventeen thousand francs.
From the rapidity with which the whole of this adroit scheme was
accomplished in Brest and Paris, it seems that Germaine required but
four hours to copy, engrave, print and fill up the forged bill; and
yet, so perfectly did he succeed, that when the discharged draft came
back to Brest, neither drawers, brokers, nor police could distinguish
between the true one and the false! No one had seen Germaine at work,
or could prove complicity with the lady. The mourning dame was nowhere
to be found in Paris, Brest or Marseilles; so that when I finally
quitted the _chateau_, the adroit _chevalier_ was still an inmate, but
detained only _on suspicion_!