(SHEPPARD AND CARTOUCHE)
IF the seventeenth century was the golden age of the hightobyman, it was
at the advent of the eighteenth that the burglar and street-robber plied
their trade with the most distinguished success, and it was the good
fortune of both Cartouche and Sheppard to be born in the nick of time.
Rivals in talent, they were also near contemporaries, and the Scourge of
Paris may well have been famous in the purlieus of Clare Market before
Jack the Slip-String paid the last penalty of his crimes. As each of
these great men harboured a similar ambition, so their careers are
closely parallel. Born in a humble rank of life, Jack, like Cartouche,
was the architect of his own fortune; Jack, like Cartouche, lived to be
flattered by noble dames and to claim the solicitude of his Sovereign;
and each owed his pre-eminence rather to natural genius than to a
sympathetic training.
But, for all the Briton's artistry, the Frenchman was in all points save
one the superior. Sheppard's brain carried him not beyond the wants of
to-day and the extortions of Poll Maggot.
Who knows but he might have been a respectable citizen, with never a
chance for the display of his peculiar talent, had not hunger and his
mistress's greed driven him upon the pad? History records no brilliant
robbery of his own planning, and so circumscribed was his imagination
that he must needs pick out his own friends and benefactors for
depredation. His paltry sense of discipline permitted him to be betrayed
even by his brother and pupil, and there was no cracksman of his time
over whose head he held the rod of terror. Even his hatred of Jonathan
Wild was the result not of policy but of prejudice. Cartouche, on the
other hand, was always perfect when at work. The master of himself, he
was also the master of his fellows. There was no detail of civil war
that he had not made his own, and he still remains, after nearly two
centuries, the greatest captain the world has seen. Never did he permit
an enterprise to fail by accident; never was he impelled by hunger or
improvidence to fight a battle unprepared. His means were always neatly
fitted to their end, as is proved by the truth that, throughout his
career, he was arrested but once, and then not by his own inadvertence
but by the treachery of others.
Yet from the moment of arrest Jack Sheppard asserted his magnificent
superiority. If Cartouche was a sorry bungler at prison-breaking,
Sheppard was unmatched in this dangerous art. The sport of the one was
to break in, of the other to break out. True, the Briton proved his
inferiority by too frequently placing himself under lock and key; but
you will forgive his every weakness for the unexampled skill wherewith
he extricated himself from the stubbornest dungeon. Cartouche would
scarce have given Sheppard a menial's office in his gang. How cordially
Sheppard would have despised Cartouche's solitary experiment in escape!
To be foiled by a dog and a boxmaker's daughter! Would not that have
seemed contemptible to the master breaker of those unnumbered doors and
walls which separate the Castle from the freedom of Newgate roof?
Such, then, is the contrast between the heroes. Sheppard claims our
admiration for one masterpiece. Cartouche has a sheaf of works, which
shall carry him triumphantly to the remotest future.
And when you forget a while professional rivalry, and consider the
delicacies of leisure, you will find the Frenchman's greatness still
indisputable. At all points he was the prettier gentleman. Sheppard, to
be sure, had a sense of finery, but he was so unused to grandeur
that vulgarity always spoiled his effects. When he hied him from the
pawnshop, laden with booty, he must e'en cram what he could not wear
into his pockets; and doubtless his vulgar lack of reticence made
detection easier. Cartouche, on the other hand, had an unfailing sense
of proportion, and was never more dressed than became the perfect dandy.
He was elegant, he was polished, he was joyous. He drank wine, while the
other soaked himself in beer; he despised whatever was common, while his
rival knew but the coarser flavours of life.
The one was distinguished by a boisterous humour, a swaggering pride in
his own prowess; the wit of the other might be edged like a knife, nor
would he ever appeal for a spectacle to the curiosity of the mob.
Both were men of many mistresses, but again in his conduct with women
Cartouche showed an honester talent. Sheppard was at once the prey and
the whipping-block of his two infamous doxies, who agreed in deformity
of feature as in contempt for their lover. Cartouche, on the other hand,
chose his cabaret for the wit of its patronne, and was always happy in
the elegance and accomplishment of his companions. One point of
likeness remains. The two heroes resembled each other not only in their
profession, but in their person. Though their trade demanded physical
strength, each was small and slender of build. 'A little, slight-limbed
lad,' says the historian of Sheppard. 'A thin, spare frame,' sings the
poet of Cartouche. Here, then, neither had the advantage, and if in the
shades Cartouche despises the clumsiness and vulgarity of his rival,
Sheppard may still remember the glory of Newgate, and twit the Frenchman
with the barking of the boxmaker's dog. But genius is the talent of the
dead, and the wise, who are not partisans, will not deny to the one or
to the other the possession of the rarer gift.