2.M.7.3. BABET, GUEULEMER, CLAQUESOUS, AND MONTPARNASSE
A QUARTETTE of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet,
and Montparnasse governed the third lower floor of Paris,
from 1830 to 1835.
Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his
lair he had the sewer of the Arche-Marion. He was six feet
high, his pectoral muscles were of marble, his biceps of brass,
his breath was that of a cavern, his torso that of a colossus,
his head that of a bird. One thought one beheld the Farnese
Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet waistcoat.
Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have
subdued
monsters; he had found it more expeditious to be one.
A low brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but
with crow's-feet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard
like that of a wild boar; the reader can see the man before
him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have
none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin
through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had,
probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a
porter at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned
ruffian.
The diaphaneity of Babet contrasted with the grossness of
Gueulemer. Babet was thin and learned. He was transparent
but impenetrable. Daylight was visible through his bones, but
nothing through his eyes. He declared that he was a chemist.
He had been a jack of all trades. He had played in vaudeville
at Saint-Mihiel. He was a man of purpose, a fine talker, who
underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures. His
occupation
consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and
portraits of "the head of the State." In addition to this, he
extracted teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he
had owned a booth with a trumpet and this poster: "Babet,
Dental Artist, Member of the Academies, makes physical
experiments
on metals and metalloids, extracts teeth, undertakes
stumps abandoned by his brother practitioners. Price: one
tooth, one franc, fifty centimes; two teeth, two francs; three
teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity."
This Take advantage of this opportunity meant: Have as
many teeth extracted as possible. He had been married and
had had children. He did not know what had become of his
wife and children. He had lost them as one loses his
handkerchief.
Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the world
to which he belonged. One day, at the period when he had his
family with him in his booth on wheels, he had read in the
Messager, that a woman had just given birth to a child,
who
was doing well, and had a calf's muzzle, and he exclaimed:
"There's a fortune! my wife has not the wit to present me
with a child like that!"
Later on he had abandoned everything, in order to
"undertake
Paris." This was his expression.
Who was Claquesous? He was night. He waited until the
sky was daubed with black, before he showed himself. At
nightfall he emerged from the hole whither he returned before
daylight. Where was this hole? No one knew. He only
addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, and
with his back turned to them. Was his name Claquesous?
Certainly not. If a candle was brought, he put on a mask.
He was a ventriloquist. Babet said: "Claquesous is a nocturne
for two voices." Claquesous was vague, terrible, and a
roamer. No one was sure whether he had a name, Claquesous
being a sobriquet; none was sure that he had a voice, as his
stomach spoke more frequently than his voice; no one was sure
that he had a face, as he was never seen without his mask. He
disappeared as though he had vanished into thin air; when he
appeared, it was as though he sprang from the earth.
A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a
child; less than twenty years of age, with a handsome face,
lips like cherries, charming black hair, the brilliant light of
springtime in his eyes; he had all vices and aspired to all
crimes.
The digestion of evil aroused in him an appetite for
worse.
It was the street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket
turned garroter. He was genteel, effeminate, graceful, robust,
sluggish, ferocious. The rim of his hat was curled up on the
left side, in order to make room for a tuft of hair, after the
style of 1829. He lived by robbery with violence. His coat
was of the best cut, but threadbare. Montparnasse was a
fashion-plate in misery and given to the commission of murders.
The cause of all this youth's crimes was the desire to be
well-dressed. The first grisette who had said to him: "You
are handsome!" had cast the stain of darkness into his heart,
and had made a Cain of this Abel. Finding that he was handsome,
he desired to be elegant: now, the height of elegance is
idleness; idleness in a poor man means crime. Few prowlers
were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he had already
numerous corpses in his past. More than one passer-by lay
with outstretched arms in the presence of this wretch, with his
face in a pool of blood. Curled, pomaded, with laced waist,
the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur
of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him,
his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower
in his buttonhole; such was this dandy of the sepulchre.