CHEVALIERS d'industrie, or polite and accomplished sharpers,
have always existed in every city, from the earliest times to the
present. The ordinary progress of these interesting gentlemen is
as follows. Their début is often difficult, and many of them
are stopped short in their career. They only succeed by means of
great exertion and severe trials; but they endure everything in
order to be tolerated or permitted to exercise their calling. To
secure credit they ally themselves with men of respectability, or
those who pass for such. When they have no titles they fabricate
them; and few persons dispute their claims. They are found
useful for the pleasures of society, the expenses of which they
often pay —
at the cost of the dupes they make in
the world. The income of chevaliers d'industrie is at first
derived from those inexperienced persons whom they get in their
clutches by means of every kind of enticement, in order to ruin
them some day — if they have any `expectations' or are likely to
be rich; or in order to make accomplices of them if they have
only aptitudes for the purpose. After having led them from error
to error, after suggesting to them all sorts of wants and vices,
they make them gamble, if they are of age; they hold up play to
them as an inexhaustible source of wealth.
The `protector' next hands over his `young friends' to
`executioners,' who fleece them for the common benefit of the
confederates. They do not always wait for the coming of age of
their young dupes in order to strike the grand `stroke.' When
they find that the father of a family shudders at the idea of a
public scandal, they immolate their victim at once — for fear lest
he should escape from their hands. Of course they are always
open to `capitulate' — to come to terms; and if the aid of the law
is invoked they give in discreetly.
About a century ago there flourished at Paris one of these
adventurers, who made a great noise
and did a
vast amount of evil. This man of a thousand faces, this Proteus,
as great a corrupter as he was corrupted, changed his name, his
quarters, and field of operations, according to the exigences of
business. Although a man of ardent temperament and inconceivable
activity, his cold-blooded rascality was never in a hurry. He
could wait; he could bide his time. Taking in, at a glance, all
the requirements of a case, and seeing through all its
difficulties, he worked out his scheme with the utmost patience
and consummated his crime with absolute security.
Sometimes he gave a concert for amateurs, elegant suppers
for gay ladies, and special soirées for the learned and
the witty. He was not particular as to the means of doing
business; thus he trafficked in everything, — for the sale of a
living, or the procuration of a mistress — for he had associates
in all ranks, among all professions of men.
He had twenty Faro tables in operation every night, whilst
his emissaries were on the watch for new arrivals, and for those
who had recently come into property.
In general, rogues soon betray themselves by some stupid
bungle; but such was not the case
with this man;
he defended himself, as it were, on all sides, and always kept
himself in position so as to oppose to each of his vices the
proof positive of the contrary virtues. Thus, if accused of
usury, he could prove that he had lent, without interest,
considerable sums of money. Cowardly and base in a
tête-à-tête, he was bold and redoubtable in public; those
who had made him tremble in secret were then compelled to
acknowledge him a man of courage. Even his more than suspected
probity was defended by such as believed themselves his
depositaries, whereas they were, in point of fact, only receivers
of stolen property.
Affable, insinuating to a degree, he might be compared to
those brigands of Egypt who embraced their victims in order to
strangle them.[1] He never showed more devotedness than when he
meditated some perfidy, nor more assurance than when convicted of
the rascality. Playing fast and loose with honour and the laws,
he was sure to find, when threatened by the arm of justice, the
female relatives of the judges themselves taking his part and
doing their best to `get him off.' Such was this extraordinary
chevalier d'industrie, who might
have gone on
with his diabolical perpetrations had he not, at last, attempted
too much, failing in the grandest stroke he had ever meditated —
and yet a vulgar fraud — when he was convicted, branded, and sent
to the galleys.[2]
[1] Senec.,
Epist. Ii.
[2] Dusaulx,
De la Passion du Jeu.
The following narrative elucidates a still more modern
phase of this elegant `industry.' My authority is M. Robert-Houdin.
