the
sepulchre.

CHAPTER IV--COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE

These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent
among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq's indiscreet glances
"under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain," lending each other their
names and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes with
secret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their
personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimes
simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual,
sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that Coco-Latour
himself took them for a whole throng.

These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robber
with four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris; they were that
monstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society.

Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying their
relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged
with the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department of
the Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal
imaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. They
furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the
preparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They were
always in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable to
all crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which were
sufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, they
under-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadows
at the disposition of all underground tragedies.

They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when they
woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpetriere. There they held
their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; they
regulated their employment accordingly.

Patron-Minette,--such was the name which was bestowed in the
subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the
fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day,
Patron-Minette signifies the morning, the same as entre chien et
loup--between dog and wolf--signifies the evening. This appellation,
Patron-Minette, was probably derived from the hour at which their work
ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the
separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title.
When the Presiden