t of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and
questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, "Who did
it?" demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical
so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police:
"Perhaps it was Patron-Minette."

A piece can sometimes be divined on the enunciation of the personages;
in the same manner a band can almost be judged from the list of ruffians
composing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal members
of Patron-Minette answered,--for the names have survived in special
memoirs.

Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille.

Brujon. [There was a Brujon dynasty; we cannot refrain from
interpolating this word.]

Boulatruelle, the road-mender already introduced.

Laveuve.

Finistere.

Homere-Hogu, a negro.

Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.)

Depeche. (Make haste.)

Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetiere (the Flower Girl).

Glorieux, a discharged convict.

Barrecarrosse (Stop-carriage), called Monsieur Dupont.

L'Esplanade-du-Sud.

Poussagrive.

Carmagnolet.

Kruideniers, called Bizarro.

Mangedentelle. (Lace-eater.)

Les-pieds-en-l'Air. (Feet in the air.)

Demi-Liard, called Deux-Milliards.

Etc., etc.

We pass over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces
attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of
these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the
under side of civilization.

Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were not
among the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by the
wild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep, sometimes
in the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre or
Montrouge, sometimes in the sewers. They ran to earth.

What became of these men? They still exist. They have always existed.
Horace speaks of them: Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolae, mendici,
mimae; and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain what
they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continually
born again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but always
identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are
no longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribe
subsists.

They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the
race is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, they
s