did Cartouche display his genius to finer purpose than in this prudent
disposition of his army. It remained only to efface himself, and therein
he succeeded admirably by never sleeping two following nights in the
same house: so that, when Cartouche was the terror of Paris, when even
the King trembled in his bed, none knew his stature nor could recognise
his features. In this shifting and impersonal vizard, he broke houses,
picked pockets, robbed on the pad. One night he would terrify the
Faubourg St. Germain; another he would plunder the humbler suburb of St.
Antoine; but on each excursion he was companioned by experts, and
the map of Paris was rigidly apportioned among his followers. To each
district a captain was appointed, whose business it was to apprehend
the customs of the quarter, and thus to indicate the proper season of
attack.

Ever triumphant, with yellow-boys ever jingling in his pocket, Cartouche
lived a life of luxurious merriment. A favourite haunt was a cabaret
in the Rue Dauphine, chosen for the sanest of reasons, as his Captain
Ferrand declared, that the landlady was a femme d'esprit. Here he would
sit with his friends and his women, and thereafter drive his chariot
across the Pont Neuf to the sunnier gaiety of the Palais-Royal. A
finished dandy, he wore by preference a grey-white coat with silver
buttons; his breeches and stockings were on a famous occasion of black
silk; while a sword, scabbarded in satin, hung at his hip.

But if Cartouche, like many another great man, had the faculty of
enjoyment, if he loved wine and wit, and mistresses handsomely attired
in damask, he did not therefore neglect his art. When once the gang was
perfectly ordered, murder followed robbery with so instant a frequency
that Paris was panic-stricken. A cry of 'Cartouche' straightway ensured
an empty street. The King took counsel with his ministers: munificent
rewards were offered, without effect. The thief was still at work in all
security, and it was a pretty irony which urged him to strip and kill on
the highway one of the King's own pages. Also, he did his work with
so astonishing a silence, with so reasoned a certainty, that it seemed
impossible to take him or his minions red-handed.

Before all, he discouraged the use of firearms. 'A pistol,' his
philosophy urged, 'is an excellent weapon in an emergency, but reserve
it for emergencies. At close quarters it is none too sure; and why give
the alarm against yourself?'