in, hard face,
his dry, small features were at last familiar to the whole of France. M.
Grandval made him the hero of an epic--'Le Vice Puni.' Even the theatre
was dominated by his presence; and while Arlequin-Cartouche was greeted
with thunders of applause at the Italiens, the more serious Francais set
Cartouche upon the stage in three acts, and lavished upon its theme the
resources of a then intelligent art. M. Le Grand, author of the piece,
deigned to call upon the king of thieves, spoke some words of argot with
him, and by way of conscience money gave him a hundred crowns.

Cartouche set little store by such patronage. He pocketed the crowns,
and then put an end to the comedy by threatening that if it were played
again the companions of Cartouche would punish all such miscreants as
dared to make him a laughing stock. For Cartouche would endure ridicule
at no man's hand. At the very instant of his arrest, all bare-footed as
he was, he kicked a constable who presumed to smile at his discomfiture.
His last days were spent in resolute abandonment. True, he once
attempted to beat out his brains with the fetters that bound him;
true, also, he took a poison that had been secretly conveyed within the
prison. But both attempts failed, and, more scrupulously watched, he had
no other course than jollity. Lawyers and priests he visited with a
like and bitter scorn, and when, on November 27, 1721, he was led to the
scaffold, not a word of confession or contrition had been dragged from
him.

To the last moment he cherished the hope of rescue, and eagerly he
scanned the crowd for the faces of his comrades. But the gang, trusting
to its leader's nobility, had broken its oath. With contemptuous dignity
Cartouche determined upon revenge: proudly he turned to the priest,
begging a respite and the opportunity of speech. Forgotten by his
friends, he resolved to spare no single soul: he betrayed even his
mistresses to justice.

Of his gang, forty were in the service of Mlle. de Montpensier, who
was already in Spain; while two obeyed the Duchesse de Ventadour as
valets-de-pied. His confession, in brief, was so dangerous a document,
it betrayed the friends and servants of so many great houses, that the
officers of the Law found safety for their patrons in its destruction,
and not a line of the hero's testimony remains. The trial of his
comrades dragged on for many a year, and after Cartouche had been
cruelly broken on the wheel, not a f