country
naturally made lawlessness the more easy there, and till so late as
the beginning of the nineteenth century these gangs of robbers were a
constant menace to the traveller in Rhineland. At the time of the French
Revolution, indeed, and for some decades thereafter, the district was
literally infested with thieves; for the unsettled state of Europe at
this date perforce tended to bring desperadoes from far and near, and
for a while the inhabitants of the different villages on the banks of
the Rhine endured a veritable reign of terror.

But almost from the outset the brigands realized that they would soon be
undone if they grew too numerous. They knew that, in that event, strong
military measures would probably be taken against them; so they made
every effort to practise that union which is proverbially strength,
and to prevent the enlisting in their ranks of anyone likely to prove
cowardly or perfidious. In some cases, too, they actually had a well
and capably organized system whereby one of their number could escape
quickly, if need be, from the scene of his crime; for, like the
French prisoners described in Stevenson's St. Ives, they had a line of
sanctuaries extending perhaps into Austria or Italy, the retreat in most
instances being an inn whose keeper was sworn to hide and protect
his robber guest at all costs. In short, there was honour among these
thieves, and even a certain spirit of freemasonry; while, more important
still, the captain of a band was very often in league with the few
police officials of the neighbourhood.

The great highwaymen of Stuart and Georgian England--for example, that
gallant Beau Brocade of whom Mr. Austin Dobson writes--were mostly
content with waylaying a chance passer-by; while their contemporaries
in France usually worked on this principle also, as witness the deeds of
the band who figure in Theophile Gautier's story Le Capitaine Fracasse.
But the robbers of the Rhine were of different mettle from these, and
often it was almost a predatory warfare rather than mere brigandage
which they carried on. Frequently they had an agent in each of the
villages on the river, this agent being usually a member of the
scattered remnant of Israel; and the business of this person was to
discover a house containing especial wealth, and then to inform the
robbers accordingly. Having gleaned the requisite information in this
wise, the gang would sally down from the mountains at dead of night; and