all know what to think of you. I know you
well. Send to me tomorrow, and you shall have what goods you want, on
credit, for as long as is necessary. Now, evil tongue, what do you say
to that?"

"I say that you are as great a fool as the rest. Adieu, friend Derues;
go on as you have begun, and I shall be selling your 'sentence' some
day," and dispersing the crowd with a few twirls of her right arm, she
passed on, crying--

"Sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Paris against John Robert
Cassel, accused and convicted of Fraudulent Bankruptcy!"

This accusation emanated from too insignificant a quarter to have any
effect on Derues' reputation. However resentful he may have been at the
time, he got over it in consequence of the reiterated marks of interest
shown by his neighbours and all the quarter on account of his supposed
ruin, and the hawker's attack passed out of his mind, or probably she
might have paid for her boldness with her life.

But this drunken woman had none the less uttered a prophetic word; it
was the grain of sand on which, later, he was to be shipwrecked.

"All passions," says La Bruyere,--"all passions are deceitful; they
disguise themselves as much as possible from the public eye; they
hide from themselves. There is no vice which has not a counterfeit
resemblance to some virtue, and which does not profit by it."

The whole life of Derues bears testimony to the truth of this
observation. An avaricious poisoner, he attracted his victims by the
pretence of fervent and devoted piety, and drew them into the snare
where he silently destroyed them. His terrible celebrity only began in
1777, caused by the double murder of Madame de Lamotte and her son, and
his name, unlike those of some other great criminals, does not at first
recall a long series of crimes, but when one examines this low, crooked,
and obscure life, one finds a fresh stain at every step, and perhaps no
one has ever surpassed him in dissimulation, in profound hypocrisy,
in indefatigable depravity. Derues was executed at thirty-two, and his
whole life was steeped in vice; though happily so short, it is full
of horror, and is only a tissue of criminal thoughts and deeds, a
very essence of evil. He had no hesitation, no remorse, no repose,
no relaxation; he seemed compelled to lie, to steal, to poison!
Occasionally suspicion is aroused, the public has its doubts, and
vague rumours hover round him; but he burrows under new impostures, and