CHAPTER IV--COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE

  These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpentamong the police, and striving to escape Vidocq's indiscreet glances"under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain," lending each other theirnames and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes withsecret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off theirpersonalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimessimplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual,sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that Coco-Latourhimself took them for a whole throng.

  These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robberwith four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris; they were thatmonstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society.

  Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying theirrelations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were chargedwith the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department ofthe Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnalimaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. Theyfurnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook thepreparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They werealways in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable toall crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which weresufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, theyunder-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadowsat the disposition of all underground tragedies.

  They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when theywoke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpêtrière. There they heldtheir conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; theyregulated their employment accordingly.

  _Patron-Minette_,--such was the name which was bestowed in thesubterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In thefantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day,_Patron-Minette_ signifies the morning, the same as _entre chien etloup_--between dog and wolf--signifies the evening. This appellation,_Patron-Minette_, was probably derived from the hour at which theirwork ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for theseparation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title.When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, andquestioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, "Who didit?" demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmaticalso 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 ruffianscomposing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal membersof Patron-Minette answered,--for the names have survived in specialmemoirs.

  Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille.

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

  Boulatruelle, the road-mender already introduced.

  Laveuve.

  Finistère.

  Homère-Hogu, a negro.

  Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.)

  Dépêche. (Make haste.)

  Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetière (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 facesattached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one ofthese names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from theunder side of civilization.

  Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were notamong the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by thewild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep, sometimesin the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre orMontrouge, 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, pharmacopolæ, mendici,mimæ_; and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain whatthey are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continuallyborn again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but alwaysidentical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they areno longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribesubsists.

  They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, therace is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, theyscent out watches in fobs. Gold and silver possess an odor for them.There exist ingenuous bourgeois, of whom it might be said, that theyhave a "stealable" air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois. Theyexperience the quivers of a spider at the passage of a stranger or of aman from the country.

  These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpseof them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seemto be men but forms composed of living mists; one would say that theyhabitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are inno wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than thedarkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of livingfor a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from thenight.

  What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light infloods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn. Light up society frombelow.

  BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN