aigned at their
next peccadillo before the police courts; and they therefore
judiciously selected the night time for the performance of their
mischievous pranks. Thus it was that among the traces of divers lost
civilizations, a vestige of the spirit of drollery that characterized
the manners of antiquity burst into a final flame.

The young men amused themselves very much as Charles IX. amused
himself with his courtiers, or Henry V. of England and his companions,
or as in former times young men were wont to amuse themselves in the
provinces. Having once banded together for purposes of mutual help, to
defend each other and invent amusing tricks, there presently developed
among them, through the clash of ideas, that spirit of malicious
mischief which belongs to the period of youth and may even be observed
among animals. The confederation, in itself, gave them the mimic
delights of the mystery of an organized conspiracy. They called
themselves the "Knights of Idleness." During the day these young
scamps were youthful saints; they all pretended to extreme quietness;
and, in fact, they habitually slept late after the nights on which
they had been playing their malicious pranks. The "Knights" began with
mere commonplace tricks, such as unhooking and changing signs, ringing
bells, flinging casks left before one house into the cellar of the
next with a crash, rousing the occupants of the house by a noise that
seemed to their frightened ears like the explosion of a mine. In
Issoudun, as in many country towns, the cellar is entered by an
opening near the door of the house, covered with a wooden scuttle,
secured by strong iron hinges and a padlock.

In 1816, these modern Bad Boys had not altogether given up such tricks
as these, perpetrated in the provinces by all young lads and gamins.
But in 1817 the Order of Idleness acquired a Grand Master, and
distinguished itself by mischief which, up to 1823, spread something
like terror in Issoudun, or at least kept the artisans and the
bourgeoisie perpetually uneasy.

This leader was a certain Maxence Gilet, commonly called Max, whose
antecedents, no less than his youth and his vigor, predestined him for
such a part. Maxence Gilet was supposed by all Issoudun to be the
natural son of the sub-delegate Lousteau, that brother of Madame
Hochon whose gallantries had left memories behind them, and who, as we
have seen, drew down upon himself the hatred of old Doctor Rouget
about the time of