r permitted to
exercise their calling. To secure credit they ally themselves with men
of respectability, or those who pass for such. When they have no titles
they fabricate them; and few persons dispute their claims. They are
found useful for the pleasures of society, the expenses of which they
often pay--at the cost of the dupes they make in the world. The income
of chevaliers d'industrie is at first derived from those inexperienced
persons whom they get in their clutches by means of every kind
of enticement, in order to ruin them some day--if they have any
'expectations' or are likely to be rich; or in order to make accomplices
of them if they have only aptitudes for the purpose. After having led
them from error to error, after suggesting to them all sorts of wants
and vices, they make them gamble, if they are of age; they hold up play
to them as an inexhaustible source of wealth.

The 'protector' next hands over his 'young friends' to 'executioners,'
who fleece them for the common benefit of the confederates. They do
not always wait for the coming of age of their young dupes in order to
strike the grand 'stroke.' When they find that the father of a family
shudders at the idea of a public scandal, they immolate their victim at
once--for fear lest he should escape from their hands. Of course they
are always open to 'capitulate'--to come to terms; and if the aid of the
law is invoked they give in discreetly.

About a century ago there flourished at Paris one of these adventurers,
who made a great noise and did a vast amount of evil. This man of a
thousand faces, this Proteus, as great a corrupter as he was corrupted,
changed his name, his quarters, and field of operations, according to
the exigences of business. Although a man of ardent temperament and
inconceivable activity, his cold-blooded rascality was never in a hurry.
He could wait; he could bide his time. Taking in, at a glance, all the
requirements of a case, and seeing through all its difficulties, he
worked out his scheme with the utmost patience and consummated his crime
with absolute security.

Sometimes he gave a concert for amateurs, elegant suppers for gay
ladies, and special soirees for the learned and the witty. He was not
particular as to the means of doing business; thus he trafficked
in everything,--for the sale of a living, or the procuration of a
mistress--for he had associates in all ranks, among all professions of
men.

He had twenty Faro ta