ew of the gang, of which he had
been at once the terror and inspiration, suffered a like fate. Such the
career and such the fitting end of the most distinguished marauder the
world has known. Thackeray, with no better guide than a chap-book, was
minded to belittle him, now habiting him like a scullion, now sending
him forth on some petty errand of cly-faking. But for all Thackeray's
contempt his fame is still undimmed, and he has left the reputation of
one who, as thief unrivalled, had scarce his equal as wit and dandy
even in the days when Louis the Magnificent was still a memory and an
example.

III--A PARALLEL

(SHEPPARD AND CARTOUCHE)

IF the seventeenth century was the golden age of the hightobyman, it was
at the advent of the eighteenth that the burglar and street-robber plied
their trade with the most distinguished success, and it was the good
fortune of both Cartouche and Sheppard to be born in the nick of time.
Rivals in talent, they were also near contemporaries, and the Scourge of
Paris may well have been famous in the purlieus of Clare Market before
Jack the Slip-String paid the last penalty of his crimes. As each of
these great men harboured a similar ambition, so their careers are
closely parallel. Born in a humble rank of life, Jack, like Cartouche,
was the architect of his own fortune; Jack, like Cartouche, lived to be
flattered by noble dames and to claim the solicitude of his Sovereign;
and each owed his pre-eminence rather to natural genius than to a
sympathetic training.

But, for all the Briton's artistry, the Frenchman was in all points save
one the superior. Sheppard's brain carried him not beyond the wants of
to-day and the extortions of Poll Maggot.

Who knows but he might have been a respectable citizen, with never a
chance for the display of his peculiar talent, had not hunger and his
mistress's greed driven him upon the pad? History records no brilliant
robbery of his own planning, and so circumscribed was his imagination
that he must needs pick out his own friends and benefactors for
depredation. His paltry sense of discipline permitted him to be betrayed
even by his brother and pupil, and there was no cracksman of his time
over whose head he held the rod of terror. Even his hatred of Jonathan
Wild was the result not of policy but of prejudice. Cartouche, on the
other hand, was always perfect when at work. The master of himself, he
was also the master of his fellows. There was