no detail of civil war
that he had not made his own, and he still remains, after nearly two
centuries, the greatest captain the world has seen. Never did he permit
an enterprise to fail by accident; never was he impelled by hunger or
improvidence to fight a battle unprepared. His means were always neatly
fitted to their end, as is proved by the truth that, throughout his
career, he was arrested but once, and then not by his own inadvertence
but by the treachery of others.
Yet from the moment of arrest Jack Sheppard asserted his magnificent
superiority. If Cartouche was a sorry bungler at prison-breaking,
Sheppard was unmatched in this dangerous art. The sport of the one was
to break in, of the other to break out. True, the Briton proved his
inferiority by too frequently placing himself under lock and key; but
you will forgive his every weakness for the unexampled skill wherewith
he extricated himself from the stubbornest dungeon. Cartouche would
scarce have given Sheppard a menial's office in his gang. How cordially
Sheppard would have despised Cartouche's solitary experiment in escape!
To be foiled by a dog and a boxmaker's daughter! Would not that have
seemed contemptible to the master breaker of those unnumbered doors and
walls which separate the Castle from the freedom of Newgate roof?
Such, then, is the contrast between the heroes. Sheppard claims our
admiration for one masterpiece. Cartouche has a sheaf of works, which
shall carry him triumphantly to the remotest future.
And when you forget a while professional rivalry, and consider the
delicacies of leisure, you will find the Frenchman's greatness still
indisputable. At all points he was the prettier gentleman. Sheppard, to
be sure, had a sense of finery, but he was so unused to grandeur
that vulgarity always spoiled his effects. When he hied him from the
pawnshop, laden with booty, he must e'en cram what he could not wear
into his pockets; and doubtless his vulgar lack of reticence made
detection easier. Cartouche, on the other hand, had an unfailing sense
of proportion, and was never more dressed than became the perfect dandy.
He was elegant, he was polished, he was joyous. He drank wine, while the
other soaked himself in beer; he despised whatever was common, while his
rival knew but the coarser flavours of life.
The one was distinguished by a boisterous humour, a swaggering pride in
his own prowess; the wit of the other might be edged like a knife, nor
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