bted coiner. He
had carried on the business with a dexterity that won admiration even
for the offence; and, moreover, he had served previously with some
distinction at Austerlitz and Marengo. The consequence was that the
public went with instead of against him, and his sentence was transmuted
to three years' imprisonment by the government. For all governments in
free countries aspire rather to be popular than just.

No sooner was this case reported in the journals--and even the gravest
took notice, of it (which is not common with the scholastic journals
of France)--no sooner did it make a stir and a sensation, and cover the
criminal with celebrity, than the result became noticeable in a very
large issue of false money.

Coining in the year I now write of was the fashionable crime. The police
were roused into full vigour: it became known to them that there was one
gang in especial who cultivated this art with singular success. Their
coinage was, indeed, so good, so superior to all their rivals, that it
was often unconsciously preferred by the public to the real mintage. At
the same time they carried on their calling with such secrecy that they
utterly baffled discovery.

An immense reward was offered by the bureau to any one who would
betray his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a
commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and
was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted
coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart
was a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable
research, and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we
suppose. It is a popular error to suppose that courage means courage in
everything. Put a hero on board ship at a five-barred gate, and, if he
is not used to hunting, he will turn pale; put a fox-hunter on one of
the Swiss chasms, over which the mountaineer springs like a roe, and
his knees will knock under him. People are brave in the dangers to which
they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice.

Monsieur Favart, then, was a man of the most daring bravery in facing
rogues and cut-throats. He awed them with his very eye; yet he had been
known to have been kicked down-stairs by his wife, and when he was drawn
into the grand army, he deserted the eve of his first battle. Such, as
moralists say, is the inconsistency of man!

But Monsieur Favart was sworn to trace