en the same thing with thieving and public harlotry as with the stage,
the police, the priesthood, and the gendarmerie. In these six walks of
life the individual contracts an indelible character. He can no longer
be himself. The stigmata of ordination are as immutable as those of the
soldier are. And it is the same in other callings which are strongly
in opposition, strong contrasts with civilization. These violent,
eccentric, singular signs--sui generis--are what make the harlot, the
robber, the murderer, the ticket-of-leave man, so easily recognizable
by their foes, the spy and the police, to whom they are as game to the
sportsman: they have a gait, a manner, a complexion, a look, a color, a
smell--in short, infallible marks about them. Hence the highly-developed
art of disguise which the heroes of the hulks acquire.

One word yet as to the constitution of this world apart, which the
abolition of branding, the mitigation of penalties, and the silly
leniency of furies are making a threatening evil. In about twenty
years Paris will be beleaguered by an army of forty thousand reprieved
criminals; the department of the Seine and its fifteen hundred thousand
inhabitants being the only place in France where these poor wretches can
be hidden. To them Paris is what the virgin forest is to beasts of prey.

The swell-mob, or more exactly, the upper class of thieves, which is
the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the aristocracy of the tribe, had, in
1816, after the peace which made life hard for so many men, formed an
association called les grands fanandels--the Great Pals--consisting
of the most noted master-thieves and certain bold spirits at that time
bereft of any means of living. This word pal means brother, friend, and
comrade all in one. And these "Great Pals," the cream of the thieving
fraternity, for more than twenty years were the Court of Appeal, the
Institute of Learning, and the Chamber of Peers of this community. These
men all had their private means, with funds in common, and a code of
their own. They knew each other, and were pledged to help and succor
each other in difficulties. And they were all superior to the tricks or
snares of the police, had a charter of their own, passwords and signs of
recognition.

From 1815 to 1819 these dukes and peers of the prison world had formed
the famous association of the Ten-thousand (see _le Pere Goriot_), so
styled by reason of an agreement in virtue of which no job was to be
under