s space of twenty years? Let us return to his infancy.

His unconquerable taste for theft caused him to be expelled by the
relations who had taken charge of him. An anecdote is told which shows
his impudence and incurable perversity. One day he was caught taking
some money, and was soundly whipped by his cousins. When this was over,
the child, instead of showing any sorrow or asking forgiveness, ran away
with a sneer, and seeing they were out of breath, exclaimed--

"You are tired, are you? Well, I am not!"

Despairing of any control over this evil disposition, the relations
refused to keep him, and sent him to Chartres, where two other cousins
agreed to have him, out of charity. They were simpleminded women, of
great and sincere piety, who imagined that good example and religious
teaching might have a happy influence on their young relation. The
result was contrary to their expectation: the sole fruit of their
teaching was that Derues learnt to be a cheat and a hypocrite, and to
assume the mask of respectability.

Here also repeated thefts insured him sound corrections. Knowing his
cousins' extreme economy, not to say avarice, he mocked them when they
broke a lath over his shoulders: "There now, I am so glad; that will cost
you two farthings!"

His benefactresses' patience becoming exhausted, he left their house, and
was apprenticed to a tinman at Chartres. His master died, and an
ironmonger of the same town took him as shop-boy, and from this he passed
on to a druggist and grocer. Until now, although fifteen years old, he
had shown no preference for one trade more than another, but it was now
necessary he should choose some profession, and his share in the family
property amounted to the modest sum of three thousand five hundred
livres. His residence with this last master revealed a decided taste,
but it was only another evil instinct developing itself: the poisoner had
scented poison, being always surrounded with drugs which were
health-giving or hurtful, according to the use made of them. Derues
would probably have settled at Chartres, but repeated thefts obliged him
to leave the town. The profession of druggist and grocer being one which
presented most chances of fortune, and being, moreover, adapted to his
tastes, his family apprenticed him to a grocer in the rue Comtesse
d'Artois, paying a specified premium for him.

Derues arrived in Paris in 1760. It was a new horizon, where he was
unknown;