which consists in obtaining the confessions of prisoners and thereby getting information from them, has been attributed to the modern police, particularly to Vidocq and his successors.

The invention is not a commendable one; but I do not think that it belongs to our time. Police officers of a low order have always had recourse to such stratagems. Vidocq was especially clever in this way, because he was a peculiar individual; his antecedents and connections rendered him more apt than anybody else to gain the intimacy of malefactors. But Vidocq's system died with him; and if the celebrated police agent is still regarded as a giant in his own sphere, it must be acknowledged that his successors are dwarfs. Of course it is well known that these informers are necessary to the police; and they have been found in all times.

I hasten to add that the revelations which were made in the course of the executions of Cartouche's accomplices are quite different from modern confessions. Nowadays the prisoner is allured with a better treatment in prison, the hope of pecuniary remuneration and free pardon. Cartouche's accomplices were condemned, and never spoke during the investigation of this stupendous affair, which lasted two years. Many stoically suffered torture and did not confess; but their demeanour altered at the foot of the scaffold, their courage failed, and all the culprits asked to stop at the Hotel-de-Ville merely to prolong their lives. Cartouche, as we have seen, acted in the same way. However, he had chiefly

strived to exonerate his brothers, maintaining that they

had taken no part in his crimes, because he would not allow them to join him in his expeditions. His generosity had no effect; his young brother, who was scarcely fifteen years of age, and whom he particularly loved, was sentenced to hard labour for life, and also to be suspended under the armpits for two hours on the Place de Grève. This new species of punishment was invented by M. Arnauld de Boueix. Hardly was the child suspended than he began to utter frightful shrieks, saying that he would rather die at once than suffer so much. Charles Sanson and his assistants were astonished and embarrassed, not knowing the effects of a kind of punishment to which they were not used; but as young Cartouche was said to be precociously wicked, they thought there was exaggeration in his complaints. Seeing, however, that his face was reddening, and that he could speak no longer, they freed him before the expiration of the two hours. He was taken to the Hotel-de-Ville, where he died without returning to consciousness.

This accident was much talked of; and M. Arnauld de Boueix was loudly taxed with cruelty. Tanton, uncle of the victim, was hanged on the same day.

In March 1723 trials were still going on. One of Cartouche's notorious accomplices was broken on the wheel. Like his predecessors, he halted at the Hotel-deVille and incriminated one hundred persons.

I have now done with this association, of which the existence has often been contested; but I must complete this chapter by rapidly enumerating a few other executions which took place at the time. The first was that

of Pélissier, a bold robber, who, disguised as a surgeon and a gendarme, had perpetrated crimes worthy of Cartouche himself. Having sufficiently 'worked,' he retired from 'business,' and went to Lyons, where he was living comfortably when he was arrested and transferred to Paris. His trial was soon concluded, although he denied that he had any accomplices. He had placed his fortune, which was considerable, in the Bank of Venice, and he was on the point of leaving France when he was arrested. His execution was one of the last by the hand of Charles Sanson. Although young, his health was rapidly declining, and a constitutional malady was fast leading him to an early grave. He was almost dying when, on May 24, 1726, he was, as it were, compelled to rise from his bed to watch the preparation of a punishment not frequently resorted toburning. It was inflicted on Étienne Benjamin des Chauffours, a gentleman from Lorraine, for an infamous crime.

Charles Sanson did not survive this execution by many days. He died on September 12, 1726, at the age of forty-five. His widow gave him a superb funeral in the Church of St. Laurent. He left three children; the eldest was a girl, Anne-Renée Sanson, who married a man named Zelle, of Soissons; and two sons, Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson and Nicolas Charles Gabriel Sanson; born, the first in April 1719, the second in 1721. The age of these two heirs of the sword of the law was an excellent opportunity for declining the bequest. Their mother judged otherwise, and took active steps to obtain

for Charles Jean-Baptiste the official investiture of the sinister office left vacant by his father, although he was only seven years old. This woman's severe face, of which I have a likeness, shows that she must have possessed a singular temper. She certainly had strange notions of the duties of maternity, for she did her utmost to obtain the post of executioner for the child. She was recommended by the criminal lieutenant and the procureur-général, and Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson was appointed. During his minority, two questionnaires discharged the functions in his name; these were Georges Hérisson, who eventually became executioner of Melun, and a certain Prudhomme.

Although the child invariably accompanied his locum tenens, and was present at all executions to legalise them by his presence, he was too young to note his impressions as his father and grandfather had done. There is, therefore, a gap in these memoirs, which prevents me from alluding to several well-known executions.

CHAPTER X.

DAMIENS THE REGICIDE.

ONE evening, at the Palace of Versailles, Louis XV. was leaving the apartments of Mesdames, accompanied by the Dauphin and a part of the Court. He went down the flight of steps which led to the entrance of the palace, before which his carriage was waiting. It was bitterly cold; everybody was shivering, and the King, who was of a chilly disposition, wore two overcoats, one of which was lined with fur. As he was preparing to step into the carriage, a man rushed between the guards, forced back the Dauphin and the Duke d'Ayen, and struck the King, who exclaimed:

Some one has given me a fearful blow!'

In the confusion caused by the double movement of the crowd that pressed forward to have a glimpse of the King, and the guards who kept them off, no one seemed to be aware of what had taken place. However, a footman who had seen the stranger place his hand on the King's shoulder, rushed upon him, and captured him, with the assistance of two other footmen.

The King passed his hand under his vest and perIceived that he was wounded. At the same time he