Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1633 page)

On a Monday in the week he had stopped on the highway, and robbed of all his valuables and all his papers an Italian nobleman — the Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna. On Tuesday he was ready for another stroke of business. Posted on the top of a steep hill, he watched the road which wound up to the summit on one side, while his followers were ensconced on the road which led down from it on the other. The prize expected in this case was the traveling-carriage (with a large sum of money inside) of the Baron De Kirbergen.

Before long Poulailler discerned the carriage afar off at the bottom of the hill, and in advance of it, ascending the eminence, two ladies on foot. They were the Baron’s daughters — Wilhelmina, a fair beauty; Frederica, a brunette — both lovely, both accomplished, both susceptible, both young. Poulailler sauntered down the hill to meet the fascinating travelers. He looked, bowed, introduced himself, and fell in love with Wilhelmina on the spot. Both the charming girls acknowledged in the most artless manner that confinement to the carriage had given them the fidgets, and that they were walking up the hill to try the remedy of gentle exercise. Poulailler’s heart was touched, and Poulailler’s generosity to the sex was roused in the nick of time. With a polite apology to the young ladies, he ran back, by a short cut, to the ambush on the other side of the hill in which his men were posted.

“Gentlemen!” cried the generous thief, “in the charming name of Wilhelmina de Kirbergen, I charge you all, let the Baron’s carriage pass free.” The band was not susceptible; the band demurred. Poulailler knew them. He had appealed to their hearts in vain; he now appealed to their pockets. “Gentlemen!” he resumed, “excuse my momentary misconception of your sentiments. Here is my one-half share of the Marquis Petrucci’s property. If I divide it among you, will you let the carriage pass free?” The band knew the value of money, and accepted the terms. Poulailler rushed back up the hill, and arrived at the top just in time to hand the young ladies into the carriage. “Charming man!” said the white Wilhelmina to the brown Frederica, as they drove off. Innocent soul! what would she have said if she had known that her personal attractions had saved her father’s property? Was she ever to see the charming man again? Yes; she was to see him the next day — and, more than that, Fate was hereafter to link her fast to the robber’s life and the robber’s doom.

Confiding the direction of the band to his first lieutenant, Poulailler followed the carriage on horseback, and ascertained the place of the Baron’s residence that night.

The next morning a superbly-dressed stranger knocked at the door. “What name, sir?” said the servant. “The Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna,” replied Poulailler. “How are the young ladies after their journey?” The Marquis was shown in, and introduced to the Baron. The Baron was naturally delighted to receive a brother nobleman; Miss Wilhelmina was modestly happy to see the charming man again; Miss Frederica was affectionately pleased on her sister’s account. Not being of a disposition to lose time where his affections were concerned, Poulailler expressed his sentiments to the beloved object that evening. The next morning he had an interview with the Baron, at which he produced the papers which proved him to be the Marquis. Nothing could be more satisfactory to the mind of the most anxious parent — the two noblemen embraced. They were still in each other’s arms, when a second stranger knocked at the door. “What name, sir?” said the servant. “The Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna,” replied the stranger. “Impossible!” said the servant; “his lordship is now in the house.”

“Show me in, scoundrel,” cried the visitor. The servant submitted, and the two Marquises stood face to face. Poulailler’s composure was not shaken in the least; he had come first to the house, and he had got the papers. “You are the villain who robbed me!” cried the true Petrucci. “You are drunk, mad, or an impostor,” retorted the false Petrucci. “Send to Florence, where I am known,” exclaimed one of the Marquises, apostrophizing the Baron. “Send to Florence by all means,” echoed the other, addressing himself to the Baron also. “Gentlemen,” replied the noble Kirbergen, “I will do myself the honour of taking your advice” — and he sent to Florence accordingly.

Before the messenger had advanced ten miles on his journey, Poulailler had said two words in private to the susceptible Wilhelmina, and the pair eloped from the baronial residence that night. Once more the subject of this Memoir crossed the frontier, and re-entered France. Indifferent to the attractions of rural life, he forthwith established himself with the beloved object in Paris. In that superb city he met with his strangest adventures, performed his boldest achievements, committed his most prodigious robberies, and, in a word, did himself and his infernal patron the fullest justice in the character of the Fiend-Fisherman’s adopted son.

III. — HIS CAREER IN PARIS.

Once established in the French metropolis, Poulailler planned and executed that vast system of perpetual robbery and occasional homicide which made him the terror and astonishment of all Paris. Indoors as well as out his good fortune befriended him. No domestic anxieties harassed his mind, and diverted him from the pursuit of his distinguished public career. The attachment of the charming creature with whom he had eloped from Germany survived the discovery that the Marquis Petrucci was Poulailler the robber. True to the man of her choice, the devoted Wilhelmina shared his fortunes, and kept his house. And why not, if she loved him — in the all-conquering name of Cupid, why not?

Joined by picked men from his German followers, and by new recruits gathered together in Paris, Poulailler now set society and its safeguards at flat defiance. Cartouche himself was his inferior in audacity and cunning. In course of time, the whole city was panic-stricken by the new robber and his band — the very Boulevards were deserted after nightfall. Monsieur Herault, lieutenant of police of the period, in despair of laying hands on Poulailler by any other means, at last offered a reward of a hundred pistoles and a place in his office worth two thousand livres a year to any one who would apprehend the robber alive. The bills were posted all over Paris, and the next morning they produced the very last result in the world which the lieutenant of police could possibly have anticipated.

While Monsieur Héraultwas at breakfast in his study, the Count de Villeneuve was announced as wishing to speak to him. Knowing the Count by name only, as belonging to an ancient family in Provence or in Languedoc, Monsieur Héraultordered him to be shown in. A perfect gentleman appeared, dressed with an admirable mixture of magnificence and good taste. “I have something for your private ear, sir,” said the Count. “Will you give orders that no one must be allowed to disturb us?”

Monsieur Héraultgave the orders.

“May I inquire, Count, what your business is?” he asked when the door was closed.

“To earn the reward you offer for taking Poulailler,” answered the Count. “I am Poulailler.”

Before Monsieur Héraultcould open his lips, the robber produced a pretty little dagger and some rose-coloured silk cord. “The point of this dagger is poisoned,” he observed; “and one scratch of it, my dear sir, would be the death of you.” With these words Poulailler gagged the lieutenant of police, bound him to his chair with the rose-coloured cord, and lightened his writing-desk of one thousand pistoles. “I’ll take money, instead of taking the place in the office which you kindly offer,” said Poulailler. “Don’t trouble yourself to see me to the door. Good-morning.”

A few weeks later, while Monsieur Héraultwas still the popular subject of ridicule throughout Paris, business took Poulailler on the road to Lille and Cambrai. The only inside passenger in the coach besides himself was the venerable Dean Potter, of Brussels. They fell into talk on the one interesting subject of the time — not the weather, but Poulailler.

“It’s a disgrace, sir, to the police,” said the Dean, “that such a miscreant is still at large. I shall be returning to Paris by this road in ten days’ time, and I shall call on Monsieur Hérault to suggest a plan of my own for catching the scoundrel.”

“May I ask what it is?” said Poulailler.

“Excuse me,” replied the Dean; “you are a stranger, sir, and moreover I wish to keep the merit of suggesting the plan to myself.”

“Do you think the lieutenant of police will see you?” asked Poulailler; “he is not accessible to strangers, since the miscreant you speak of played him that trick at his own breakfast-table.”

“He will see Dean Potter, of Brussels,” was the reply, delivered with the slightest possible tinge of offended dignity.

“Oh, unquestionably!” said Poulailler; “pray pardon me.”

“Willingly, sir,” said the Dean; and the conversation flowed into other channels.

Nine days later the wounded pride of Monsieur Héraultwas soothed by a very remarkable letter. It was signed by one of Poulailler’s band, who offered himself as king’s evidence, in the hope of obtaining a pardon. The letter stated that the venerable Dean Potter had been waylaid and murdered by Poulailler, and that the robber, with his customary audacity, was about to re-enter Paris by the Lisle coach the next day, disguised in the Dean’s own clothes, and furnished with the Dean’s own papers. Monsieur Héraulttook his precautions without losing a moment. Picked men were stationed, with their orders, at the barrier through which the coach must pass to enter Paris, while the lieutenant of police waited at his office, in the company of two French gentlemen who could speak to the Dean’s identity, in the event of Poulailler’s impudently persisting in the assumption of his victim’s name.

At the appointed hour the coach appeared, and out of it got a man in the Dean’s costume. He was arrested in spite of his protestations; the papers of the murdered Potter were found on him, and he was dragged off to the police-office in triumph. The door opened and the
posse comitatus
entered with the prisoner. Instantly the two witnesses burst out with a cry of recognition, and turned indignantly on the lieutenant of police. “Gracious Heaven, sir, what have you done!” they exclaimed in horror; “this is not Poulailler — here is our venerable friend; here is the Dean himself!” At the same moment a servant entered with a letter. “Dean Potter. To the care of Monsieur Herault, Lieutenant of Police.” The letter was expressed in these words: “Venerable Sir — Profit by the lesson I have given you. Be a Christian for the future, and never again try to injure a man unless he tries to injure you. Entirely yours — Poulailler.”

These feats of cool audacity were matched by others, in which his generosity to the sex asserted itself as magnanimously as ever.

Hearing one day that large sums of money were kept in the house of a great lady, one Madame De Brienne, whose door was guarded, in anticipation of a visit from the famous thief, by a porter of approved trustworthiness and courage, Poulailler undertook to rob her in spite of her precautions, and succeeded. With a stout pair of leather straps and buckles in his pocket, and with two of his band disguised as a coachman and a footman, he followed Madame De Brienne one night to the theater. Just before the close of the performance, the lady’s coachman and footman were tempted away for five minutes by Poulailler’s disguised subordinates to have a glass of wine. No attempt was made to detain them, or to drug their liquor. But in their absence Poulailler had slipped under the carriage, had hung his leather straps round the pole — one to hold by, and one to support his feet — and, with these simple preparations, was now ready to wait for events. Madame De Brienne entered the carriage — the footman got up behind — Poulailler hung himself horizontally under the pole, and was driven home with them under those singular circumstances. He was strong enough to keep his position after the carriage had been taken into the coach-house, and he only left it when the doors were locked for the night. Provided with food beforehand, he waited patiently, hidden in the coach-house, for two days and nights, watching his opportunity of getting into Madame De Brienne’s boudoir.

On the third night the lady went to a grand ball; the servants relaxed in their vigilance while her back was turned, and Poulailler slipped into the room. He found two thousand louis d’ors, which was nothing like the sum he expected, and a pocketbook, which he took away with him to open at home. It contained some stock warrants for a comparatively trifling amount. Poulailler was far too well off to care about taking them, and far too polite, where a lady was concerned, not to send them back again, under those circumstances. Accordingly, Madame De Brienne received her warrants, with a note of apology from the polite thief.

“Pray excuse my visit to your charming boudoir,” wrote Poulailler, “in consideration of the false reports of your wealth, which alone induced me to enter it. If I had known what your pecuniary circumstances really were, on the honour of a gentleman, madame, I should have been incapable of robbing you. I cannot return your two thousand louis d’ors by post, as I return your warrants. But if you are at all pressed for money in future, I shall be proud to assist so distinguished a lady by lending her, from my own ample resources, double the sum of which I regret to have deprived her on the present occasion.” This letter was shown to royalty at Versailles. It excited the highest admiration of the Court — especially of the ladies. Whenever the robber’s name was mentioned, they indulgently referred to him as the Chevalier De Poulailler. Ah! that was the age of politeness, when good-breeding was recognised, even in the thief. Under similar circumstances, who would recognise it now?” O tempera! O mores! On another occasion Poulailler was out one night taking the air, and watching his opportunities on the roofs of the houses, a member of the band being posted in the street below to assist him in case of necessity. While in this position, sobs and groans proceeding from an open back-garret window caught his ear. A parapet rose before the window, which enabled him to climb down and look in. Starving children surrounding a helpless mother, and clamoring for food, was the picture that met his eye. The mother was young and beautiful, and Poulailler’s hand impulsively clutched his purse, as a necessary consequence. Before the charitable thief could enter by the window, a man rushed in by the door with a face of horror, and cast a handful of gold into the lovely mother’s lap. “My honour is gone,” he cried, “but our children are saved! Listen to the circumstances. I met a man in the street below; he was tall and thin; he had a green patch over one eye; he was looking up suspiciously at this house, apparently waiting for somebody. I thought of you — I thought of the children — I seized the suspicious stranger by the collar. Terror overwhelmed him on the spot. ‘Take my watch, my money, and my two valuable gold snuff-boxes,’ he said, ‘but spare my life.’ I took them.” “Noble-hearted man!” cried Poulailler, appearing at the window. The husband started; the wife screamed; the children hid themselves. “Let me entreat you to be composed,” continued Poulailler. “Sir! I enter on the scene for the purpose of soothing your uneasy conscience. From your vivid description, I recognise the man whose property is now in your wife’s lap. Resume your mental tranquillity. You have robbed a robber — in other words, you have vindicated society. Accept my congratulations on your restored innocence. The miserable coward whose collar you seized is one of Poulailler’s band. He has lost his stolen property as the fit punishment for his disgraceful want of spirit.”