been introduced by the lieutenant-criminel,
together with his comrade, Maurice Quinault, into
Cartouche's dungeon, he read to the prisoner
the manuscript of his piece, and received from
him several counsels by which he profited. That
he noticed upon a table near him several twenty-
five sou pieces, and that he asked him if he
were in want of money; at which Cartouche
answered that he was, because money served
him to drink with his keepers, who were put to
a great deal of trouble and inconvenience on
his account. That, as for the rest, he did not
complain of his food and drink, but only of his
bed, which consisted of five bunches of straw.
Legrand added, that M. the Lieutenant-criminel
testified a desire to read the manuscript, because
he was too busy preparing for the trial to go to
the theatre and see the comedy acted, and that
three days afterwards he had the honour of offering
him (il lui fit hommage) a very handsome copy.

This was pretty well—or pretty ill; but in
his last confession, in his testament de mort, as
it was called, Balagny, one of Cartouche's
confederates (a young man only twenty years of
age, who was " broken" on the twenty-third of
December), gave a much more explicit account
of what occurred. " You know," he said, " that
while the case for the prosecution was being got
up, M. the Lieutenant- criminel and M. the
Procureur du Roi (the king's attorney) dined and
slept every day at the Chatelet, in a chamber
over the gaoler's room. One day they came into
my room with their napkins under their arm,
with the air of people who had been enjoying a
good dinner. They were accompanied by
gentlemen in black coats, whom they told me were
M. Legrand, the author of a piece entitled
Cartouche, and M. Quinault, who had to fill the part
of my unhappy comrade. They then sent for
Cartouche himself, and after they had treated
us to refreshments, they begged us to execute
some thieves' tricks before them and to talk
slang, wliich we willingly did. The two actors
took notes of the slang, and repeated the tricks
one by one as we performed them. At last the
Procureur du Roi and the Lieutenant-criminel
joined the game, and tried to "do" a handkerchief,
a watch, and a snuff-box, at first badly
enough, but afterwards a little better.
Cartouche even declared that M. the Lieutenant-
criminel had capabilities, and that if taken young,
as he had been, he might have done something.
We all laughed a great deal, and passed an
excellent evening."

Barbier, who kept a journal at that period,
which has been preserved, relates the story in
nearly the same terms, and then adds: " It must
be confessed that this is very indecent!"
Afterwards he mentions the gossip that Parliament
had had " the littleness" to send for these two
worthy officials and reprimand them for having
exhibited Cartouche in prison to such crowds of
people. Cartouche was arrested on the
fourteenth of October; on the twentieth, he figured,
by proxy, on the stage. The Mercure de France
records the first performance of "Arlequin-
Cartouche, an Italian comedy in five acts, with
no other dénoûment than the capture of the
robber. It is a set of thieves' tricks, out of
which several scenes have been composed and
hurriedly put together, in order to forestal
another piece bearing the same title which has
been announced on the bills of the Théâtre
Français. This comedy was performed, for the
first time, on Monday, the twentieth of October,
at the theatre of the Palais Royal. It was
withdrawn after thirteen crowded representations,
on the eleventh of November. Although
it is a piece which consists entirely of action,
we should not have failed to give some account
of the principal scenes, in order to convey some
idea of the piece to those who have not seen
it; but respectable persons, to whose opinion
we willingly submit, have counselled us not to
enter into any such detail." These " respectable
persons" are very annoying; they have put a
stopper on the curiosity of posterity ; for
Barbier's journal is not more explicit. " Arlequin,"
he says, " who is very simple and a good actor,
performs a hundred tricks of passe-passe or
legerdemain." But in what those tricks
consisted we shall probably never know. The
authors of the Comédie Italienne only sketched
out the canvas of their pieces, and left the
dialogue to the imagination of the actors. Those
only of their pieces were printed which had
commanded a long success; and as this one was
interrupted at the thirteenth performance, it is
probable that it was never printed—at least,
biblio-maniacs have hitherto been unable to ferret it out.

The authors and actors of the Comédie
Italienne were quite in the right to make haste;
their competitor's piece had been written two
years, and what is more, had received the royal
approval. "From the fifteenth of March,
privilege of the king accorded to the Sieur
Legrand, one of his ordinary comedians, to have
printed a work of his composition, entitled le
R. de C. (The Royaume; or, the Règne of
Cartouche), and other works, both those which he
has already composed, and those which he may
compose hereafter." The permission to print
did not carry with it the permission to act. The
censorship, perceiving that the piece was a satire
on the agents employed to take Cartouche,
delayed its approbation until the bandit's actual
capture should be effected, for which they had
to wait more than two years. This took place
on the fourteenth of October, seventeen hundred
and twenty-one; and two days afterwards we
find at the bottom of Legrand's manuscript,
"Seen, and permitted to be represented."

Barbier thus expresses his opinion of these
proceedings: "On Tuesday, the twenty-first,
they played at the Comédie Franchise, Cartouche,
a little piece written by Legrand, tolerably
pretty; an astonishing number of people go to
see it. For the rest, people of good sense will
take it ill that they should allow the representation,
on the stage, of a man who actually exists,
who is interrogated (which is equivalent to being
tried) every day, and whose end will be to be
'wheeled' (roué) alive. It is not decent." A few
days after the execution, he adds: "To complete