I learned from the duke and his son, as well as from M. des Illes, many more facts as to François than he himself recorded; the good old Curé Le Grand, who was a great friend of mine, also contributed some queer incidents of François's life; and thus it was that, when years had gone by, and I became dependent on my pen, I found myself able to write fully of this interesting product of Parisian life.
After considering the material in my possession, I soon discovered that it would not answer my purpose to let François's broken memoirs tell his story. There were names and circumstances in them which it were still unwise to print. Much of what I may call the scenery of his somewhat dramatic adventures was supplied by the singular knowledge of the Revolution which the curé delighted to furnish. The good priest was by far the most aged of this group, and yet to the last the most clear as to memories of a tragic past. Thus it came that I was led to write my story of François in the third person, with such enlightening aid as I obtained from those who knew him better than I.
In his defense I may be permitted to quote the curé's cautiously worded opinion:
"Oh, monsieur, no man knows another, and every man is ever another to himself. For you François is a thief, strangely proud of an exceptional career and of his victories over the precautions of those from whom he stole. Is it not so, monsieur?" I said it was. "But the bon Dieu alone knows all of a man. I was not a priest until after the great wars. God pardon me, but I like still to tell tales of Jena and Austerlitz, and of what we did in those days of victory. To kill men! The idea now fills me with horror, and yet I like nothing better, as monsieur well knows, than to talk of those days of battle. And François—'t is much the same. How could one live with these dear people, and get no lesson from their lives? Our gay, merry-minded François loved to surprise the staid folks who came hither to visit us; but I know that—ah, well, well, priests know many things."
I thanked him, but still had doubts as to whether the moral code of our friend François was ever materially altered by precept, example, or by the lack of necessity to carry on his interesting branch of industry.
Before telling his story I like to let him say for himself the only apologetic words I could discover in this memoir:
"I have no wish to write my whole life. I want to put down some things I saw and some scenes in which I was an actor. I am now old. I suppose, from what I am told, that I was wicked when I was young. But if one cannot see that he was a sinner, what then? The good God who made me knows that I was but a little Ishmaelite cast adrift on the streets to feed as I might. I defend not myself. I blame not the chances of life, nor yet the education which fate gave me. It was made to tempt one in need of food and shelter. 'T is a great thing to be able to laugh easily and often, and this good gift I had; and so, whether in safety or in peril, whether homeless or housed, I have gone through life merry. I had thought more, says M. le Curé, had I been less light of heart. But thus was I made, and, after all, it has its good side. I have always liked better the sun than the shadow; and as to relieving my wants, are the birds thieves?"
I noticed on the margins of François's memoirs remarks in a neat female handwriting, which he told me were made by Mme. des Illes, who alone had read his story.
At the end I found written: "If ever another should read what is set down in these pages, let them have the comment of charity. He who wrote them was by nature gifted with affection, good sense, and courage. He had many delicacies of character, but that of which nature meant to make a gentleman and a man of refinement, desertion and evil fortune made a thief and a reprobate. She who wrote this knew him as no one else did, and, with God's help, drew him out of the slough of crime and into a long life of honest ways. CLAIRE DES ILLES."
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF FRANÇOIS ***