equivalent to a Bow Street runner) "looking out for his man."
The gendarme boasts of many names in French slang; when he is after a
thief, he is "the man with the bracelets" (marchand de lacets); when
he has him in charge, he is a bird of ill-omen (hirondelle de la
Greve); when he escorts him to the scaffold, he is "groom to the
guillotine" (hussard de la guillotine).
To complete our study of the prison-yard, two more of the prisoners
must be hastily sketched in. Selerier, alias l'Auvergnat, alias le
Pere Ralleau, called le Rouleur, alias Fil-de-Soie--he had thirty
names, and as many passports--will henceforth be spoken of by this
name only, as he was called by no other among the swell-mob. This
profound philosopher, who saw a spy in the sham priest, was a brawny
fellow of about five feet eight, whose muscles were all marked by
strange bosses. He had an enormous head in which a pair of half-closed
eyes sparkled like fire--the eyes of a bird of prey, with gray, dull,
skinny eyelids. At first glance his face resembled that of a wolf, his
jaws were so broad, powerful, and prominent; but the cruelty and even
ferocity suggested by this likeness were counterbalanced by the
cunning and eagerness of his face, though it was scarred by the
smallpox. The margin of each scar being sharply cut, gave a sort of
wit to his expression; it was seamed with ironies. The life of a
criminal--a life of danger and thirst, of nights spent bivouacking on
the quays and river banks, on bridges and streets, and the orgies of
strong drink by which successes are celebrated--had laid, as it were,
a varnish over these features. Fil-de-Soie, if seen in his undisguised
person, would have been marked by any constable or gendarme as his
prey; but he was a match for Jacques Collin in the arts of make-up and
dress. Just now Fil-de-Soie, in undress, like a great actor who is
well got up only on the stage, wore a sort of shooting jacket bereft
of buttons, and whose ripped button-holes showed the white lining,
squalid green slippers, nankin trousers now a dingy gray, and on his
head a cap without a peak, under which an old bandana was tied,
streaky with rents, and washed out.
Le Biffon was a complete contrast to Fil-de-Soie. This famous robber,
short, burly, and fat, but active, with a livid complexion, and deep-
set black eyes, dressed like a cook, standing squarely on very bandy
legs, was alarming to behold, for in his countenance all the features
predominated that are most typical of the carnivorous beast.
Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon were always wheedling la Pouraille, who had
lost all hope. The murderer knew that he would be tried, sentenced,
and executed within four months. Indeed, Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon, la
Pouraille's chums, never called him anything but le Chanoine de
l'Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret (a grim paraphrase for a man condemned to
the guillotine). It is easy to understand why Fil-de-Soie and le
Biffon should fawn on la Pouraille. The man had somewhere hidden two
hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold, his share of the spoil
found in the house of the Crottats, the "victims," in newspaper
phrase. What a splendid fortune to leave to two pals, though the two
old stagers would be sent back to the galleys within a few days! Le
Biffon and Fil-de-Soie would be sentenced for a term of fifteen years
for robbery with violence, without prejudice to the ten years' penal
servitude on a former sentence, which they had taken the liberty of
cutting short. So, though one had twenty-two and the other twenty-six