Publisher's Synopsis
Author S. Weir Mitchell has given us a lurid picture of the last days of the French Revolution. The hero, who is by turns, foundling, thief, juggler and fencing master, according to the exigencies of the hour, has a career almost as remarkable as any achieved during that stormy period of French history. Himself continually dodging Death in some of the violent forms then in vogue, he is twice the means of saving a noble family from the guillotine, and that by accident rather than from any natural sympathy with the Aristocrats. Although he can never he brought to regard the practice of thieving in a proper light, or to take a strictly moral view of his youthful delinquencies which he persists in regarding as incidental to a legitimate profession from which, like other professional men, he has retired, he ends his days in respectable service and dies peacefully in his bed. In spite of his dubious birth and the unfortunate circumstances of his chequered life, he is, on the whole, a fine character. He is possessed of a grand courage, unfailing devotion where devotion is due, wit as nimble as his fingers and, above all, a lightness of heart and a cheerful philosophy which carry him on when most other men would have given up the unequal struggle with fate. "This Francois," says the narrator of the tale, "was what people call a character. He had a great heart and no conscience, was fond of flowers, of birds and of children;pleased to chat of his pilferings, liking the fun of the astonishment he thus caused. Had he really no belief in its being wrong to steal? I do not know. The fellow was so humorous that he sometimes left one puzzled and uncertain." There are many readers who will perfectly understand his difficulty in distinguishing between degrees of theft. There are even some who may hold that theft to save oneself from starvation is a virtue compared with some of the forms of thieving practiced in respectable society. The manner of Francois' death is in keeping with the traditions of his life. He takes to his bed in chagrin when a favorite parrot is stolen from under his very nose as it were, the mortification arising, not so much from his loss, as from the fact that so old and practiced a thief should be out-witted by one of his own craft. "He died quietly a few days after, saying to the priest who had given him the final rites of the Church: M. le Cure-the gold snuff-box the duke gave you." "Well, my son? 'The left hand pocket is the safer, we look not there.'"
The writer tells his story forcibly and well, and is evidently as much at home in the Slums of Paris as on the Boulevards, which enables him to present us with contrasts of character that prevent the monotony which frequently attends the story of low life. We meet the duke as well as the thief, and as a contrast to the sketch of the repulsive ""Quatre Pattes,"" the old hag of the "Cite," the thieves' quarter, we are introduced to the gentle and refined woman of noble birth. Readers who are not intolerant of any fiction that does not deal exclusively with that section of society to which they themselves belong, and who can condescend to. be interested in a thief, will find the relation of his adventures not only very entertaining, but by no means devoid of pathos."
