The confusion that reigned in the best of all possible castles, the next morning, may be conceived; but we must leave the baron blaspheming, and the baroness in hysterics, to follow the fugitives, who gained France in safety, and were soon lost in the labyrinths of Paris. There he was soon joined by his band, to the great loss and terror of the honest people of the good city. Every day, M. Hérault, the lieutenant of police, was saluted by new cases of robbery and violence, which his ablest officers could neither prevent nor punish. The organization of the band was so complete, and the head so ably directed the hands, that neither life nor property was considered safe from one moment to another. Nor were accounts of the generosity of the chief occasionally wanting to add to his fame. One night, as Poulailler was traversing the roofs with the agility of a cat, for the purpose of entering a house whose usual inmates were gone into the country, he passed the window of a garret whence issued a melancholy concert of sobs and moans. He stopped, and approached the apartment of a helpless family, without resources, without bread, and suffering the pangs of hunger. Touched by their distress, and remembering his own similar sufferings before Fortune favored him, he was about to throw his purse among them, when the door of the chamber opened violently, and a man, apparently beside himself, rushed in with a handful of gold, which he cast upon the floor. "There," cried he, in a voice broken by emotion--"there, take--buy--eat; but it will cost you dear. I pay for it with my honor and peace of mind. Baffled in all my attempts to procure food for you honestly, I was on my despairing return, when I beheld, at a short distance from me, a tall, but slight-made man, who walked hurriedly, but yet with an air as if he expected some one. Ah! thought I, this is some lover; and yielding to the temptation of the fiend, I seized him by the collar. The poor creature was terrified, and, begging for mercy, put into my hands this watch, two gold snuff-boxes, and those louis, and fled. There they are; they will cost me my life. I shall never survive this infamy." The starving wife re-echoed these sentiments, and even the hungry children joined in the lamentations of the miserable father. All this touched Pierre to the quick. To the great terror of the family, he entered the room, and stood in the midst. "Be comforted," said he to the astonished husband; "you have robbed a robber. The infamous coward who gave up to you this plunder, is one of Poulailler's sentinels. Keep it; it is yours." "But who are you?" cried the husband and wife; "who are you, and by what right is it that you thus dispose of the goods of another?" "By the right of a chief over his subalterns. I am Poulailler." The poor family fell on their knees, and asked what they could do for him. "Give me a light," said Pierre, "that I may get down into the street without breaking my neck."