Collet was born at Belley, in the department of the Ain, and from his earliest days gave evidence of a desire to go wrong. He was a born thief and an unmitigated liar, and as he was constantly in trouble his family handed him over to a maternal uncle, a priest, on the point of expatriating himself because he could not take the oath exacted from all ecclesiastics. Three years later Collet returned from Italy and entered the military school at Fontainebleau, and was presently incorporated as a sub-lieutenant in an infantry regiment. He had seen too much of the priests to take kindly to soldiering, and when in garrison at Brescia, he spent more time in the Capuchin monastery than in the barracks. Soon after this his regiment went on service, and he was seriously wounded. While in hospital at Naples he nursed a French major, who died in his arms and gratefully bequeathed him all he possessed, a sum of three thousand francs and some valuable jewelry. When Collet was discharged from the hospital, he joined the monks and was associated with a body of missioners destined for La Pouille. Collet’s task was that of treasurer. Returning to his monastery on one occasion, he found himself short of three thousand francs, which he had embezzled, and he saw nothing for it but flight. He had been kindly received by the syndic of the town, from whose office he had stolen a number of passports signed in blank. He had no intention of staying at the monastery, and persuaded the superior that he had an inheritance to claim in France, to which, being a deserter, he dared not return. He got a letter of introduction to a banker at Naples, and was entrusted with a valuable diamond ring and commissioned to buy another like it in that city. Collet managed to swindle the banker out of 22,000 francs, kept the ring, bought a smart suit of clothes and, filling up a blank passport as the Marquis de Darda, proceeded to Capua. Here he picked up a portfolio containing the papers of Chevalier de Tolozan, which title he now adopted with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and passed on to Rome. Here he found a French ecclesiastic, a native of Lyons and an intimate of the Tolozan family, who took Collet under his wing and introduced him to Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle and the then Archbishop of Lyons. Collet made the most of his time, and swindled people, right and left,--60,000 francs here and 20,000 there; 5,000 and 10,000 more borrowed under false pretences, with jewels stolen from tradesmen, and moneys craftily secured. Rome became too hot for him. He filled up a new passport, called himself a bishop, changed costume and character and went to live in the city of Mondovi, safe from the police, already in pursuit of him. Well furnished with funds Collet threw off his guise of priest, and led a life of pleasure with the young dandies of the place, among whom he created a desire to perform in amateur theatricals. Subscriptions were raised, Collet becoming _costumier_.