Anthelme Collet stands out in the long list of swindlers as one of the most insinuating and accomplished scoundrels that ever took to criminal ways. A number of curious stories have survived of his ingenuity, his daring, and his long, almost unbroken, success. He is a product of the French revolutionary epoch, and found his account in the general dislocation of society that prevailed in France and her subject countries in the commencement of the last century. Collet's parents lived in the department of the Aisne, where he was born in 1785. From his childhood up he was noted as a consummate liar and cunning thief, and to cure him of his evil propensities he was sent to an uncle in Italy, a priest, who kept him by his side for three years, but made nothing of him. Young Collet then returned to France, and entered the military school at Fontainebleau, from which he graduated as _sous-lieutenant_, and passed on to a regiment in garrison at Brescia. Here he soon made friends with the monks of a neighbouring Capuchin monastery, and, preferring their society to that of his comrades, became the subject of constant gibes. Exasperated by this, and chafing at the restraints of military discipline, he resolved to desert. A wound received in a duel strengthened him in this determination. He was sent for cure to a hospital, that of San Giacomo, in Naples, and there met a Dominican monk, chaplain of the order, who persuaded him to take the cowl. Collet also earned the gratitude of a sick mate, a major in the French army, whom he seems to have nursed, but who was so seriously wounded that he did not recover. At his death the Major left Collet all his possessions--3,000 francs in money, a gold watch, and two very valuable rings. [Illustration: Anthelme Collet (_From a Contemporary Engraving._)] Collet, in due course, entered as a novice with the brothers of St. Pierre, and was soon so high in the good graces of his companions that the Prior appointed him _quêteur_, the brother selected to seek alms and subscriptions for his convent. The young man's greed could not resist the handling of money; he quickly succumbed to temptation, misappropriated the funds he collected, and returned to the convent from his first mission several thousand francs short in his accounts. Fearing detection, he made up his mind to disappear. One day, talking with his friend the syndic of the town, he succeeded in securing a number of passports signed in blank. Then he went to the Prior, and informed him that he had come into a large fortune, but had hesitated to claim it as he was a deserter from his regiment. If the Prior would protect him he would now do so, and on this he was permitted to go to Naples, armed with introductions to a bank, and other credentials from the convent.