“He was frequently seen, during lunch hour, amusing his companions with pretty tricks of sleight-of-hand which he had learned during the few months he had been with the gypsies. He had become so adept at this science that on special occasions little Louis and his family were invited to dinners and suppers before friends, for they looked forward to the enjoyment of these tricks of Louis’, and he became a great success in the quarter, and he, on his part, was proud of his growing renown. “In the meantime he had attained that happy period where the least sensitive of human beings feel the beating of their hearts awaken to the most tender sentiments. Louis Dominique was in love. The object of his affections was a charming needlewoman of the Rue Porte Foin, coquettish, with blue eyes, golden hair, and a fine figure. I have said that this needlewoman was a coquette. She loved dress, jewels and laces, and it was her desire always to be better clothed than her companions. The modest income of Louis Dominique did not permit of his paying for the extravagant fancies of his poor seamstress, and so Cartouche stole from his father. The latter soon found out and took steps by which he could have his boy placed in the Convent of the Lazaretto, in the Faubourg St. Denis.” “Ah,” said Théophraste, “instead of combating with kindness the wickedness of this child, they drive him to despair by incarcerating him where he only meets with bad examples, and where the feeling of revolt increases, and boils over, stifling all other feelings in his inexperienced mind. I wager that if they had not put Louis in the House of Correction, that all the trouble would never have happened.” “Reassure yourself,” said Adolphe. “Cartouche was never shut up in the Convent of the Lazaretto, for while his father had discovered this crime of Louis’, he did not tell him of it; but one Sunday morning, he asked his son to take a walk with him. Dominique readily acquiesced, and they were soon seen walking down the street together. “‘Where are we going, father?’ asked Louis. ‘No matter where. By way of the Faubourg St. Denis.’ Louis pricked up his ears. He knew that at the end of the Faubourg St. Denis was the Lazaretto, and he also knew that sometimes fathers escorted their boys to the Lazaretto. “He at once felt suspicious, for his conscience was not altogether tranquil, and when they arrived at the corner of the Faubourg St. Denis, and the battlement of the St. Lazaretto rose before them, it seemed to him that his father looked unnatural, and he felt uncomfortable at once. He told his father to continue his walk, slowly, without hurrying, as he wished to stop at the corner. When his father returned, the son had disappeared, and he never saw him again.”