This title of honor stuck, and his fame seemed to inspire him with additional ardor and address. His affairs having led him to Cambray, he happened to have for a travelling companion the Dean of a well-known noble Belgian chapter. The conversation rolled on the notorieties of the day, and Poulailler was a more interesting theme than the weather. But our chevalier was destined to listen to observations that did not much flatter his self-esteem, for the Dean, so far from allowing him any merit whatever as a brigand, characterized him as an infamous and miserable cutpurse, adding, that at his first and approaching visit to Paris, he would make it his business to see the lieutenant of police, and reproach him with the small pains he took to lay so vile a scoundrel by the heels. The journey passed off without the occurrence of any thing remarkable; but about a month after this colloquy M. Hérault received a letter, informing him that on the previous evening, M. de Potter, _chanoine-doyen_ of the noble chapter of Brussels, had been robbed and murdered by Poulailler, who, clad in the habits of his victim, and furnished with his papers, would enter the barrier St. Martin. This letter purported to have been written by one of his accomplices, who had come to the determination of denouncing him in the hope of obtaining pardon. The horror of M. Hérault at the death of this dignified ecclesiastic, who was personally unknown to him, was, if the truth must be told, merged in the delight which that magistrate felt in the near prospect of avenging society and himself on this daring criminal. A cloud of police officers hovered in ambush at each of the barriers, and especially at that which bore the name of the saint who divided his cloak with the poor pilgrim, with directions to seize and bring into the presence of M. Hérault a man habited as an ecclesiastic, and with the papers of the Dean of the Brussels chapter. Towards evening the Lille coach arrived, was surrounded and escorted to the hôtel des Messageries, and at the moment when the passengers descended, the officers pounced upon the personage whose appearance and vestments corresponded with their instructions.