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Fil-de-Soie, an egotistical philosopher, who thieved to provide for the future, was a good deal like Paccard, Jacques Collin's satellite, who had fled with Prudence Servien and the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs between them. He had no attachment, he condemned women, and loved no one but Fil-de-Soie. As to le Biffon, he derived his nickname from his connection with la Biffe.
As for Fil-de-Soie, he will be under the daisies in less than a fortnight, even if you were to tell off the whole force to protect him. How much did you give the Michonnette?" he asked of the police officers. "A thousand crowns? Oh you Ninon in decay, Pompadour in tatters, Venus of the graveyard, I was worth more than that! If you had given me warning, you should have had six thousand francs.
Le Biffon was a complete contrast to Fil-de-Soie. This famous robber, short, burly, and fat, but active, with a livid complexion, and deep-set black eyes, dressed like a cook, standing squarely on very bandy legs, was alarming to behold, for in his countenance all the features predominated that are most typical of the carnivorous beast.
"By Jingo! Yes, it is Trompe-la-Mort," said le Biffon, rubbing his hands. "Yes, it is his cut, his build; but what has he done to himself? He looks quite different." "I know what he is up to!" cried Fil-de-Soie; "he has some plan in his head.
And he drew away from Napolitas, of whom he had been very suspicious from the first. Then he said to his pals in an undertone: "He is on the bottom step of the Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret, but I am the Prior! I will show you how well I know how to come round the beaks. I mean to snatch this boy's nut from their jaws." "For the sake of his breeches!" said Fil-de-Soie with a smile.
"Only innocent souls can be thus worked on by their imagination," said Jacques Collin. "For, observe, he was the loser by the theft." "How much money was it?" asked Fil-de-Soie, the deep and cunning. "Seven hundred and fifty thousand francs," said Jacques Collin blandly. The three convicts looked at each other and withdrew from the group that had gathered round the sham priest.
Le Biffon and Fil-de-Soie would be sentenced for a term of fifteen years for robbery with violence, without prejudice to the ten years' penal servitude on a former sentence, which they had taken the liberty of cutting short. So, though one had twenty-two and the other twenty-six years of imprisonment to look forward to, they both hoped to escape, and come back to find la Pouraille's mine of gold.
"Well, my boy," Fil-de-Soie was saying sententiously as Jacques Collin appeared on the scene, "the difference between Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort is " "Well, old cock?" said the lad, with the curiosity of a novice. This prisoner, a man of good family, accused of forgery, had come down from the cell next to that where Lucien had been.
This terrible trio were at the further end of the prison-yard, that is to say, near the better class of cells. Fil-de-Soie was giving a lecture to a young man who was IN for his first offence, and who, being certain of ten years' penal servitude, was gaining information as to the various convict establishments.
Fil-de-Soie, if seen in his undisguised person, would have been marked by any constable or gendarme as his prey; but he was a match for Jacques Collin in the arts of make-up and dress.
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