He was an artist in evil, with whom, from the first, evil had
succeeded; a man misled by these early successes to continue the
plotting of infamous deeds within the lines of strict legality.
Becoming the head of a printing-office by betraying his master [see
"Lost Illusions"], he had afterwards been condemned to imprisonment as
editor of a liberal newspaper. In the provinces, under the
Restoration, he became the bete noire of the government, and was
called "that unfortunate Cerizet" by some, as people spoke of "the
unfortunate Chauvet" and "the heroic Mercier." He owed to this
reputation of persecuted patriotism a place as sub-prefect in 1830.
Six months later he was dismissed; but he insisted that he was judged
without being heard; and he made so much talk about it that, under the
ministry of Casimir Perier, he became the editor of an anti-republican
newspaper in the pay of the government. He left that position to go
into business, one phase of which was the most nefarious stock-company
that ever fell into the hands of the correctional police. Cerizet
proudly accepted the severe sentence he received; declaring it to be a
revengeful plot on the part of the republicans, who, he said, would
never forgive him for the hard blows he had dealt them in his journal.
He spent the time of his imprisonment in a hospital. The government by
this time were ashamed of a man whose almost infamous habits and
shameful business transactions, carried on in company with a former
banker, named Claparon, led him at last into well-deserved public
contempt.

Cerizet, thus fallen, step by step, to the lowest rung of the social
ladder, had recourse to pity in order to obtain the place of copying
clerk in Dutocq's office. In the depths of his wretchedness the man
still dreamed of revenge, and, as he had nothing to lose, he employed
all means to that end. Dutocq and himself were bound together in