This boy, left an orphan at three years old, had been brought up at first
by a relation who turned him out for theft; afterwards by two sisters,
his cousins, who were already beginning to take alarm at his abnormal
perversity. This pale and fragile being, an incorrigible thief, a
consummate hypocrite, and a cold-blooded assassin, was predestined to an
immortality of crime, and was to find a place among the most execrable
monsters for whom humanity has ever had to blush; his name was
Antoine-Francois Derues.

Twenty years had gone by since this horrible and mysterious event, which
no one sought to unravel at the time it occurred. One June evening,
1771, four persons were sitting in one of the rooms of a modestly
furnished, dwelling on the third floor of a house in the rue
Saint-Victor. The party consisted of three women and an ecclesiastic,
who boarded, for meals only, with the woman who tenanted the dwelling;
the other two were near neighbours. They were all friends, and often met
thus in the evening to play cards. They were sitting round the
card-table, but although it was nearly ten o'clock the cards had not yet
been touched. They spoke in low tones, and a half-interrupted confidence
had, this evening, put a check on the usual gaiety.

Someone knocked gently at the door, although no sound of steps on the
creaking wooden staircase had been heard, and a wheedling voice asked for
admittance. The occupier of the room, Madame Legrand, rose, and admitted
a man of about six-and-twenty, at whose appearance the four friends
exchanged glances, at once observed by the new-comer, who affected,
however, not to see them. He bowed successively to the three women, and
several times with the utmost respect to the abbe, making signs of
apology for the interruption caused by his appearance; then, coughing
several times, he turned to Madame Legrand, and said in a feeble voice,