from themselves. There is no vice which has not a counterfeit
resemblance to some virtue, and which does not profit by it."

The whole life of Derues bears testimony to the truth of this
observation. An avaricious poisoner, he attracted his victims by the
pretence of fervent and devoted piety, and drew them into the snare where
he silently destroyed them. His terrible celebrity only began in 1777,
caused by the double murder of Madame de Lamotte and her son, and his
name, unlike those of some other great criminals, does not at first
recall a long series of crimes, but when one examines this low, crooked,
and obscure life, one finds a fresh stain at every step, and perhaps no
one has ever surpassed him in dissimulation, in profound hypocrisy, in
indefatigable depravity. Derues was executed at thirty-two, and his
whole life was steeped in vice; though happily so short, it is full of
horror, and is only a tissue of criminal thoughts and deeds, a very
essence of evil. He had no hesitation, no remorse, no repose, no
relaxation; he seemed compelled to lie, to steal, to poison!
Occasionally suspicion is aroused, the public has its doubts, and vague
rumours hover round him; but he burrows under new impostures, and
punishment passes by. When he falls into the hands of human justice his
reputation protects him, and for a few days more the legal sword is
turned aside. Hypocrisy is so completely a part of his nature, that even
when there is no longer any hope, when he is irrevocably sentenced, and
he knows that he can no longer deceive anyone, neither mankind nor Him
whose name he profanes by this last sacrilege, he yet exclaims, "O
Christ! I shall suffer even as Thou." It is only by the light of his
funeral pyre that the dark places of his life can be examined, that this
bloody plot is unravelled, and that other victims, forgotten and lost in
the shadows, arise like spectres at the foot of the scaffold, and escort
the assassin to his doom.