Let us trace rapidly the history of Derues' early years, effaced and
forgotten in the notoriety of his death. These few pages are not written
for the glorification of crime, and if in our own days, as a result of
the corruption of our manners, and of a deplorable confusion of all
notions of right and wrong, it has been sought to make him an object; of
public interest, we, on our part, only wish to bring him into notice, and
place him momentarily on a pedestal, in order to cast him still lower,
that his fall may be yet greater. What has been permitted by God may be
related by man. Decaying and satiated communities need not be treated as
children; they require neither diplomatic handling nor precaution, and it
may be good that they should see and touch the putrescent sores which
canker them. Why fear to mention that which everyone knows? Why dread to
sound the abyss which can be measured by everyone? Why fear to bring
into the light of day unmasked wickedness, even though it confronts the
public gaze unblushingly? Extreme turpitude and extreme excellence are
both in the schemes of Providence; and the poet has summed up eternal
morality for all ages and nations in this sublime exclamation--

"Abstulit hunc tandem Rufini poem tumultum."

Besides, and we cannot insist too earnestly that our intention must not
be mistaken, if we had wished to inspire any other sentiment than that of
horror, we should have chosen a more imposing personage from the annals
of crime. There have been deeds which required audacity, a sort of
grandeur, a false heroism; there have been criminals who held in check
all the regular and legitimate forces of society, and whom one regarded
with a mixture of terror and pity. There is nothing of that in Derues,
not even a trace of courage; nothing but a shameless cupidity, exercising
itself at first in the theft of a few pence filched from the poor;