They make people delightfully unhappy, and form a hundred liaisons-all platonic of course. This goes on for some time; perhaps a month passes by like a jour de fête- when suddenly an awkward whisper runs through the town. The Aix-laChapellians rub their eyes; resemblances are detected, and coincidences examined; then government couriers arrive ; the authorities are thrown into confusion; all business is at a stand; and, as everybody knows that the matter cannot go on so for another day, the whole population wait for the morrow in an agony of sus pense. The strangers in the meantime go, and the morrow They have vanished like so many spirits, and comes. Like the baseless fabric of a vision, How could their passports have been viséd. It is answered that the mayor had a friendship for the merchant's wife, and the commissary of police was about to be married to the baron's daughter. Could these functionaries have seen that the passports had been previously falsified? No: because love is blind. In a day or two after the travellers are safe at home; and the bold outlaws, who had merely visited Aix-la-Chapelle for amusement, may be met scouring the forest at the head of their troop. Alas, we know nothing about such matters in England. Even the race of the Macheaths is extinct -gallant but insignificant fellows! who were once to be seen" alone, unfriended," spanking along the highways on a blood mare.* A stage, flying at the rate of We have the misfortune to differ on this point of chronology with two French magistrates, who have drawn up, from judicial documents, an account of the crimes of the renowned Schinderhannes and his com ten miles an hour, would laugh to-day at their " Stand and deliver!”—and a steam-coach would have ample time to get beyond the range of their pistols in the interval between the flash and the bullet. We must now put up with being knocked on the head by a pitiful foot-pad, or having our purses seduced by a sneaking cowardly pickpocket. We defy the world, indeed, in spinning cotton, and making pins; but in robbery there is not a paltry German state that does not beat us hollow. It was doubtless in reference to this stain upon our character, that Napoleon called us, contemptuously, a "nation of shopkeepers." Towards the close of the French Revolution, the banks of the Rhine, and the surrounding country from Holland to Mainz, were the theatre of exploits as strange and wild, and the haunt of men as extraordinary, as any that are exhibited in history. The French laws were not yet in full operation in Belgium, nor the conflict of opinion and parties at an end. Everything was in confusion. The very elements of society seemed to have been broken up and disorganised by the moral earthquake that had occurred. A lawless and reckless spirit pervaded all ranks of people, and made room, in individual cases, for the development of talents and energies that, under ordinary circumstances, would have continued to slumber in embryo. Energies so called up must, like spirits summoned by sorcery, be evil in their nature; and accordingly a reign of terror commenced, scarcely less extraordi rades. They write thus in 1810:-"No one is ignorant that in Englandan island in which the highest civilisation conjoins with the darkest barbarism-the profession of highwayman is exercised almost as publicly and securely as any other. If it is not always attended by bloodshed, the reason is, that travellers, for fault of legal protection, enter cheerfully into a composition with the ruffians." nary than the events of the Revolution itself. From Belgium a criminal could easily pass into Holland if pursued, or into the countries bordering the Rhine and there the minute subdivisions of the Germanic Confederation, in which each petty prince maintained a jealous independence of the rest, rendered pursuit almost useless. The policy, therefore, of great criminals, in their choice of localities, will be easily comprehended. But, as the genius of individuals began to gather together the elements of lawless power, and unite the various little roving bands in one compact society, it was seen that the magnitude of the mass would force the alarmed governments into a league against them, and that thus their very strength would prove their destruction. How to obviate this difficulty was the question-how to increase rather than diminish their numbers, and to tighten rather than relax the bond of union, without presenting any tangible surface to the authorities; and, out of the speculations on this knotty point, there arose at length one of the most remarkable associations that are mentioned in history. Few of our readers, we believe, are acquainted even slightly with the subject; and, connected as it is with the localities through which we have just been wandering, it will be considered, we hope, no unacceptable service if we now proceed to give some account of the laws, institutions, and customs of the remarkable and mysterious banditti to when we allude. The known and ostensible members of the band were diminished in number, rather than increased, by the new constitution. These, under the captainship of some individual raised to the post by his courage or talents, inhabited as their head-quarters an old castle or ruined mill; or pitched their wandering camp in the recesses of a forest. It was, in fact, easy to find a harbour capable of accommodating a much larger force, in times when so many country families had fled for refuge, from the horrors of war, to the more populous and protected towns. The roads between town and town were for the same reason comparatively deserted, except by travellers and merchants; and the villages cut off from all peaceable inter-communication. Having fixed upon a camp, or rendezvous, the next important step was to secure the safe passage of the bandits through the territory, by establishing everywhere a line of posts, affording succour and shelter in case of need. This was easily arranged by enlisting in the cause the more needy and desperate of the innkeepers and aubergistes. Some of these, in the country parts, had been left helpless and alone, like stranded barks, by the ebbing tide of population; and, as their profession at any rate is not suspected of predisposing strongly to honesty, they were found in general to enter con amore into the proposals that were made to them. In the slang of the robbers-a jargon compounded of Hebrew, High and Low German, and Frenchthese places of refuge were called kochemer-beyes, whether public-houses or not; and there a member, when pursued, was sure of protection and advice; and his address, or that of the band, was always to be procured by those who wanted it for a friendly purpose. To such perfection had this system been carried, that it is understood that a robber could travel from the farther extremity of Holland to the Danube, with the certainty of spending every night in the company, or under the protection of friends. . In numerous cases, also, the functionaries of police, from the magistrate down to the lowest officer, were in the pay of the band; and it was frequently observed that the anxiety of a robber, taken even in the fact, was at once dissipated, as if by a magic spell, on the name of the worthy being announced before whom he was about to he carried. Names, dress, character, complexion, and feature, were changed with wonderful facility by these intelligent and industrious persons. Our Dutch merchant and German baron are specimens. As for the passports, they were managed entirely by the womankind, who had a great talent for business. The persons we have described, however, were few in number, perhaps not more than a dozen men and their families. Where, then, were the banditti who kept the country in terror?-who, amidst the noise of fire-arms that was heard over half a province, carried villages, and even towns by assault, and either plundered them of their movable riches, or held them to ransom at the point of the sword? In the villages, in the towns themselves, in isolated farm-houses, in obscure or remote inns were domiciled these mysterious freebooters. These were the body, and the former the soul; these the executive and the former the legislative power of this invisible state. The former were the chiefs and their immediate attendants; the latter the great mass of the band, distributed over the face of the country, inhabiting their own houses, working at their own trades or professions, yet ready, at a signal understood only by themselves, to vanish from their homes and families, and follow, wherever they were led, to the death. They were called Apprentices. They were bound |
