Trompe-la-Mort

Summary

Moonlit Atlantic waves gnash against La Rochelle’s ramparts while a chain-gang silhouette slips beneath the tide and re-emerges as myth: Jacques Collin, convict-king, shedding iron bracelets for silk cravats, baptising himself Vautrin, then Don Carlos Herrera, a shape-shifter who walks through walls of class, cash, and conscience. Paris becomes his gilded gameboard: he threads suicidal poet Lucien de Rubempré like a bead on wire, pairs him with luminous, penniless Esther, and orchestrates a banker’s ruinous lust that perfumes the air with lilac and fraud. Above them, the hawk-eyed detective Corentin circles, a black-winged conscience pecking at every seam until love, debt, and death collapse into one fatal pirouette. In the final tableau, the puppeteer offers the state his own marionette strings—an avalanche of letters capable of toppling ducal crests—in exchange for a prefect’s badge, turning the hunter into the keeper of the hunt in a single, breathless shrug of fate.

Synopsis

Jacques Collin, a convict at the penitentiary of La Rochelle, known to his associates as the King, succeeds, despite a strict watch, to escape. A boat, manned by his accomplices and hidden among the rocks, carried him to safety. Changing his costume and assuming the name of Vautrin, he puts up at a boarding house, inveigles himself into the good graces of the inmates and seeks among them creatures who are likely to help him. In one of his visits to a strange café he is recognized by a noted detective, one Corentin, who, going up to him, grasps his shoulder and bluntly shouts, "Good day, Jacques Collin." The latter, on his guard, does not move a muscle. Corentin leaves furious, but not convinced. He keeps on his trail and, through an indiscretion, Collin is thrown into his hands and as he is arrested, shouts, "In six months I shall be free, then beware." He is as good as his word, and escaping, assumes the name of Councillor Don Carlos Heriera and is once more in the whirl. One day he follows the handsome Lucien De Rubenpre, who, tired of life, contemplates suicide. Collin, arriving on the spot, fascinates him, makes a tool of him, and fills his head with a dream of the conquest of Paris. He and Esther, another tool in the hands of Collin, are thrown into one another's society constantly, and Esther falls in love with Lucien. Collin gets angry. Esther is not rich; she must have money. The banker, Baron De Nucingin, can give that to her. Collin arranges to have her seen in the box of a theater and the banker immediately falls into the trap. Corentin has not abandoned his quarry, but is still hot on his trail. Esther is now in the swim. Nucingin has presented her with a regal mansion, which she has accepted through sheer fear of the Master Criminal, who holds her in his power just as he holds Lucien. Maddened by grief, she seeks solace in death. Collin has been advised by his aunt, who is Esther's housekeeper, to come to her at once. On the way she is accosted by Corentin brandishing a warrant. As he approaches to serve it, Collin upsets him by a blow in the stomach and again makes his escape. Rushing into the house, he seeks refuge on the roof, the detectives in close pursuit. A struggle takes place, and Collin, who is as strong as an ox, takes hold of the detective and hurls him into the street below. Lucien in the meantime is arrested and as justice always triumphs, so Collin eventually is incarcerated. Lucien, fearing the penalty of his crime, ends his life, and when Collin is informed of the fact, he is thunder-struck and falls to the ground limp and powerless. The Master Criminal is brought before the magistrate, having in his possession valuable and incriminating letters against three of the first families of France and offers a compromise that he go free and be appointed Chief of Police, in exchange for the letters which he holds. The compromise is effected and Collin, turning over a new leaf, becomes Master Criminal Hunter instead of Master Criminal.