The
scheme of the hour was to rob another Augustine monk, Robert
de la Porte, and in this the Prior agreed to take a hand with
simulated greed. Thus, in the course of two days, he had
turned this wineskin of a Tabary inside out. For a while
longer the farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to
Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, very smart man of
thirty, with a black beard and a short jacket; an appointment
was made and broken in the de la Porte affair; Tabary had
some breakfast at the Prior's charge and leaked out more
secrets under the influence of wine and friendship; and then
all of a sudden, on the 17th of May, an alarm sprang up, the
Prior picked up his skirts and walked quietly over to the
Chatelet to make a deposition, and the whole band took to
their heels and vanished out of Paris and the sight of the
police.
Vanish as they like, they all go with a clog about their
feet. Sooner or later, here or there, they will be caught in
the fact, and ignominiously sent home. From our vantage of
four centuries afterwards, it is odd and pitiful to watch the
order in which the fugitives are captured and dragged in.
Montigny was the first. In August of that same year, he was
laid by the heels on many grievous counts; sacrilegious
robberies, frauds, incorrigibility, and that bad business
about Thevenin Pensete in the house by the cemetery of St.
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