Claude Du Vall ranks among his brother highwaymen as high as Rembrandt or Raphael among artists. He was, indeed, no less an artist in his own profession than they. He might not, and probably did not, acquire as much of other people's property on the road as did Hind or Whitney; but artists are not necessarily money-makers. Such as were his takings, he took them with a finished grace and a considerate courtesy, that not even the Prince of Prigs, in his best moment, ever quite attained. We do not learn, for example, that Hind, the "Gentleman Thief," footed it on the heath in a graceful dance with one of his victims, as did Du Vall; but Hind had not the advantage of that foreign blood which made Claude skip for gladness in the midst of alarms.

In the Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall, published in 1670, only a few days after the hero's death from the effect of a hempen cravat, we have the sole authority for the merry tales told of him. It is a curious production. From it we learn that:

"Claude Du Vall was born Anno 1643 at Domfront, in Normandy, a place very famous for the excellency and beautifulness of the air, and for the production of mercurial wits. At the time of his birth there was a conjunction of Venus and Mercury, certain presages of very good fortune, but of a very short continuance. His father was Pierre Du Vall, a miller, his mother, Marguerite De la Roche, a tailor's daughter."

The author of these remarkable memoirs then proceeds to say, in surely a very cynical manner: "They lived in as much reputation and honesty as their conditions and occupations would permit." This, of course, is a sly fling at both the business of a miller and that of a tailor; for honest millers have from the earliest times been proverbially as scarce as honest lawyers; while for tailors to "cabbage" the cloth entrusted to them has always been expected.

Du Vall's biographer then ranges from sarcasm to an indignant defence of his birth and parentage.

"There are some," he says, "that confidently aver he was born in Smock Alley, without Bishopsgate, that his father was a cook, and sold boiled beef and porridge; but their report is as false as it is defamatory and malicious."

"It was easy," he continues, "to disprove this in several ways, but the chief argument against it was this: If he had been born in Smock Alley, he would not have been a Frenchman, but if he had not been a Frenchman, it was quite impossible he should have been so much beloved in life and lamented in death by the English ladies."

Early in life, a wandering priest who happened upon his parents' humble dwelling, found a mark upon his head as of two crowns: a sure sign, said the priest, that he was to be a traveller. Then, adopting something of the rÔle of a fortune-teller, he declared the boy would never be long without money; and, wherever he went, "he would always have the exceeding favour of women of the highest condition."

The rustic miller and his wife looked upon the priest as an oracle, but wondered how such fortune would come to pass. Nothing visible on the horizon of their lives warranted any such expectations. They were miserably poor, and kept themselves but little warmed by that comparative honesty of which we have already read. So when Claude grew to the age of thirteen or fourteen, he was turned adrift from the old home, to fend for himself. His parents did what they could, but that did not amount to much. A little less unexpected honesty on their part would have enabled him, no doubt, to enter upon the world under better circumstances: but as it was, the best they could do was to buy him shoes and stockings—things he had never before known—and a second-hand suit of clothes. This outfit, and twenty sous given him at parting, was all his property. As he went they threw an old shoe after him for luck, and bid him go seek his fortune.

The boy made his way to Rouen in the first instance. There he was promised a ride to Paris on one of the post-horses he saw in the courtyard of an inn, if he would earn that lift by helping stable them for the night. He willingly agreed, and was fortunate to meet at the same inn a number of English youths, who, with their tutors, were returning by way of Paris to England. In return for such use as he could be to them in practising their insufficient French, they employed and fed him for the few days they remained in the country.

In Paris, according to our admiring but discriminating biographer, "he lived unblameably during this time, unless you esteem it a fault to be scabby, and a little given to filching; qualities very frequent in persons of his nation and condition." So, employed about stables and inn-yards in Paris, he continued until the Restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660 brought about the return of many exiles. In the service of one of the many "persons of Quality" who then crossed the Channel, went Claude Du Vall, who by this time was seventeen years of age.

The joy that expressed itself all over England at the return of Charles the Second degenerated into riotous excess. Dissipation and every species of profligacy abounded among upper and middle classes, and the servants of the wealthy were apt pupils of their masters in these excesses. Highwaymen, whose profession had languished miserably under the Commonwealth's later rule, reappeared on every road, and were drawn from all classes. Footmen and lackeys found a singular fascination in the occupation of the high-toby crack, and early among them was Du Vall, who in a short time became so dexterous in his new employment, that he had the honour of being the first named in a long list of highwaymen proclaimed in the London Gazette.

It has already been acknowledged that violence had no part in the methods of this artist, and he would have scorned, you may be sure, the ruffianly, and even murderous acts of a later generation of the craft, who not only despoiled travellers of their goods, but rendered the roads dangerous to life and limb. His chief exploit, upon Hampstead Heath, is classical, and is set forth so eloquently, and with such an engaging profusion of capital letters, in the Memoires that one cannot do better than quote it. By this account it would appear that he was the captain of a gang:

"He, with his Squadron, overtakes a Coach, which they had set over Night, having Intelligence of a Booty of four hundred Pounds in it. In the Coach was a Knight, his Lady, and only one Serving-maid, who, perceiving five Horsemen making up to them, presently imagined that they were beset; and they were confirmed in this Apprehension by seeing them whisper to one another, and ride backwards and forwards. The Lady, to shew that she was not afraid, takes a Flageolet out of her pocket and plays. Du Vall takes the Hint, plays also, and excellently well, upon a Flageolet of his own, and in this Posture he rides up to the Coachside. 'Sir,' says he to the Person in the Coach, 'your Lady plays excellently, and I doubt not but that she dances as well. Will you please to walk out of the Coach and let me have the Honour to dance one Currant with her upon the Heath? 'Sir,' said the Person in the Coach, 'I dare not deny anything to one of your Quality and good Mind. You seem a Gentleman, and your Request is very reasonable.' Which said the Lacquey opens the Boot, out comes the knight, Du Vall leaps lightly off his horse and hands the Lady out of the Coach. They danced, and here it was that Du Vall performed Marvels; the best Masters in London, except those that are French, not being able to shew such footing as he did in his great French Riding Boots. The Dancing being over (there being no violins, Du Vall sung the Currant himself) he waits on the Lady to her Coach. As the knight was going in, says Du Vall to him, 'Sir, you have forgot to pay the Musick.' 'No, I have not,' replied the knight, and, putting his Hand under the Seat of the Coach, pulls out a hundred Pounds in a Bag, and delivers it to him, which Du Vall took with a very good grace, and courteously answered, 'Sir, you are liberal, and shall have no cause to repent your being so; this Liberality of yours shall excuse you the other Three Hundred Pounds,' and giving the Word, that if he met with any more of the Crew, he might pass undisturbed, he civilly takes his leave of him. He manifested his agility of body by lightly dismounting off his horse, and with Ease and Freedom getting up again when he took his Leave; his excellent Deportment by his incomparable Dancing and his graceful manner of taking the hundred pounds."

Our own times are more sordid, and it is to be feared that not the extremest display of grace in the robber would find any one ready to excuse the loss of a hundred sovereigns.

As the old priest had foretold, years before, Du Vall became the ladies' favourite. "Maids, widows, and wives," we learn, "the rich, the poor, the noble, the vulgar, all submitted to him," and he led the gayest of lives in London.

He knew Blackheath as well as Hounslow, and there, with his companions, met a coach full of ladies and a child with a feeding-bottle. Rudely, one of the gang rode up, violently robbed the ladies of their watches and rings, and did not scruple even to steal the child's silver bottle. The air resounded with the shrieks of the cheated infant and the cries of the ladies. Up rode our gallant hero, with threats to instantly shoot the man unless he returned the bottle. "Sirrah!" he exclaimed, "cannot you behave like a gentleman and raise a contribution without stripping people. But perhaps you yourself have some occasion for the sucking bottle, for by your actions one would imagine you were hardly weaned."

Soon after this Du Vall thought it politic to retire for a while to France. A humorous story was told of his fooling an eminent Jesuit confessor, known less for his piety than for his political meddling and his avariciousness. He was a very wealthy man, and Du Vall, hearing of his hoards, was anxious to have a share in them. He made the confessor's acquaintance in the guise of a scholar, and said he was one who had studied the sciences and only wanted a patron as eminent as himself, through whose introductions he desired to serve his country by applying the knowledge he had acquired.

"And of what special branch does your knowledge consist?" asked the Jesuit. "If you can and will communicate anything that may be beneficial to France, I assure you no proper encouragement shall be wanting on my side."

Du Vall, growing bolder, said: "Sir, I have spent most of my time in the study of alchemy, or the transmutation of base metals into gold, and have profited so greatly at Rome and Venice, from association with men learned in that science, that I can change several metals into gold by the help of a philosophical powder, which I can prepare very speedily."

The prospect of immense riches that might be his, if only he cultivated the acquaintance of this man of science, dazzled the confessor. "Friend," he said, "such a thing as this will indeed be a service to the State, and particularly grateful to His Majesty the King, who, as his affairs stand at present, is in great need of such a curious invention. But," he added, with some remains of cunning criticism, "before I credit what you say, so far as to communicate it to His Majesty, I must see some proof of your skill."

Du Vall agreed; but said, as only a poor student of these things, he had not the appliances necessary. These the confessor agreed to provide, and fitted up a laboratory for him in his own house. Everything being complete, Du Vall gave a demonstration of his alchemic science. He took several metals of the baser sort, and put them into a crucible, the confessor watching him the while. Du Vall had prepared a hollow stick, into which he had introduced several inlays of real gold; and with this stick he stirred the white-hot crucible, until the base metals were in a flux, and the stick itself was almost entirely consumed. On the crucible being cooled, and its contents examined, it was duly found that a considerable amount of gold was mixed with what had been base metals.

The Jesuit was delighted with the success of the experiment, and a series of equally satisfactory tests was entered upon. Du Vall at last fully acquired his confidence, and a complete knowledge of where his treasure was deposited, and, finding him one evening in a heavy sleep (to which he had perhaps contributed by drugging his wine), gently stole his reverence's keys, earned off as much of his hoarded wealth as he conveniently could, and hastened to England.

It was, for several reasons, high time he returned to our shores. There was, his biographer tells us, no room in France for a highwayman. "In truth, the air of France is not good for persons of his constitution, it being the custom there to travel in great companies, well armed, and with little money. The danger of being resisted, and the danger of being taken, are much greater there; and the quarry much lesser than in England. And if, by chance, a dapper fellow, with fine black eyes, and a white peruke be taken there, and found guilty of robbing, all the women in the town don't presently take the alarm, and run to the King to beg his life."

So we see that the narrator of Du Vall's life, certainly did not approve of the hero-worship accorded him.

But Du Vall's career was now fast drawing to a close. His exploits as a highway chevalier had grown too notorious for him to be allowed to range any longer at will on the roads around London. At times, perhaps fully informed of his exceeding danger, he would employ himself in another art, in which he was an expert—the art of cheating at cards, in which an exceptional sleight-of-hand served him in good stead. Apart from these qualities, a handsome personal appearance, and a skill in dancing and playing the flageolet, he seems to have been as ignorant as any other ex-stable-boy, or page-boy of his era; for in a curious notice of him in the London Gazette of January 1670, he is described as a man "of singular parts and learning, though he could neither read nor write." The different clauses of this eulogy seem at first sight quite irreconcileable; but the "learning," no doubt, refers rather to social graces, than to ordinary education.

He was captured when the worse for drink, at a tavern called the "Hole in the Wall," in Chandos Street, Covent Garden. He had three pistols in his pocket at the time, one of them "which would shoot twice," and had a sword at his side. "If he'd been sober, it was impossible he could have killed less than ten," says the author of the Memoires; adding, "He would have been cut as small as herbs for the pot, before he would have yielded to the bailey of Westminster," only the drink he had taken did not permit him the use of his legs.

He was executed at Tyburn, on January 21st, 1670, in spite of the many efforts made to secure a reprieve. After the hanging, he was given a lying-in-state at the "Tangier" tavern, St. Giles's, the room being draped in black, relieved with escutcheons. Eight candles burnt around him, and eight tall gentlemen in long cloaks kept watch. Many ladies of fashion and beauty went, masked, with tear-stained faces, to see him; a thing which seems incredible to ourselves, and was in fact considered extraordinary at the time. The author of the Memoires himself realised this, for we find him declaring the truth of it; although he says he expected to be accounted by his readers "A Notorious Lyer."

The Judge who had tried Du Vall regarded the exhibition as scandalous, and caused the room to be cleared; but the highwayman was given a splendid funeral in St. Paul's church, Covent Garden. He was but twenty-seven years of age at his death. A handsome stone, decorated with heraldic achievements (not his own, for he boasted none), was placed over his grave, and on it this epitaph:

This was destroyed when the original church was burnt in 1759.