The son of a respectable, well-to-do Norman family, Lecoq had received a good and solid education.  He was prosecuting his law studies in Paris, when in the same week, blow following blow, he learned that his father had died, financially ruined, and that his mother had survived him only a few hours.  He was left alone in the world, destitute of resources, obliged to earn his living.  But how?  He had an opportunity of learning his true value, and found that it amounted to nothing; for the university, on bestowing its diploma of bachelor, does not give an annuity with it.  Hence of what use is a college education to a poor orphan boy?  He envied the lot of those who, with a trade at the ends of their fingers, could boldly enter the office of any manufacturer, and say:  “I would like to work.”  Such men were working and eating.  Lecoq sought bread by all the methods employed by people who are in reduced circumstances!  Fruitless labor!  There are a hundred thousand people in Paris who have seen better days.  No matter!  He gave proofs of undaunted energy.  He gave lessons, and copied documents for a lawyer.  He made his appearance in a new character almost every day, and left no means untried to earn an honest livelihood.  At last he obtained employment from a well-known astronomer, the Baron Moser, and spent his days in solving bewildering and intricate problems, at the rate of a hundred francs a month.

But a season of discouragement came.  After five years of constant toil, he found himself at the same point from which he had started.  He was nearly crazed with rage and disappointment when he recapitulated his blighted hopes, his fruitless efforts, and the insults he had endured.  The past had been sad, the present was intolerable, the future threatened to be terrible.  Condemned to constant privations, he tried to escape from the horrors of his real life by taking refuge in dreams.

Alone in his garret, after a day of unremitting toil, assailed by the thousand longings of youth, Lecoq endeavored to devise some means of suddenly making himself rich.  All reasonable methods being beyond his reach, it was not long before he was engaged in devising the worst expedients.  In short, this naturally moral and honest young man spent much of his time in perpetrating—­in fancy—­the most abominable crimes.  Sometimes he himself was frightened by the work of his imagination:  for an hour of recklessness might suffice to make him pass from the idea to the fact, from theory to practise.  This is the case with all monomaniacs; an hour comes in which the strange conceptions that have filled their brains can be no longer held in check.

One day he could not refrain from exposing to his patron a little plan he had conceived, which would enable him to obtain five or six hundred francs from London.  Two letters and a telegram were all that was necessary, and the game was won.  It was impossible to fail, and there was no danger of arousing suspicion.