To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer virtues.
Years went by.

Events transpired which have their place in history.
Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow disreputable, hazardous, and debased.

In certain onslaughts made upon them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers.

The business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering." Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.
Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among the missing..