Grand Châtelet became famous because of a gang that had existed in Paris from 1715 to 1721. Their leader was named Cartouche, the same name as the bandit Cartouche who roamed the Alsace-Lorraine region committing crimes everywhere. The difference was that Paris's Cartouche was the son of a cooper. They encountered the Mississippi Bubble. Many people were plunged into utter poverty by the collapse of John Law's system, and France's economy fell into its worst crisis since the War of the Spanish Succession.
Cartouche's members came from every social class. Some were responsible for theft, some for fencing stolen goods. They had many branches under them, and it was said that five out of every thousand Parisians had joined.
In places packed with suburban workers and low-class taverns, the people "kindly" hid Cartouche's men, just as the peasants of Alsace-Lorraine hid bandits who specialized in robbing moneylenders. But the Paris police did not need to chase thieves who came and went like the wind on horseback through vast fields and countryside. They encouraged captured Cartouche members to inform on one another. Just like in the prisoner's dilemma, if they named their accomplices or helpers, they themselves would be absolved. Thus began a wave of false accusations. More than seven hundred people were denounced, 329 were tried, and most of them were sentenced to death.
In response, the police displayed executions before the public. Parisian comedians even staged a play called Cartouche, or the Thieves, with scenes of execution by guillotine repeated again and again.
But people at the time did not find it horrifying or tragic.
To spread the law of universal gravitation, Voltaire invented a story about Newton and an apple. Then someone actually found that apple tree in Newton's hometown.
Besides dispatching gendarmes and mounted police to hunt