Lively, daring, impertinent, forever giving the commissioner a beating (who here, incidentally, is called Inspector Ganimard), leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him and winning the crowd’s laughter, mocking established situations, ridiculing the bourgeoisie, coming to the aid of the weak—Arsène Lupin, gentleman burglar, is a Robin Hood of the Belle Époque.
A very French Robin Hood: he does not take himself too seriously; his deadliest weapons are his witticisms. He is not an aristocrat living like an anarchist, but an anarchist living like an aristocrat.