ges; he was allowed a handsome
salary, and was furnished with carriages for sale. The money he received
for them he was to send to his employers, after deducting his expenses;
but instead of so doing, he gambled nearly the whole of it away. The
following letter to his master was put in by way of explanation of his
career:--'Sir,--The errors into which I have fallen have made me so hate
myself that I have adopted the horrible resolution of destroying myself.
I am sensible of the crime I commit against God, my family, and society,
but have not courage to live dishonoured. The generous confidence you
placed in me I have basely violated; I have robbed you, and though
not to enrich myself, the consciousness of it destroys me. Bankruptcy,
poverty, beggary, and want I could bear--conscious integrity would
support me: but the ill-fated acquaintance I formed led me to those
earthly hells--gambling houses; and then commenced my villainies and
deceptions to you. My losses were not large at first; and the stories
that were told me of gain made me hope they would soon be recovered. At
this period I received the order to go to Vienna, and on settling at the
hotel I found my debts treble what I had expected. I was in consequence
compelled to leave the two carriages as a guarantee for part of the
debt, which I had not in my power to discharge. I had hoped such success
at Vienna as would enable me to state all to you; but disappointment
blasted every hope, and despair, on my return to Paris, began to
generate the fatal resolution which, at the moment you read this,
will have matured itself to consummation. I feel that my reputation is
blasted; no way left of re-imbursing the money wasted, your confidence
in me totally destroyed, and nothing left to me but to see my wife and
children, and die. Affection for them holds me in existence a little
longer. The gaming table again presented itself to my imagination as the
only possible means of extricating myself. Count Montoni's 3000 francs,
which I received before you came to Paris, furnished me with the
means--my death speaks the result! After robbery so base as mine, I fear
it will be of no use for me to solicit your kindness for my wretched
wife and forlorn family. Oh, Sir, if you have pity on them and treat
them kindly, and do not leave them to perish in a foreign land, the
consciousness of the act will cheer you in your last moments, and God
will reward you and yours for it tenfold. Their s