chosen, therein to put a violent end to his life, he sent secretly for
Isaac Samuel, and delivered to him fifty thousand crowns in gold, the
last remains of his fortune. This faithful servant was to invest the
money to the best advantage, and, if he should have a son, transmit to
him the same obligation; or, should he have no child, he was to seek out
some relation worthy of continuing this trust, to which would moreover
be annexed a fair reward. It was thus to be transmitted and perpetuated
from relative to relative, until the expiration of a century and a half.
M. de Rennepont also begged Isaac to take charge, during his life, of
the house in the Rue Saint-Francois, where he would be lodged gratis,
and to leave this function likewise to his descendants, if it were
possible.

If even Isaac Samuel had not had children, the powerful bond of union
which exists between certain Jewish families, would have rendered
practicable the last will of De Rennepont. The relations of Isaac would
have become partner; in his gratitude to his benefactor, and they, and
their succeeding generations, would have religiously accomplished the
task imposed upon one of their race. But, several years after the death
of De Rennepont, Isaac had a son.

This son, Levy Samuel, born in 1689, not having had any children by his
first wife, married again at nearly sixty years of age, and, in 1750, he
also had a son--David Samuel, the guardian of the house in the Rue Saint
Francois, who, in 1832 (the date of this narrative), was eighty-two
years old, and seemed likely to live as long as his father, who had died
at the age of ninety-three. Finally, Abel Samuel, the son whom Bathsheba
so bitterly regretted, born in 1790, had perished under the Russian
knout, at the age of thirty-six.

Having established this humble genealogy, we easily understand how this
successive longevity of three members of the Samuel family, all of whom
had been guardians of the walled house, by uniting, as it were, the
nineteenth with the seventeenth century, simplified and facilitated
the execution of M. de Rennepont's will; the latter having declared his
desire to the grandfather of the Samuels, that the capital should only
be augmented by interest at five per cent.--so that the fortune might
come to his descendants free from all taint of usurious speculation.

The fellow men of the Samuel family, the first inventors of the bill of
exchange, which served them in the Middle Ages