avers the date of the
convocation of my heirs, a century and a half from this time, I was
forced to keep secret my true motive, and only to tell them, that my
descendants would find it greatly to their interest to attend this
meeting.

"'I have acted thus, because I know the craft and perseverance of the
society of which I have been the victim. If they could guess that my
descendants would hereafter have to divide immense sums between them,
my family would run the risk of much fraud and malice, through the fatal
recommendations handed down from age to age in the Society of Jesus.

"'May these precautions be successful! May the wish, expressed upon
these medals, be faithfully transmitted from generation to generation!

"'If I fix a day and hour, in which my inheritance shall irrevocably
fall to those of my descendants who shall appear in the Rue
Saint-Francois on the 13th February, in 1832, it is that all delays
must have a term, and that my heirs will have been sufficiently informed
years before of the great importance of this meeting.

"'After the reading of my testament, the person who shall then be the
trustee of the accumulated funds, shall make known their amount, so
that, with the last stroke of noon, they may be divided between my heirs
then and there present.

"'The different apartments of the house shall then be opened to them.
They will see in them divers objects, well worthy of interest, pity, and
respect--particularly in the Hall of Mourning.

"'My desire is, that the house may not be sold, but that it may remain
furnished as it is, and serve as a place of meeting for my descendants,
if, as I hope, they attend to my last wishes.

"'If, on the contrary, they are divided amongst themselves--if, instead
of uniting for one of the most generous enterprises that ever signalized
an age, they yield to the influence of selfish passions--if they prefer
a sterile individuality to a fruitful association--if, in this immense
fortune, they see only an opportunity for frivolous dissipation, or
sordid interest--may they be accursed by all those whom they might have
loved, succored, and disfettered!--and then let this house be utterly
demolished and destroyed, and the papers, of which Isaac Samuel
possesses the inventory, as well as the two portraits in the Red Room,
be burnt by the guardian of the property.

"'I have spoken. My duty is accomplished. In all this, I have followed
the counsels of the man whom I revere