families, or firms. What would have become of us if we had taken
part in such affairs? We should be merchants. No, our true partnership
with misfortune is not to take the work into our own hands, but to
help the unfortunate to work themselves. Before long you will meet with
misfortunes more bitter still than these. Would you then do the same
thing,--that is, take the burdens of those unfortunates wholly on
yourself? You would soon be overwhelmed. Reflect, too, my dear child,
that for the last year even the Messieurs Mongenod find our accounts too
heavy for them. Half your time would be taken up in merely keeping our
books. We have to-day over two thousand debtors in Paris, and we must
keep the record of their debts. Not that we ask for payment; we simply
wait. We calculate that if half the money we expect is lost, the other
half comes back to us, sometimes doubled. Now, suppose your Monsieur
Bernard dies, the twelve thousand francs are probably lost. But if you
cure his daughter, if his grandson is put in the way of succeeding, if
he comes, some day, a magistrate, then, when the family is prosperous,
they will remember the debt, and return the money of the poor with
usury. Do you know that more than one family whom we have rescued from
poverty, and put upon their feet on the road to prosperity by loans of
money without interest, have laid aside a portion for the poor, and have
returned to us the money loaned doubled, and sometimes tripled?
Those are our only speculations. Moreover, reflect that what is now
interesting you so deeply (and you ought to be interested in it),
namely, the sale of this lawyer's book, depends on the value of the
work. Have you read it? Besides, though the book may be an excellent
one, how many excellent books remain one, two, three years without
obtaining the success they deserve. Alas! how many crowns of fame are
laid upon a grave! I know that publishers have ways of negotiating and
realizing profits which make their business the most hazardous to do
with, and the most difficult to unravel, of all the trades of Paris.
Monsieur Joseph can tell you of these difficulties, inherent in the
making of books. Thus, you see, we are sensible; we have experience of
all miseries, also of all trades, for we have studied Paris for many
years. The Mongenods have helped us in this; they have been like torches
to us. It is through them that we know how the Bank of France holds the
publishing business under const