in Paris, where they continued their career as bankers,
contractors, and capitalists as long as they lived, each of them
acquiring and leaving a colossal fortune, which their heirs were
considerate enough to dissipate. It was Paris-Duverney who suggested and
managed the great military school at Paris, which still exists. It was
he also who helped make the fortunes of the most celebrated literary men
of his time, Voltaire and Beaumarchais. He did this by admitting them to
a share in army contracts, one of which yielded Voltaire a profit of
seven hundred thousand francs, which, with good nursing, made him at
last the richest literary man that ever lived.

Paris-Duverney was as good a man and patriot as a man could well be who
had to work with and under such persons as Louis XV. and Madame de
Pompadour. By way of showing what difficulties men had to overcome who
then desired to serve their country, I will mention a single incident of
his later career.

His favorite work, the Ecole Militaire, of which he was the first
superintendent, shared the unpopularity of its early patron, Madame de
Pompadour, and long he strove in vain to bring it into favor. To use the
narrative of M. de Lomenie, the biographer of Beaumarchais:--

"He was constantly at court, laboring without cessation on behalf of the
military school, and soliciting the king in vain to visit it in state,
which would have given a sort of _prestige_. Coldly received by the
dauphin, the queen, and the princesses, he could not, as the friend of
Madame de Pompadour, obtain from the nonchalance of Louis XV. the visit
which he so much desired, when the idea struck him, in his despair, of
having recourse to the young harpist, who appeared to be so assiduous in
his attendance on the princesses, and who directed their concert every
week. Beaumarchais understood at once the advantage he might derive
from rendering an important service to a clever, rich, old financier,
who had still a number of affairs in hand, and who was capable of
bringing him both wealth and advancement. But how could a musician
without importance hope to obtain from the king what had already been
refused to solicitations of much more influence than his own?
Beaumarchais went to work like a man who had a genius for dramatic
intrigue and a knowledge of the human heart.

"We have shown that, while he was giving his time and attention to the
princesses, he never asked for anything in return. He thought tha