e and of
four Administrateurs of the Hopital General; the amount to be loaned to
applicants was fixed at four-fifths of their value on objects of gold or
silver, and at two-thirds on all others. The administrators were
permitted to establish branch offices in different quarters of the city,
and the central bureau was located in the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux,
where, very much enlarged, it still is. This institution proved to be of
the greatest service to the people, well-to-do as well as poor, but the
undiscriminating Revolution promptly abolished it as a monopoly, and was
forced to restore it under the Directory, May 22, 1797. By the law of
February 4, 1799, no similar establishment could be opened without the
consent of the government.

At its reconstitution under the Directory, it made its loans at the rate
of thirty per cent., this was gradually reduced to twelve, and it was
not until after the Revolution of 1830 that the figure was fixed at
nine. At present, the interest and the charges amount to seven per cent.
In the first century of its existence, from 1777 to 1877, the total
amount of the loans advanced was two trillion three hundred and eight
million six hundred and fifty-five thousand six hundred and ninety-six
francs. The number of objects pledged was over a hundred and twelve
million five hundred thousand, of which there were redeemed, or sold as
forfeited, a hundred and ten million seven hundred and ninety thousand.

The first of the succursales, or branch establishments, was for a long
time in the Rue Bonaparte, the ancient Rue des Petits-Augustins, in the
neighborhood of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; in 1814, a royal ordinance
authorized this succursale to enlarge itself, and granted to it an old
building and a slice of the garden of the Musee des Monuments francais,
on several conditions, one of which was that it should transport to
Pere-Lachaise and reconstruct there the tomb of Heloise and Abelard,
which was in the ceded portion of the garden. This was faithfully
carried out, but in 1833 the State changed its mind, the cession was
revoked, and the Mont-de-Piete was obliged to restore the ground and
demolish its building, but was not reimbursed for its outlay on the tomb
of the lovers. At present, the succursales are three in number, in the
Rues de Rennes, Servan, and Capron, and there are bureaux auxiliaires
for very nearly all the letters of the alphabet, by which they are
designated. These latter have no