ition. He bought houses and land, and when the money was due,
allowed himself to be sued for it; he bought even lawsuits, which he
muddled with all the skill of a rascally attorney. Experienced in
bankruptcy, he undertook the management of failures, contriving to make
dishonesty appear in the light of unfortunate virtue. When this demon
was not occupied with poison, his hands were busy with every social
iniquity; he could only live and breathe in an atmosphere of corruption.

His wife, who had already presented him with a daughter, gave birth to a
son in February 1774. Derues, in order to better support the airs of
grandeur and the territorial title which he had assumed, invited persons
of distinction to act as sponsors. The child was baptized Tuesday,
February 15th. We give the text of the baptismal register, as a
curiosity:--

"Antoine-Maximilian-Joseph, son of Antoine-Francois Derues, gentleman,
seigneur of Gendeville, Herchies, Viquemont, and other places, formerly
merchant grocer; and of Madame Marie-Louise Nicolais, his wife.
Godfathers, T. H. and T. P., lords of, etc. etc. Godmothers, Madame M.
Fr. C. D. V., etc. etc.

"(Signed) A. F. DERUES, Senior."

But all this dignity did not exclude the sheriff's officers, whom, as
befitted so great a man, he treated with the utmost insolence,
overwhelming them with abuse when they came to enforce an execution. Such
scandals had several times aroused the curiosity of his neighbours, and
did not redound to his credit. His landlord, wearied of all this
clamour, and most especially weary of never getting any rent without a
fight for it, gave him notice to quit. Derues removed to the rue
Beaubourg, where he continued to act as commission agent under the name
of Cyrano Derues de Bury.

And now we will concern ourselves no more with the unravelling of this
tissue of imposition; we will wander no longer in this labyrinth of
fraud, of low and vile intrigue, of dark crime of which the clue
disappears in the night, and of which the trace is lost in a doubtful
mixture of blood and mire; we will listen no longer to the cry of the
widow and her four children reduced to beggary, to the groans of obscure
victims, to the cries of terror and the death-groan which echoed one
night through the vaults of a country house near Beauvais. Behold other
victims whose cries are yet louder, behold yet other crimes and a
punishment which equals them in ter