onarchy had produced. The thirst for gold
rapidly acquired has beset even these officers of trust, these
guardians of the public wealth, these mediators between the law
and the people!"

On this text followed an allocution, in which the Comte de Grandville,
obedient to the necessities of his role, contrived to incriminate
the Liberals, the Bonapartists, and all other enemies of the throne.
Subsequent events have proved that he had reason for his apprehension.

"The flight of a notary of Paris who carried off the funds which
Birotteau had deposited in his hands, caused the fall of your
petitioner," he resumed. "The Court rendered in that matter a
decree which showed to what extent the confidence of Roguin's
clients had been betrayed. A _concordat_ was held. For the honor
of your petitioner, we call attention to the fact that his
proceedings were remarkable for a purity not found in any of the
scandalous failures which daily degrade the commerce of Paris. The
creditors of Birotteau received the whole property, down to the
smallest articles that the unfortunate man possessed. They
received, gentlemen, his clothes, his jewels, things of purely
personal use,--and not only his, but those of his wife, who
abandoned all her rights to swell the total of his assets. Under
these circumstances Birotteau showed himself worthy of the respect
which his municipal functions had already acquired for him; for he
was at the time a deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement and
had just received the decoration of the Legion of honor, granted
as much for his devotion to the royal cause in Vendemiaire, on the
steps of the Saint-Roch, which were stained with his blood, as for
his conciliating spirit, his estimable qualities as a magistrate,
and the modesty with which he declined the honors of the
mayoralty, pointing out one more worthy of them, the Baron de la
Billardiere, one of those noble Vendeens whom he had learned to
value in the dark days."

"That phrase is better than mine," whispered Cesar to Pillerault.

"At that time the creditors, who received sixty per cent of their
claims through the aforesaid relinquishment on the part of this
loyal merchant, his wife, and his daughter of all that they
possessed, recorded their respect for their debtor in the
certificate of bankruptcy granted at the _concordat_ which then
took place, giving him at the same time a release from