The widow Verron pretends, that she employed her money at interest,
always it appears in secrecy, with a notary of the name of Gilet, but no
trace of this fact can be found in the office of that notary.
She declares, that this notary returned her the money, still secretly,
in the year 1760: he was at that time dead.
If all these facts be true, it must be admitted that the cause of Du
Jonquay and the Verrons, built on a foundation of such ridiculous lies,
must inevitably fall to the ground.
2. The will of widow Verron, made half an hour before her death, with
death and the name of God on her lips, is, to all appearance, in itself
a respectable and even pious document. But if it be really in the number
of those pious things which are every day observed to be merely
instrumental to crime--if this lender upon pledges, while recommending
her soul to God, manifestly lied to God, what importance or weight can
the document bring with it? Is it not rather the strongest proof of
imposture and villainy?
The old woman had always been made to state, while the suit was carried
on in her name, that she possessed only this sum of one hundred thousand
crowns which it was intended to rob her of; that she never had more than
that sum; and yet, behold! in her will she mentions five hundred
thousand livres of her property! Here are two hundred thousand francs
more than any one expected, and here is the widow Verron convicted out
of her own mouth. Thus, in this singular cause, does the at once
atrocious and ridiculous imposture of the family break out on every
side, during the woman's life, and even when she is within the grasp of
death.
3. It is probable, and it is even in evidence, that the general would
not trust his bills for a hundred thousand crowns to a doctor of whom he
knew little or nothing, without having an acknowledgment from him. He
did, however, commit this inadvertence, which is the fault of an
unsuspecting and noble heart; he was led astray by the youth, by the
candor, by the apparent generosity of a man not more than twenty-seven
years of age, who was on the point of being raised to the magistracy,
who actually, upon an urgent occasion, lent him twelve hundred francs,
and who promised in the course of a few days to obtain for him, from an
opulent company, the sum of a hundred thousand crowns. Here is the knot
and difficulty of the cause. We must strictly examine whether it be
probable, that a man, who is admitted to have received nearly a hundred
thousand crowns in gold, should on the very morning after, come in great
haste, as for a most indispensable occasion, to the man who the evening
before had advanced him twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-five
louis d'or.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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