Julien and Marcel, by tireless persistence, succeeded in inducing him to leave the hôtel De Melcy, where he defied the storm every day. They kept him out of sight at Sèvres, where he made them very unhappy by his evil humor, and compromised them more than once by his imprudent acts. His property was under sequestration, and he recovered only a few shreds. He endured that terrible blow with much philosophy. He was one of those pilots who curse during the tempest, but keep cool when it is a question of salvage. He refused to take back any part of what Julien had received from him. As his garden had not been injured and he recovered it almost intact, he resumed his former habits and recovered comparative good humor. He lived there until 1802, still active and robust. One day they found him sitting perfectly still on a bench in the sunshine, his watering pot half full beside him, and on his knees an undecipherable manuscript, the last lucubration of his wornout brain. He had died without warning. The night before he had said to Marcel: "Never fear, you shall have the millions you expected to inherit from me! Let me live only about ten years, and I shall make a larger fortune than I ever had. I have a scheme for a constitution which will save France from ruin; after that I will think a little of myself and go back to my exporting business."