The branch establishments, with their commissionaires, having been spoken of, let us now glance at the great Mont-de-Piété of Paris, situated in the Rue des Blancs Manteaux. This central establishment dates from the reign of Louis XVI., who founded it by letters patent in 1777. The work of money-lending was at once commenced, but not in the buildings specially constructed in the Rue des Blancs Manteaux, beside the convent of the Benedictines of Saint-Maur, since these buildings were not completed until 1786. It is interesting to follow the different phases through which this vast establishment of public utility, designed to “put an end to the abuses of usury,” has passed, until now it receives upwards of twenty-five million pledges annually. That these pledges present an inconceivably great variety of objects may well be supposed. On this subject M. Blaize, author of the “Traité des Monts-de-Piété,” has written descriptively enough as follows:--“Let us stop at the first floor. This is the quarter of the aristocracy; the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the Chaussée d’Antin of our borrowers. Here are the first and second divisions--those of the “jewels”--where the most precious objects are deposited. I open the ‘four-figure cupboards’--such is the name we give to those cupboards of iron which contain pledges on which a thousand francs or more have been advanced. Great Heaven! what riches! Sparkling sprays, strings of diamonds, trinkets calculated to turn the heads of duchesses! Silver services fit to adorn the table of a king! In these regions of want--opulent want and necessitous want--one’s eyes must not see everything nor one’s ears listen to everything: let us pass on. We take our way through the passages which are bordered on each side with wealth-laden shelves. Look at those thousands of watches, chains, bracelets, jewels of every kind; that countless mass of objects of art, of luxury, of utility, of vanity, or of coquetry. [Illustration: IN THE RUE CAPRON BRANCH OF THE MONT-DE-PIÉTÉ.]