“I do not ask you to take any part of this on trust,” continued he. “There, with the seal of the chancellor, and the date, January the 5th, 1720, is his patent as comptroller-general of France. Here are letters from the Regent, the Prince of Deux-Ponts, the Duke of Rohan; I leave them in your hands, and will send you others that authenticate all I have stated. Of my own life, humble and uneventful, I have no wish to speak; more than this I know, for I have long studied the great principles of my father's secret. The causes of his reverses I have thoroughly investigated; they are not inherent in the system, nor are they reasonably attributable to it in any way. His discovery must not be disparaged by the vices of a profligate prince, a venal administration, and an ignorant cabinet; nor must the grandeur of his conception be charged with the rash infatuation of a nation of gamblers. Law's system stands free from every taint of dishonesty, when dissociated with the names of those who prostituted it. For years long have I studied the theory, and tested it by every proof within my power. To make the fact known to the world; to publish abroad the great truth, that credit well based and fortified is national wealth, and that national wealth, so based, is almost boundless,--this became the object of my whole life. I knew that a certain time must elapse ere the disasters that followed my father's downfall were forgotten, and that I should, in all likelihood, never live to see the day when his glorious system would be revived, and his memory vindicated; but I hoped to have found one worthy to inherit this secret, and in whose keeping it might be transmitted to after ages. I will not weary you with the story of all my disappointments, the betrayals, and the treachery, and the falsehoods I have endured. Enough! I became a recluse from mankind. I gave myself up to my old pursuits of calculation and combination, undisturbed; and I have lived on, to this hour, with one thought ever before me, and one fear,--is this great secret to die out with me? and are countless millions of men destined to toil and slavery, while this vast source of affluence and power shall lie rusting and unused?” The intense fervor of his voice, and his tone of self-conviction as he spoke, had evidently impressed my mother strongly in his favor; and when she turned over one by one the letters before her, and read passages penned by the hand of Du Pin, the chief secretary of the Regent, D'Argen-son, Alberoni the Cardinal, and others of like station, and then turned to look on the feeble and wasted figure of the old man, her eyes filled with tears of pity and compassion. “My heart is now relieved of a weary load,” said he, sighing. “Now I shall go back to my home, and to-morrow, if I be not able to come here, you and Jasper will visit me, for I have still much to tell you.”