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Updated: May 22, 2025
My friend died in 1827, at the age of sixty-three, after founding the great banking-house of Mongenod and Company, which made enormous profits from the first loans under the Restoration. His daughter, to whom he subsequently gave a million in dowry, married the Vicomte de Fontaine. The eldest son, whom you know, is not yet married; he lives with his mother and brother.
'Then you know citizen Mongenod? I said. "In those days we were obliged by law to call each other 'citizen," said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid, by way of parenthesis. Then he continued his narrative: "The citizen looked at me, exclaiming, 'I wish I never had known him; for he has several times borrowed money of me, and shown his friendship by not returning it.
'It is unfortunate, monsieur, I said, receiving Mongenod standing, 'that I owe your visit to a sheriff's summons. Mongenod took a chair and sat down. 'I came to tell you, he said, 'that I am totally unable to pay you. 'You made me miss a fine investment before the election of the First Consul, an investment which would have given me a little fortune. 'I know it, Alain, he said, 'I know it.
He put out his right hand, I laid my left into it, and we held them together, I deeply moved, and he with two big tears rolling down his cheeks. The sight of those tears wrung my heart. I was more moved still when Mongenod pulled out a ragged foulard handkerchief to wipe them away.
"Yes," said Mongenod, "it seems impossible to believe what has happened, unless we believe that concealed behind Gigonnet there are certain bankers who want to strangle the speculation in the lands about the Madeleine." "What has happened is what happens always to those who go out of their proper business," said Claparon, hastily interrupting Mongenod.
I ended, where I ought to have begun, by resolving to make some investigations as to my friend Mongenod, who had given me his address, written on the back of a playing card! I did not choose, as a matter of delicacy, to go and see him the next day; he might have thought there was distrust in such promptness, as, indeed, there would have been.
Every morning, as I took my coffee and read the paper, I said to myself: 'That cursed Mongenod! if it were not for him I should have three thousand francs a year to live on. Mongenod became by bete-noire; I inveighed against him even as I walked the streets.
Repression suffices; and that, besides, brings with it punishment enough. "So," resumed Monsieur Alain, continuing his history, having drawn from it that noble teaching, "after listening to the gossip of the Parisian, and relying on the wisdom of my old master, I condemned Mongenod. His play, 'Les Peruviens, was announced.
Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets of the society, worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod, who came every Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and encouragement.
'A man of fifty to a girl of seventeen? never! and a man as plain and ugly as I am? never! I cried. 'Monsieur, she said, 'my father's benefactor could not be ugly for me. Those words, said spontaneously, with simple candor, made me understand how true was all that Mongenod had said. I then gave him my hand, and we embraced each other again. 'My friend, I said, 'I have done you wrong.
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