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Updated: May 22, 2025
The old man paused an instant as if to dwell on that moment; then he went on: "Mongenod looked at me fixedly and said: 'My poor Alain, you have suffered, I know; but we did divine your sufferings; we did try every means to send the money to you, and failed in every attempt. You told me you could not marry, that I had prevented it.
During that time strangers came and went, bringing or carrying away money, sometimes in considerable sums. A messenger from the Mongenod counting-room often came, always very early in the morning, so that his errand might not interfere with the business of the bank.
When you or your family are able to make this restitution, pay the sum you owe into the hands of Messrs. Mongenod and Company, bankers. May God forgive you. Five crosses formed the mysterious signature of this letter, which Godefroid returned to the baron. "The five crosses are there," he said as if to himself.
He wanted a new life, and the very sight of these objects would remind him of that which he wished to forget. This house was the firm of Mongenod and Company, established in 1816 or 1817, whose reputation for honesty and uprightness had never been questioned in the midst of the commercial depravity which smirched, more or less, all the banking-houses of Paris.
As for me, I don't choose that any man should get the better of me, get the better of a former attorney to the Chatelet! ta-ra-ra! Every man to whom a sum of money is lent as heedlessly as you lent yours to Mongenod, ends, after a certain time, by thinking that money his own. It is no longer your money, it is his money; you become his creditor, an inconvenient, unpleasant person.
The Mongenod Brothers, and draw for another sum of two hundred and fifty thousand francs, which is to be deposited in my name, "taking the utmost care," continued my instructions, "when transporting this money from Paris to Arcis-sur-Aube that it be not lost or stolen." What do you think of that last clause, dear friend?
By the way those children are looking at you, you must be aware that we have often talked to them of their father's benefactor. 'Oh, yes, yes, monsieur! said the beautiful Mongenod, 'we have never passed a single day without remembering you. Your share has been set aside in all our affairs.
I tell you all these details, as they come to me," said Monsieur Alain; "I seldom think of this matter now; but when I do, all the particulars come vividly before me." He paused a moment and then resumed: "It was winter, and Mongenod evidently had no cloak; for I noticed that several lumps of snow, which must have dropped from the roofs as he walked along, were sticking to the collar of his coat.
I expected to receive a ticket from Mongenod for the first representation; I established in my own mind a sort of claim on him. It seemed to me that by reason of my loan my friend was a sort of vassal of mine, who owed me a number of things besides the interest on my money. We all think that.
'Mongenod, thought I, 'is perhaps thoroughly depraved; he may have been playing a comedy at my expense. His gaiety, the moment I had handed over to him readily such a large sum of money, struck me then as being too like the joy of the valets on the stage when they catch a Geronte.
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