The owner declared that he had no other debts. The notary confirmed this.
'Your honour and your hand on it,' I said to him: 'you have no other debts which would concern the house?'
'I willingly give you my word of honour.'
'In that case I agree, and shall come here to-morrow with Rothschild's cheque.'
When I went next day to Rothschild's his secretary flung up his hands in horror:
'They are cheating you ! This is impossible: we will stop the sale if you like. It's something unheard of, to buy from a stranger on such terms.'
'Would you like me to send someone with you to look into the business?' Baron James himself suggested.
I did not care to play the part of an ignorant boy, so I wid that I had given him my word, and took a cheque for the whole sum.
When I reached the notary's I found there, besides the witnesses, the creditor who had c�me to receive his seventy thousand francs. The deed of purchase was read over, we signed it, the notary congratulated me on being a Parisian house-owner-all that \\"as left was to hand over the cheque . . . .
'How vexing ! ' said the house-owner, taking it from my hands;
'I forgot to ask you to draw it in two cheques. How can I pay out the seventy thousand separa tely now? '
'Nothing is easier: go to Rothschild's, they'll give i t you i n two chPques; or, simplPr still, go to the bank.'
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'I'll go if you like,' said the creditor.
The house-ovmer frowned and answered that that was his business, and he would go.
The creditor frowned. The notary good-naturedly suggested that they should go together.
Hardly able to refrain from laughter I said to them:
'Here's your receipt; give me back the cheque, I will go and change it.'
'You will infinitely oblige us,' they said with a sigh of relief; and I went.
Four months later the purge hypothccaire was sent me, and I gained about ten thousand francs by my rash trustfulness.
After the 1 3th of June, 1 849, Rebillaud, the Prefect of Police, laid i nformation against me; it was probably in consequence of his report, that some unusual measures were taken by the Petersburg government against my estate. It ·was these, as I have said, that made me go with my mother to Paris.
We set off through Neuchatel and Besan<;on. Our journey began with my forgetting my greatcoat in the posting-station yard at Berne; since I had on a warm overcoat and warm galoshes I did not go back for it. All went well till we reached the mountains, but in the mountains we were met by snow up to the knees, eight degrees of frost, and the cursed bisc. The
diligence could not go on and the passengers were transferred by twos and threes into small sledges. I do not remember that I have ever suffered so much from cold as I did on that night. My feet were simply in agony, and I dug them into the straw; then the driver gave me a collar of some sort, but that was not much help. At the third stage I bought a shawl from a peasant \YOman for fifteen francs, and wrapped myself in it; but by that time \Ye were already on the descent, and with every mile it became wc:rmer.
This road is magnificently fine on the French side; the vast amphitheatre of immense mountains, so varied in outline, accompanies one as far as Besan<;on itself; here and there on the crags the ruins of fortified feudal castles are visible. In this landscape there is something mighty and harsh, solid and grim; with his eyes upon it, there grew up and was formed a peasant boy, the descendant of old country stock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. And indeed one may say of him, though in a different sense, what was said by the poet of the Florentines: E ticnc ancor del montr e del maci�no. l
I Dante, Inferno, XV, 63. ( A .S.)
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Rothschild agreed to take my mother's bond, but would not cash it in advance, referring to Gasser's letter. The Board of Trustees did in fact refuse payment. Then Rothschild instructed Gasser to request an interview with Nesselrode2 and to inquire of him what was wrong. Ncsselrode replied that, though there was no doubt about the bonds and Rothschild's claim was valid, the Tsar had ordered the money to be stopped, for secret, political reasons.
I remember the surprise in Rothschild's office on the reception of this reply. The eye involuntarily sought at the bottom of the document for the mark of Alaric or the seal of Genghis Khan.
Rothschild had not expected such a trick even from so celebrated a master of despotic affairs as Nicholas.
'For me,' I said to him, 'it is hardly surprising that Nicholas should wish to purloin my mother's money in order to punish me, or hope to catch me with it as a bait; but I could not have imagined that your name would carry so little weight in Russia.
The bonds are yours and not my mother's; when she signed them she transferred them to the bearer (au porteur), but ever since you endorsed them that porteur3 has been you; and you have received the insolent answer: "The money is yours, but master orders me not to pay." '
My speech was successful. Rothschild grew angry, and walked about the room saying:
'No, I shan't allow myself to be trifled with; I shall bring an action against the bank ; I shall demand a categorical reply from the Minister of Finance! '
'Well,' thought I , 'Vronchenko won't understand this a t all. A
"confidential" reply would still have been all right, but not a
"categorical" one ! '
'Here you have a sample o f how familiarly and sans gene the autocracy, upon which the reaction is building such hopes, disposes of property. The communism of the Cossack is almost more dangerous than that of Louis Blanc.'
'I shall think it over,' said Rothschild; 'we can't leave it like this.'
Three days or so after this conversation, I met Rothschild on the boulevard.
'By the way,' he said, stopping me, 'I was speaking of your 2 Nessel rode, Karl Vasilevich ( 1 780- 1 862), Russian Minister for Foreign A ffairs. 1 8 1 6-56. (A.S.) Also inventor of Nesselrode pudding. ( D.M. )
:I This endorsement is done for security in sending cheques, in order that a cheque may not be sent unendorsed, by means of which anybody would be able to receive the money.
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business yesterday to Kiselev.4 You must excuse me, but I ought to tell you that he expressed a very unfavourable opinion of you, and does not seem willing to do anything for you.'
'Do you often see him?'
'Sometimes, at evening parties.'
'Be so good as to tell him that you have seen me to-day, and that I have the worst possible opinion of him, but that even so I don't think it would be at all just to rob his mother on that account.'
Rothschild laughed; I think that from that time he began to surmise that I was not a prince russe, and now he took to addressing me as Baron ; he elevated me thus, I imagine, to make me worthy of conversing with him.
Next day he sent for me; I went at once. He handed me an unsigned letter to Gasser, and added:
'Here is the draft of our letter; sit down, read it carefully and tell me whether you are satisfied with it. If you \vant to add or change anything, we shall do it at once. Allow me to go on \vith my work.'
At first I looked about me. Every minute a small door opened and one Bourse agent after another came in, uttering a number in a loud voice; Rothschild, going on reading, muttered without raising his eyes: 'Yes-no-good-perhaps-enough-' and the number walked out. There were various gentlemen in the room, rank and file capitalists, members of the National Assembly, two or three exhausted tourists with youthful moustaches and elderly cheeks, those everlasting figures who drink-wine-at wateringplaces and are presented at courts, the feeble, lymphatic suckers that drain the sap from aristocratic families and shove their way from the gaming table to the Bourse. They were all talking together in undertones. The Jewish autocrat sat calmly at his table, looking through papers and writing something on them, probably millions, or at least hundreds of thousands.