The commissioner is of necessity a personage before whom much is said; who listens, recollecting all the while his own interests, and leaves the cause to the assignees and the attorneys,—­except, possibly, in a few strange and unusual cases where dishonesty is accompanied by peculiar circumstances, when the judge usually observes that the debtor, or the creditors, as it may happen, are clever people.  This personage, set up in the drama like the royal bust in a public audience-chamber, may be found early in the morning at his wood-yard, if he sells wood; in his shop, if, like Birotteau, he is a perfumer; or, in the evenings, at his dessert after dinner,—­always, it should be added, in a terrible hurry; as a general thing he is silent.  Let us, however, do justice to the law:  the legislation that governs his functions, and which was pushed through in haste, has tied the hands of this commissioner; and it sometimes happens that he sanctions fraud which he cannot hinder,—­as the reader will shortly see.

The agent to whom the judge delegates the first proceedings, instead of serving the creditors, may become if he please a tool of the debtor.  Every one hopes to swell his own gains by getting on the right side of the debtor, who is always supposed to keep back a hidden treasure.  The agent may make himself useful to both parties; on the one hand by not laying the bankrupt’s business in ashes, on the other by snatching a few morsels for men of influence,—­in short, he runs with the hare and holds with the hounds.  A clever agent has frequently arrested judgment by buying up the debts and then releasing the merchant, who then rebounds like an india-rubber ball.  The agent chooses the best-stocked crib, whether it leads him to cover the largest creditors and shear the debtor, or to sacrifice the creditors for the future prosperity of the restored merchant.  The action of the agent is decisive.  This man, together with the bankrupt’s solicitor, plays the utility role in the drama, where it may be said neither the one nor the other would accept a part if not sure of their fees.  Taking the average of a thousand failures, an agent would be found nine hundred and fifty times on the side of the bankrupt.  At the period of our history, the solicitors frequently sought the judge with the request that he would appoint an agent whom they proposed to him, —­a man, as they said, to whom the affairs of the bankrupt were well-known, who would know how to reconcile the interests of the whole body of creditors with those of a man honorably overtaken by misfortune.  For some years past the best judges have sought the advice of the solicitors in this matter for the purpose of not taking it, endeavoring to appoint some other agent quasi virtuous.