One of his apprentices was the constant object of reproof.  The boy was accused of negligence, wasting his time, of spending three hours over a task which might have been done in less than one.  When Derues had convinced the father, a Parisian bourgeois, that his son was a bad boy and a good-for-nothing, he came to this man one day in a state of wild excitement.

“Your son,” he said, “ran away yesterday with six hundred livres, with which I had to meet a bill to-day.  He knew where I kept this money, and has taken it.”

He threatened to go before a magistrate and denounce the thief, and was only appeased by being paid the sum he claimed to have lost.  But he had gone out with the lad the evening before, and returned alone in the early hours of the morning.

However, the veil which concealed the truth was becoming more and more transparent every day.  Three bankruptcies had diminished the consideration he enjoyed, and people began to listen to complaints and accusations which till now had been considered mere inventions designed to injure him.  Another attempt at trickery made him feel it desirable to leave the neighbourhood.

He had rented a house close to his own, the shop of which had been tenanted for seven or eight years by a wine merchant.  He required from this man, if he wished to remain where he was, a sum of six hundred livres as a payment for goodwill.  Although the wine merchant considered it an exorbitant charge, yet on reflection he decided to pay it rather than go, having established a good business on these premises, as was well known.  Before long a still mare arrant piece of dishonesty gave him an opportunity for revenge.  A young man of good family, who was boarding with him in order to gain some business experience, having gone into Derues’ shop to make some purchases, amused himself while waiting by idly writing his name on a piece of blank paper lying on the counter; which he left there without thinking more about it.  Derues, knowing the young man had means, as soon as he had gone, converted the signed paper into a promissory note for two thousand livres, to his order, payable at the majority of the signer.  The bill, negotiated in trade, arrived when due at the wine merchant’s, who, much surprised, called his young boarder and showed him the paper adorned with his signature.  The youth was utterly confounded, having no knowledge of the bill whatever, but nevertheless could not deny his signature.  On examining the paper carefully, the handwriting was recognised as Derues’.  The wine merchant sent for him, and when he arrived, made him enter a room, and having locked the door, produced the promissory note.  Derues acknowledged having written it, and tried various falsehoods to excuse himself.  No one listened to him, and the merchant threatened to place the matter in the hands of the police.  Then Derues wept, implored, fell on his knees, acknowledged his guilt, and begged for mercy.  He agreed to restore the six hundred livres exacted from the wine merchant, on condition that he should see the note destroyed and that the matter should end there.  He was then about to be married, and dreaded a scandal.