“I am a poor man, and I can do nothing for this unfortunate girl; while if I had a hundred crowns I could do everything.”

“Don’t let that stand in your way,” said I, and drawing three hundred francs from my pockets I gave him the money.

“Now, sir,” said he, “I will be the ruin of her husband, who shall never know where his wife is.”

She thanked me and I left her there; the reader shall hear what became of her when I return from my journey.

On my informing Madame d’Urfe that I was going to Holland for the good of France, and that I should be coming back at the beginning of February, she begged me to take charge of some shares of hers and to sell them for her.  They amounted in value to sixty thousand francs, but she could not dispose of them on the Paris Exchange owing to the tightness in the money market.  In addition, she could not obtain the interest due to her, which had mounted up considerably, as she had not had a dividend for three years.

I agreed to sell the shares for her, but it was necessary for me to be constituted depositary and owner of the property by a deed, which was executed the same day before a notary, to whose office we both went.

On returning to her house I wished to give her an I O U for the moneys, but she would not hear of such a thing, and I let her remain satisfied of my honesty.

I called on M. Corneman who gave me a bill of exchange for three hundred florins on M. Boaz, a Jewish banker at the Hague, and I then set out on my journey.  I reached Anvers in two days, and finding a yacht ready to start I got on board and arrived at Rotterdam the next day.  I got to the Hague on the day following, and after depositing my effects at the “Hotel d’Angleterre” I proceeded to M. d’Afri’s, and found him reading M. de Choiseul’s letter, which informed him of my business.  He asked me to dine in his company and in that of the ambassador of the King of Poland, who encouraged me to proceed in my undertaking though he had not much opinion of my chances of success.

Leaving the ambassador I went to see Boaz, whom I found at table in the midst of a numerous and ugly family.  He read my letter and told me he had just received a letter from M. Corneman in which I was highly commended to him.  By way of a joke he said that as it was Christmas Eve he supposed I should be going to rock the infant Jesus asleep, but I answered that I was come to keep the Feast of the Maccabees with him—­a reply which gained me the applause of the whole family and an invitation to stay with them.  I accepted the offer without hesitation, and I told my servant to fetch my baggage from the hotel.  Before leaving the banker I asked him to shew me some way of making twenty thousand florins in the short time I was going to stay in Holland.

Taking me quite seriously he replied that the thing might easily be done and that he would think it over.

The next morning after breakfast, Boaz said,