by means of investing my savings in the banking-house which I should
enter. So I wrote, inclosing my photograph, the one taken at Crespon's,
in the Market Place, which represents me with chin closely shaven, a
keen eye beneath my thick white eyebrows, my steel chain about my neck,
my ribbon as an academy official, "the air of a conscript father upon
his curule-chair," as M. Chalmette, our dean used to say. (He insisted
also that I much resembled the late King Louis XVIII; less strongly,
however.) I supplied, further, the best of references; the most
flattering recommendations from the gentlemen of the college. By return
of post, the governor replied that my appearance pleased him--I believe
it, _parbleu!_ an antechamber in the charge of a person with a striking
face like mine is a bait for the shareholder--and that I might come
when I liked. I ought, you may say to me, myself also to have made my
inquiries. Eh! no doubt. But I had to give so much information about
myself that it never occurred to me to ask for any about them. Besides,
how could a man be suspicious, seeing this admirable installation,
these lofty ceilings, these great safes, as big as cupboards, and these
mirrors, in which you can see yourself from head to knee? And then
those sonorous prospectuses, those millions that I seemed to hear flying
through the air, those colossal enterprises with their fabulous profits.
I was dazzled, fascinated. It must be mentioned, too, that at the time
the house did not bear quite the aspect which it has to-day. Certainly,
business was already going badly--our business always has gone
badly--the paper appeared only at irregular intervals. But a little
_combinazione_ of the governor's enabled him to save appearances.

He had conceived the idea, just imagine, of opening a patriotic
subscription for the purpose of erecting a statue to General Paolo
Paoli, or some such name; in any case, to a great countryman of his own.
Money flowed accordingly into the Territorial. Unfortunately, that state