T

ellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of

Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a

court-yard and shut off from the street by a high wall and

a strong gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had

lived in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own

cook’s dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase

flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other

than the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate

for whose lips had once occupied three strong men besides the

cook in question.

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving

themselves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being

more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of the

drawing Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality,

Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur’s house had been first

sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all things move so fast,

and decree following decree with that fierce precipitation, that

now upon the third night of the autumn month of September,

patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of Monseigneur’s

house, and had marked it with the tricolour, and were drinking

brandy in its state apartments.

A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of business in

Paris, would soon have driven the House