"
"Be, then, at least proud and joyous at the good you have done," cried
Polidori, addressing Jacques Ferrand, who, gloomy and cast down, seemed
absorbed in profound meditation.
"Alas!" said the abbe, sadly, "it is not in this world that one receives
the recompense of so many virtues; he has a more exalted ambition."
"Jacques," said Polidori, touching the notary lightly on the shoulder,
"finish your reading." The notary started, passed his hand over his face,
and said to the priest:
"Pardon, M. l'Abbe, but I was thinking--I was thinking of the immense
extension that this bank for the poor might have from the returned loans.
If the loans of each year were regularly repaid at the end of four years,
it would have already loaned about fifty thousand crowns on pledge or
gratuitously. It is enormous--enormous; and I felicitate myself on it," he
added, thinking of the value of the sacrifice imposed upon him. He resumed:
"I was, I believe, at--"
"At the nomination of Francois Germain for director of the bank," said
Polidori. Jacques Ferrand continued.
"A revenue often thousand francs shall be set aside for the expenses and
administration of the Bank of the Poor without work, of which the perpetual
director shall be Francois Germain, and the porter and keeper shall be the
present porter of the house, named Pipelet.
"M. l'Abbe Dumont, with whom the funds necessary for this undertaking shall
be deposited, will form a superior council of supervision, composed of the
mayor and the justice of the peace of the ward, who will add to their
number the persons whose assistance they shall consider useful to the
extension of the Bank for the Poor; for the founder will esteem himself a
thousand times paid for the little that he has done if some charitable
person will aid in the work.
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