M. Etienne Saint-Faust de Lamotte, a provincial nobleman of ancient lineage and moderate health, ex-equerry to the King, desired in the year 1774 to dispose of a property in the country, the estate of Buisson-Souef near Villeneuve-le-Roi, which he had purchased some ten years before out of money acquired by a prudent marriage.
 
With an eye to the main chance M. de Lamotte had in 1760 ran away with the daughter of a wealthy citizen of Rheims, who was then staying with her sister in Paris. They lived together in the country for some time, and a son was born to them, whom the father legitimised by subsequently marrying the mother. For a few years M. and Mme. de Lamotte dwelt happily together at Buisson-Souef. But as their boy grew up they became anxious to leave the country and return to Paris, where M. de Lamotte hoped to be able to obtain for his son some position about the Court of Louis XVI. And so it was that in May, 1775, M. de Lamotte gave a power of attorney to his wife in order that she might go to Paris and negotiate for the sale of Buisson-Souef. The legal side of the transaction was placed in the hands of one Jolly, a proctor at the Chatelet in Paris.
 
Now the proctor Jolly had a client with a great desire to acquire a place in the country, M. Derues de Cyrano de Bury, lord of Candeville, Herchies, and other places. Here was the very man to comply with the requirements of the de Lamottes, and such a pleasing, ready, accommodating gentleman into the bargain! Very delicate to all appearances, strangely pale, slight, fragile in build, with his beardless chin and feminine cast of feature, there was something cat-like in the soft insinuating smile of this seemingly most amiable, candid and pious of men. Always cheerful and optimistic, it was quite a pleasure to do business with M. Derues de Cyrano de Bury. The de Lamottes after one or two interviews were delighted with their prospective purchaser. Everything was speedily settled. M. Derues and his wife, a lady belonging to the distinguished family of Nicolai, visited Buisson-Souef. They were enchanted with what they saw, and their hosts were hardly less enchanted with their visitors. By the end of December, 1775, the purchase was concluded. M. Derues was to give 130,000 livres (about L20,000) for the estate, the payments to be made by instalments, the first of 12,000 livres to be paid on the actual signing of the contract of sale, which, it was agreed, was to be concluded not later than the first of June, 1776. In the meantime, as an earnest of good faith, M. Derues gave Mme. de Lamotte a bill for 4,200 livres to fall due on April 1, 1776.
 
What could be more satisfactory? That M. Derues was a substantial person there could be no doubt. Through his wife he was entitled to a sum of 250,000 livres as her share of the property of a wealthy kinsman, one Despeignes-Duplessis, a country gentleman, who some four years before had been found murdered in his house under mysterious circumstances. The liquidation of the Duplessis inheritance, as soon as the law's delay could be overcome, would place the Derues in a position of affluence fitting a Cyrano de Bury and a Nicolai.
 
At this time M. Derues was in reality far from affluent. In point of fact he was insolvent. Nor was his lineage, nor that of his wife, in any way distinguished. He had no right to call himself de Cyrano de Bury or Lord of Candeville. His wife's name was Nicolais, not Nicolai—a very important difference from the genealogical point of view. The Duplessis inheritance, though certainly existent, would seem to have had little more chance of realisation than the mythical Crawford millions of Madame Humbert. And yet, crippled with debt, without a penny in the world, this daring grocer of the Rue Beaubourg, for such was M. Derues' present condition in life, could cheerfully and confidently engage in a transaction as considerable as the purchase of a large estate for 130,000 livres! The origin of so enterprising a gentleman is worthy of attention.
 
Antoine Francois Derues was born at Chartres in 1744; his father was a corn merchant. His parents died when he was three years old. For some time after his birth he was assumed to be a girl; it was not until he was twelve years old that an operation determined his sex to be masculine. Apprenticed by his relatives to a grocer, Derues succeeded so well in the business that he was able in 1770 to set up on his own account in Paris, and in 1772 he married. Among the grocer's many friends and acquaintances this marriage created something of a sensation, for Derues let it be known that the lady of his choice was of noble birth and an heiress. The first statement was untrue. The lady was one Marie Louise Nicolais, daughter of a non-commissioned artillery officer, turned coachbuilder. But by suppressing the S at the end of her name, which Derues was careful also to erase in his marriage contract, the ambitious grocer was able to describe his wife as connected with the noble house of Nicolai, one of the most distinguished of the great French families.
 
There was more truth in the statement that Mme. Derues was an heiress. A kinsman of her mother, Beraud by name, had become the heir to a certain Marquis Desprez. Beraud was the son of a small merchant. His mother had married a second time, the husband being the Marquis Desprez, and through her Beraud had inherited the Marquis' property. According to the custom of the time, Beraud, on coming into his inheritance, took a title from one of his estates and called himself thenceforth the lord of Despeignes-Duplessis. A rude, solitary, brutal man, devoted to sport, he lived alone in his castle of Candeville, hated by his neighbours, a terror to poachers. One day he was found lying dead in his bedroom; he had been shot in the chest; the assassin had escaped through an open window.
 
The mystery of Beraud's murder was never solved. His estate of 200,000 livres was divided among three cousins, of whom the mother of Mme. Derues was one. Mme. Derues herself was entitled to a third of his mother's share of the estate, that is, one-ninth of the whole. But in 1775 Derues acquired the rest of the mother's share on condition that he paid her an annual income of 1,200 livres. Thus on the liquidation of the Duplessis inheritance Mme. Derues would be entitled nominally to some 66,500 livres, about L11,000 in English money. But five years had passed since the death of Despeignes-Duplessis, and the estate was still in the slow process of legal settlement. If Derues were to receive the full third of the Duplessis inheritance—a very unlikely supposition after four years of liquidation—66,000 livres would not suffice to pay his ordinary debts quite apart from the purchase money of Buisson-Souef. His financial condition was in the last degree critical. Not content with the modest calling of a grocer, Derues had turned money-lender, a money-lender to spendthrift and embarrassed noblemen. Derues dearly loved a lord; he wanted to become one himself; it delighted him to receive dukes and marquises at the Rue Beaubourg, even if they came there with the avowed object of raising the wind. The smiling grocer, in his everlasting bonnet and flowered dressing-gown a la J. J. Rousseau, was ever ready to oblige the needy scion of a noble house. What he borrowed at moderate interest from his creditors he lent at enhanced interest to the quality. Duns and bailiffs jostled the dukes and marquises whose presence at the Rue Beaubourg so impressed the wondering neighbours of the facile grocer.
 
This aristocratic money-lending proved a hopeless trade; it only plunged Derues deeper and deeper into the mire of financial disaster. The noblemen either forgot to pay while they were alive, or on their death were found to be insolvent. Derues was driven to ordering goods and merchandise on credit, and selling them at a lower price for ready money. Victims of this treatment began to press him seriously for their money or their goods. Desperately he continued to fence them off with the long expected windfall of the Duplessis inheritance.
 
Paris was getting too hot for him. Gay and irrepressible as he was, the strain was severe. If he could only find some retreat in the country where he might enjoy at once refuge from his creditors and the rank and consequence of a country gentleman! Nothing—no fear, no disappointment, no disaster—could check the little grocer's ardent and overmastering desire to be a gentleman indeed, a landed proprietor, a lord or something or other. At the beginning of 1775 he had purchased a place near Rueil from a retired coffeehouse-keeper, paying 1,000 livres on account, but the non-payment of the rest of the purchase-money had resulted in the annulment of the contract. Undefeated, Derues only determined to fly the higher. Having failed to pay 9,000 livres for a modest estate near Rueil, he had no hesitation in pledging himself to pay 130,000 livres for the lordly domain of Buisson-Souef. So great were his pride and joy on the conclusion of the latter bargain that he amused himself by rehearsing on paper his future style and title: "Antoine Francois de Cyrano Derues de Bury, Seigneur de Buisson-Souef et Valle Profonde." He is worthy of Thackeray's pen, this little grocer-snob, with his grand and ruinous acquaintance with the noble and the great, his spurious titles, his unwearied climbing of the social ladder.
 
The confiding, if willing, dupe of aristocratic impecuniosity, Derues was a past master of the art of duping others. From the moment of the purchase of Buisson-Souef all his art was employed in cajoling the trusting and simple de Lamottes. Legally Buisson-Souef was his from the signing of the agreement in December, 1775. His first payment was due in April, 1776. Instead of making it, Derues went down to Buisson-Souef with his little girl, and stayed there as the guests of the de Lamottes for six months. His good humour and piety won all hearts. The village priest especially derived great satisfaction from the society of so devout a companion. He entertained his good friends, the merry little man, by dressing up as a woman, a role his smooth face and effeminate features well fitted him to play. If business were alluded to, the merry gentleman railed at the delay and chicanery of lawyers; it was that alone that postponed the liquidation of the Duplessis inheritance; as soon as the lawyers could be got rid of, the purchase-money of his new estate would be promptly paid up. But as time went on and no payment was forthcoming the de Lamottes began to feel a little uneasy. As soon as Derues had departed in November M. de Lamotte decided to send his wife to Paris to make further inquiries and, if possible, bring their purchaser up to the scratch. Mme. de Lamotte had developed into a stout, indolent woman, of the Mrs. Bloss type, fond of staying in bed and taking heavy meals. Her son, a fat, lethargic youth of fourteen, accompanied his mother.
 
On hearing of Mme. de Lamotte's contemplated visit to Paris, Derues was filled with alarm. If she were living free and independent in Paris she might find out the truth about the real state of his affairs, and then good-bye to Buisson-Souef and landed gentility! No, if Mme. de Lamotte were to come to Paris, she must come as the guest of the Derues, a pleasant return for the hospitality accorded to the grocer at Buisson-Souef. The invitation was given and readily accepted; M. de Lamotte still had enough confidence in and liking for the Derues to be glad of the opportunity of placing his wife under their roof. And so it was that on December 16, 1776, Mme. de Lamotte arrived at Paris and took up her abode at the house of the Derues in the Rue Beaubourg Her son sh............