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