essed 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