ing established this humble genealogy, we easily understand how this
successive longevity of three members of the Samuel family, all of whom
had been guardians of the walled house, by uniting, as it were, the
nineteenth with the seventeenth century, simplified and facilitated the
execution of M. de Rennepont's will; the latter having declared his
desire to the grandfather of the Samuels, that the capital should only be
augmented by interest at five per cent.--so that the fortune might come
to his descendants free from all taint of usurious speculation.

The fellow men of the Samuel family, the first inventors of the bill of
exchange, which served them in the Middle Ages to transport mysteriously
considerable amounts from one end of the world to the other, to conceal
their fortune, and to shield it from the rapacity of their enemies--the
Jews, we say, having almost the monopoly of the trade in money and
exchanges, until the end of the eighteenth century, aided the secret
transactions and financial operations of this family, which, up to about
1820, placed their different securities, which had become progressively
immense, in the hands of the principal Israelitish bankers and merchants
of Europe. This sure and secret manner of acting had enabled the present
guardian of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois, to effect enormous
investments, unknown to all; and it was more especially during the period
of his management, that the capital sum had acquired, by the mere fact of
compound interest, an almost incalculable development. Compared with him,
his father and grandfather had only small amounts to manage. Though it
had only been necessary to find successively sure and immediate
investments, so that the money might not remain as it were one day
without bearing interest, it had acquired financial capacity to attain
this result, when so many millions were in question. The last of the
Samuels, brought up in the school of his father, had exhibited this
capacity in a very high degree, as will be seen immediately by the
results. Nothing could be more touching, noble, and respectable, than the
conduct of the members of this Jewish family, who, partners in the
engagement of gratitude taken by their ancestor, devote themselves for
long years, with as much disinterestedness as intelligence and honesty,
to the slow acquisition of a kingly fortune, of which they expect no part
themselves, but which, thanks to them, would come pure, as immen