"We are instructed to 'Love one another!' These divine words contain the germ of all charities. They have inspired the humble founder of this institution. Limited as to the means of action, the founder has desired at least to enable as many as possible to participate in what he offers. In the first place, he addresses himself to the honest, hard-working workmen, burdened with families, whom the want of employment frequently reduces to the most cruel extremities. It is not a degrading alms which he offers to his brethren, but a gratuitous loan he begs them to accept. And he hopes that this loan may frequently prevent them from involving their future by distressing loans, which they are forced to make in order to await a return of work, their only resource for a family of whom they are the sole support. As a guarantee of this loan he only requires from his brethren an undertaking on honour, and a keeping of the word pledged. He invests a sum producing an annual income of twelve thousand francs, and to this amount loans of twenty to forty francs, without interest, will be advanced to married men out of work. These loans will only be made to workmen or workwomen with certificates of good conduct given by the last employer, who will mention the cause and date of the suspension from labour. These loans to be repaid monthly by one-sixths' or one-tenths', at the option of the borrower, beginning from the day when he again procures employment. He must sign a simple engagement, on his honour, to return the loan at the periods fixed. This engagement must be also signed by two fellow workmen as guarantees, in order to develop and extend by their conjunction the sacredness of the promise sworn to. The workman and his two sureties who do not return the sum borrowed must never again have another loan, having forfeited his sacred engagement, and, especially, having deprived so many of his brethren of the advantage he has enjoyed, as the sum he has not repaid is for ever lost to the Bank for the Poor. The sums lent being, on the contrary, scrupulously repaid, the loans will augment from year to year. Not to degrade man by a loan, not to encourage idleness by an unprofitable gift, to increase the sentiments of honour and probity natural to the labouring classes, to come paternally to the aid of the workman, who, already living with difficulty from day to day, owing to the insufficiency of wages, cannot, when work stops, suspend the wants of himself and family because his labour is suspended,—these are the thoughts which have presided over this institution. May His Holy Name who has said 'Love one another!' be alone glorified!"
"Ah, sir," exclaimed the abbé, "what a charitable idea! Now I understand your emotion on reading these lines of such touching simplicity."
In truth, as he concluded the reading, the voice of Jacques Ferrand had faltered, his patience and courage were at an end; but, watched by Polidori, he dared not infringe Rodolph's slightest order.
"M. l'Abbé, is not Jacques's idea excellent?" asked Polidori.
"Ah, sir, I, who know all the wretchedness of the city, can more easily comprehend of what importance may be for poor workmen out of employ a loan which may seem so trifling to the happy in this world! Ah, what good may be done if persons but knew that with thirty or forty francs, which would be scrupulously repaid, if without interest, they might often save the future, and sometimes the honour of a family, whom the want of work places in the grasp of misery and want!"
"Jacques values your praises, Monsieur l'Abbé," replied Polidori. "And you will have still more to say to him when you hear of his institution of a gratuitous Mont-de-Piété (pawnbroking establishment), for Jacques has not forgotten this, but made it an adjunct to his Bank for the Poor."
"Can it be true?" exclaimed the priest, clasping his hands in admiration.
The notary contrived to read with a rapid voice the other details, which referred to loans to workmen whose labour was suspended by fatigue or illness, and his intention to establish a Bank for the Poor producing twenty-five thousand francs a year for advances on pledges, which were never to go beyond ten francs for each pledge, without any charges for interest. The management and office of the loans in the Bank for the Poor was to be in the Rue du Temple, Number 17, in a house bought for the purpose. An income of ten thousand francs a year was to be devoted to the costs and management of the Bank for the Poor, whose manager was to be—
Polidori here interrupted the notary, and said to the priest:
"You will see, sir, by the choice of the manager, that Jacques knows how to repair an involuntary error. You know that by a mistake, which he deeply deplores, he had falsely accused his cashier of embezzling a sum which he afterwards found. Well, it is this honest fellow, François Germain by name, that Jacques has named as manager of the institution, with four thousand francs a year salary. Is it not admirable, Monsieur l'Abbé?"