THE FALL OF DUPLE1X. tion. In vain did he remonstrate. In vain did he point out that he was persecuted by creditors who were simply creditors, because, on his security, they had advanced their funds to the Government of Pondichery. In vain did he write a memoir, setting forth, in a modest but graphic style, all he had done, the sums of money he had advanced. For seven years he urged and pressed his claims, supporting them by incontestable proofs. He received not even the shadow of redress. Nay, more. Many of those whom he had befriended in his prosperity, and who had advanced sums to the Pondichery Government, sued him for repayment. Even Bussy, who was to have been his stepson, deserted him in his extremity, broke off the marriage, and appeared in the list of claimants against him. To such a state of misery was he reduced, that, three months before he died, his house was in the occupation of bailiffs. Three days before that sad event, he thus wrote in his memoir : " I have sacrificed my youth, my fortune, my life, to enrich my nation in Asia. Unfor- tunate friends, too weak relations, devoted all their property to the success of my projects. They are now in misery and want. I have submitted to all the judi- ciary forms ; I have demanded, as the last of the creditors, that which is due to me. My services are treated as fables ; my demand is denounced as ridicu- lous ; I am treated as the vilest of mankind. I am in the most deplorable indigence ; the little property that remained to me has been seized. I am compelled to ask for decrees for delay in order not to be dragged into prison." Thus wrote, three days before he died, the man who had done for France more than all her Kings, beside whose exploits the deeds of her Conde, her Villars, her Turenne, sink into insignificance. The founder of an empire treated as the vilest of mankind, his just claims unattended to then, unsettled even to
