“’I have acted thus, because I know the craft and perseverance of the society of which I have been the victim.  If they could guess that my descendants would hereafter have to divide immense sums between them, my family would run the risk of much fraud and malice, through the fatal recommendations handed down from age to age in the Society of Jesus.

“’May these precautions be successful!  May the wish, expressed upon these medals, be faithfully transmitted from generation to generation!

“’If I fix a day and hour, in which my inheritance shall irrevocably fall to those of my descendants who shall appear in the Rue Saint-Francois on the 13th February, in 1832, it is that all delays must have a term, and that my heirs will have been sufficiently informed years before of the great importance of this meeting.

“’After the reading of my testament, the person who shall then be the trustee of the accumulated funds, shall make known their amount, so that, with the last stroke of noon, they may be divided between my heirs then and there present.

“’The different apartments of the house shall then be opened to them.  They will see in them divers objects, well worthy of interest, pity, and respect—­particularly in the Hall of Mourning.

“’My desire is, that the house may not be sold, but that it may remain furnished as it is, and serve as a place of meeting for my descendants, if, as I hope, they attend to my last wishes.

“’If, on the contrary, they are divided amongst themselves—­if, instead of uniting for one of the most generous enterprises that ever signalized an age, they yield to the influence of selfish passions—­if they prefer a sterile individuality to a fruitful association—­if, in this immense fortune, they see only an opportunity for frivolous dissipation, or sordid interest—­may they be accursed by all those whom they might have loved, succored, and disfettered!—­and then let this house be utterly demolished and destroyed, and the papers, of which Isaac Samuel possesses the inventory, as well as the two portraits in the Red Room, be burnt by the guardian of the property.

“’I have spoken.  My duty is accomplished.  In all this, I have followed the counsels of the man whom I revere and love as the image of God upon earth.

“’The faithful friend, who preserved for me the fifty thousand crowns, the wreck of my fortune, knows the use I mean to make of them.  I could not refuse his friendship this mark of confidence.  But I have concealed from him the name of Isaac Samuel—­for to have mentioned it might have exposed this latter and his descendants to great dangers.

“’In a short time, this friend, who knows not that my resolution to die is so near its accomplishment, will come hither with my notary.  Into their hands, after the usual formalities, I shall deliver my sealed testament.

“’Such is my last will.  I leave its execution to the superintending care of Providence.  God will protect the cause of love, peace, union, and liberty.