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passed a whole day with the Jew Rothschild. An Imperial commission visited him and minutely examined his safes and books; but it was in vain; no trace of the Elector's deposit could be found. Threats and intimidation had no success until the commission, feeling sure that no personal interest could induce a man so religious as Rothschild to perjure himself, proposed to administer an oath to him. He refused to take it. There was talk of arresting him, but the Emperor, thinking this a useless act of violence, forbade it. Then they had resource to a not very honourable method. Unable to overcome the banker's resistance, they tried to gain him over by the bait of profit. They proposed to leave him half the treasure if he would give up the other half to the French administration. A receipt for the whole, accompanied by a deed of seizure, would be given him to prove that he had only yielded to force and to prevent any claim from lying against him; but the Jew's honesty rejected this suggestion also, and his persecutors, tired out, left him in peace. Thus the 15,000,000 francs remained in Rothschild's hands from 1806 till the fall of the Empire in 1814. Then the Elector returned to his states, and the banker returned him his deposit as he had received it. You may imagine the sum which a capital of 15,000,000 francs would produce in the hands of a Jew banker of Frankfort. From this time dates the opulence of the Rothschilds, who thus owe to