left the absolute direction of them entirely to
the board of management, and only possessed
the right of paying the political and literary
editors, which cost me 300,000 francs a year.
I interrogated my past life; I asked myself if
there existed by chance any obscure passage in
it which could justify the ostracism by which I
was struck; but I found in it no single act
contrary to honour or to simple delicacy. I
knew, however, that the financial world was
hostile towards me, and that cruel rivalries
existed in that region; but I could not persuade
myself that outside that circle I was exposed to
significant enmity. Yet, how otherwise" (poor
innocent!) "explain the constant
animadversions of which I was the object, and the full
expression of which I found in the affected
disdain of my proposition with respect to the
Réseau Pyrenéen?"

Let us turn, then, to these "foreign affairs,"
which affect—not the honour of Monsieur
Mirès—that is impossible—but his patriotism
and his private feelings. First, figure in the list
the Roman railways; then, follows the Spanish
loan of sixteen millions sterling; then, the
construction of the railway from Pampeluna to
Saragossa; finally, the Turkish loan of also
sixteen millions sterling. Monsieur Mirès
contends that none of these were hazardous
enterprises, and, had good faith presided over them,
there might, perchance, have been no great
difference of opinion between the public and
himself; but when, as in the case of the
Pampeluna Railway, six thousand three
hundred and twelve shares, representing a value of
one million three thousand one hundred and
twenty pounds sterling, were issued in excess
of the number originally subscribed for, it
appears tolerably certain that the holders of the
extra shares at least must have hazarded
something considerable.

The Spanish loan, which was knocked on the
head in consequence of the opposition it met
with from the really great capitalists of Europe,
furnishes Monsieur Mirès with the opportunity
of writing up the Jews of the south of France
at the expense of their co-religionists in the
north; or, in other words, of falling foul of the
house of Rothschild for transacting business in
an honest, straightforward manner. The
arguments he employs are curious; but, as we are
dealing with the facts of Monsieur Mirès's
case and not with his theories, we pass over
a very amusing chapter, to come to the
"financial reaction" which took place in the
year 1857. Monsieur Mirès complains that
the public mind was turned against him by the
dramatists and political writers. First, appeared
a piece written by Monsieur Ponsard, called La
Bourse, which was highly approved of by the
Emperor; then, came the Question d'Argent,
by Alexandre Dumas the younger; and, a few
months afterwards, Les Manieurs d'Argent, by
Monsieur Oscar de Vallée, Advocate-General
of the Imperial Court of Paris. At the same
period Paris was inundated with biographies of
the principal mushroom financiers, representing
them in a most unfavourable light; and soon
followed a deluge of pamphlets and newspaper
articles, the outpourings of "a venal press,"
which, says Monsieur Mirès, "if they excited
some indignation by their injustice and defamatory
character, flattered at bottom the bad
passions of the ignorant multitude, ever prone to
raise its voice against riches and success. These
publications," continues Monsieur Mirès, "some
of which were encouraged, and others tolerated,
necessarily determined the vague instincts of
opinion, gave them a form and body, and
converted, finally, a general hostility into a question
of persons." The principal object of these unjust
attacks was the Caisse Générale des Chemins de
Fer, represented by Monsieur Mirès. But the
heaviest blow dealt against him came from the
government itself, in the shape of a warning,
consequent upon the appearance of an article on
the state of the money-market, which appeared
in the Journal des Chemins de Fer. Monsieur
Mirès had replied vigorously to the dramatists
by whom he had been covertly assailed; but
when the government turned against him it was
too much: he resolved to retire altogether from
business, and took that resolution on the very
day the warning appeared. He accordingly
convened a meeting of the shareholders in the
Caisse Générale des Chemins de Fer, and
tendered his resignation, accompanying the act by
a report, "which was, naturally, an energetic
refutation of the dominant ideas and restrictive
measures which had consecrated those ideas;"
phrases not particularly intelligible, but, as it
appears, highly effective in rehabilitating
Monsieur Mirès, for the meeting unanimously insisted
upon his remaining at his post; a proceeding
which he agreed to, "much against his will." If
1857 was unlucky for Monsieur Mirès, 1858 was
still more so; in fact, he dates all his misfortunes
from it. The works at Marseilles were stopped,
and a decree of the Council of State not only
prevented the development of the Roman
railways, but seriously affected the credit of the
Caisse Générale des Chemins de Fer, which
could no longer, by issuing shares, procure the
sums it stood in need of to meet its engagements.
In spite, however, of this disastrous
result, the works on the Pampeluna Railway
(in 1859) were briskly prosecuted, and (in 1860)
the Turkish loan was negotiated.

Without doubt, if we agree with Monsieur
Mirès, these two last affairs would have set him
on his legs more securely than ever; but, before
this consummation of his hopes arrived, an
untoward circumstance occurred. On the 15th of
December, 1860—the identical day on which
Monsieur Mirès sent out a notice to the
shareholders in the Caisse Générale des Chemins
de Fer, informing them of the advantageous
terms on which the Turkish loan had been
negotiated for—came thundering down upon his
devoted head, a judicial instruction provoked by
the Baron de Pontalba, who, in the simplest
and most positive terms, denounced his friend
and colleague, Monsieur Mirès, as an unmitigated
swindler. What in France is called a