e not to be all accomplished for a period of several centuries. The
money was to be divided into five portions, each of 100 livres, and so
to be put out at compound interest.

The first portion was to be withdrawn at the end of a century: it
would then amount to 13,000 livres, or about L.550. It is scarcely
worth while mentioning the purposes to which this trifle was to be
applied, but for the credit of M. Ricard it may be mentioned that they
were all unexceptionable. In two centuries the second sum would be
released, amounting to 1,700,000 livres. At the end of the third
century, the third instalment was to be released, when it would
consist of 226,000,000 livres. The destination of these magnificent
sums was also unexceptionable--it was for national education, the
erecting of public libraries, and the like. The instalment to be
released at the end of the fourth century would amount to about
30,000,000,000 livres: it was to be employed partly in the building of
100 towns, each containing 150,000 inhabitants, in the most agreeable
parts of France. 'In a short time,' says the benevolent founder,
'there will result from hence an addition of 15,000,000 of inhabitants
to the kingdom, and its consumption will be doubled--for which service
I hope the economists will think themselves obliged to me.' Malthus
had not then published his principles of population.

We must draw breath as we approach the destination of the fifth and
last instalment. It was to amount to four millions of millions of
livres--about a hundred and seventy thousand millions of pounds. We
take for granted that Fortune's calculations are correct, and have
certainly not taken the trouble of verifying them. Among other truly
benevolent and cosmopolitan destinations of this very handsome sum, it
may be sufficient to mention these:--

'Six thousand millions shall be appropriated towards paying the
national debt of France, upon condition that the kings, our good lords
and masters, shall be entreated to order the comptroller

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

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