The Count made me a remittance of 12,000 crowns, which I carried to my
aunt De Maignelai, telling her that it was a restitution made by one of
my dying friends, who made me trustee of it upon condition that I should
distribute it among decayed families who were ashamed to make their
necessities known, and that I had taken an oath to distribute it myself,
persuant to the desire of the testator, but that I was at a loss to find
out fit objects for my charity; and therefore I desired her to take the
care of it upon her. The good woman was perfectly transported, and said
she would do it with all her heart; but because I had sworn to make the
distribution myself, she insisted upon it that I must be present, not
only for the sake of my promise, but to accustom myself to do acts of
charity. This was the very thing I aimed at,--an opportunity of knowing
all the poor of Paris. Therefore I suffered myself to be carried every
day by my aunt into the outskirts, to visit the poor in their garrets,
and I met very often in her house people who were very well clad, and
many whom I once knew, that came for private charity. My good aunt
charged them always to pray to God for her nephew, who was the hand that
God had been pleased to make use of for this good work. Judge you of the
influence this gave me over the populace, who are without comparison the
most considerable in all public disturbances. For the rich never come
into such measures unless they are forced, and beggars do more harm than
good, because it is known that they aim at plunder; those, therefore, who
are capable of doing most service are such as are not reduced to common
beggary, yet so straitened in their circumstances as to wish for nothing
more than a general change of affairs in order to repair their broken
fortunes. I made myself acquainted with people of this rank for the
course of four months with uncommon application, so that there was hardly
a child in the chimney-corner but I gratified with some small token. I
called them by their familiar names. My aunt, who always made it her