"
Ere long the exaggeration to which people in society are naturally
inclined, produced a large and growing crop of the most amusing ideas,
the most curious expressions, the most absurd fables concerning this
mysterious individual. Without being precisely a vampire, a ghoul, a
fictitious man, a sort of Faust or Robin des Bois, he partook of the
nature of all these anthropomorphic conceptions, according to those
persons who were addicted to the fantastic. Occasionally some German
would take for realities these ingenious jests of Parisian
evil-speaking. The stranger was simply _an old man_. Some young men,
who were accustomed to decide the future of Europe every morning in a
few fashionable phrases, chose to see in the stranger some great
criminal, the possessor of enormous wealth. Novelists described the old
man's life and gave some really interesting details of the atrocities
committed by him while he was in the service of the Prince of Mysore.
Bankers, men of a more positive nature, devised a specious fable.
"Bah!" they would say, shrugging their broad shoulders pityingly,
"that little old fellow's a _Genoese head_!"
"If it is not an impertinent question, monsieur, would you have the
kindness to tell me what you mean by a Genoese head?"
"I mean, monsieur, that he is a man upon whose life enormous sums
depend, and whose good health is undoubtedly essential to the
continuance of this family's income.
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