He  did  so ;  but,  unfortunately,  just  at  that  time  the  General,
Visconti,  died,  and  in  the  interim,  until  a  new  General  was
elected,  all  affairs  of  importance  remained  in  abeyance. This
was  bad,  and  especially  so  for  the  brothers  Lioncy  and  Gouffre,
as  when  the  bills  for  the  million  and  a  half  were  presented,
they  were  under  the  necessity  of  declaring  themselves  insolvent
on  the  19th  February  1756. They  conducted  themselves,  more-
over, under  the  circumstances,  in  a  perfectly  honourable  way,  and
gave  up  all  their  property  to  their  creditors,  as  they  preferred
rather  to  be  beggars  than  cheats. The  investigation  respecting
the  condition  of  the  property  required  a  long  time. After  the
space  of  a  year,  however,  the  affair  was  so  far  advanced  that  the
debit  and  credit  could  be  accurately  ascertained,  and  the  syndic
of  the  comniittee  of  creditors  entered  a  complaint  at  the
Consulate  in  Marseilles  against  the  two  Fathers  La  Vallette
and  Sacy,  the  former  in  his  capacity  of  chief  of  the  Jesuit-house
in  St. Pierre,  and  the  latter  as  Procurator-General  of  the
Missions  in  the  Antilles. The  Consulate  did  not  allow  a  long
time  to  elapse  before  pronouncing  its  sentence,  but  came  to  a
•decision  on  the  19th  December  1769. It  ran  thus,  that  Sacy
and  Vallette  together  had  to  pay  the  sum  of  1,502,236  livres
and  that  each  was  jointly  and  separately  liable. The  creditors
were  jubilant,  but  too  quickly  so,  as  La  Vallette  had,  by  this
time,  long  taken  his  departure  from  this  world,  and  Sacy  entered
an  appeal  against  the  sentence,  declaring  that  La  Vallette
was  alone  liable,  as  he  had  been  acting  completely  on
Lis  own  account,  and,  indeed,  contrary  to  the  wishes  of
his  superiors. In  the  meantime  the  law-suit  attracted  so  much
attention  in  France,  that  the  rest  of  the  banking-houses  with
which  La  Vallette  was  in  connection  believed  themselves  to  be
right  in  advancing  their  claims,  and,  with  the  firm  of  "  Widow
Crocc  &  Son "  at  their  head,  addressed  themselves  to  the
Provincial  of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  Paris,  calling  upon  him,
as  liable  for  the  debts  of  the  Profess-house  of  St. Pierre  at
Martinique. The  Provincial,  however,  would  not  at  all  admit
this,  and  the  consequence  was  that  the  firm  of  Crocc  &  Son
instituted  an  action. It  did  not,  however,  make  its  complaint


JESUIT    COMMERCE    AND    TJSUEY. 