"Ah, Monsieur!" he would add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of that catastrophe.
Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to effect a kind of compromise with her husband's numerous creditors, and by offering them a dividend of ninepence or a shilling in the pound, to secure a return for him into his own country. It does not become us to trace the steps which she took in the conduct of this most difficult negotiation; but, having shown them to their satisfaction that the sum which she was empowered to offer was all her husband's available capital, and having convinced them that Colonel Crawley would prefer a perpetual retirement on the Continent to a residence in this country with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that there was no possibility of money accruing to him from other quarters, and no earthly chance of their getting a larger dividend than that which she was empowered to offer, she brought the Colonel's creditors unanimously to accept her proposals, and purchased with fifteen hundred pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount of debts.
Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. The matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she justly observed, that she made the lawyers of the creditors themselves do the business. And Mr. Lewis representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss acting for Mr. Manasseh of Cursitor Street (chief creditors of the Colonel's), complimented his lady upon the brilliant way in which she did business, and declared that there was no professional man who could beat her.
Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little dingy lodgings where she dwelt, while conducting the business, to treat the enemy's lawyers: shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good humour, and returned straightway to the Continent, to rejoin her husband and son and acquaint the former with the glad news of his entire liberation. As for the latter, he had been considerably neglected during his mother's absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French maid; for that young woman, contracting an attachment for a soldier in the garrison of Calais, forgot her charge in the society of this militaire, and little Rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands at this period, where the absent Genevieve had left and lost him.

Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to reach an agreement with her husband's creditors, and by offering them a shilling in the pound, to secure his return to England. She managed to convince them that she was offering them all her husband's wealth, and that otherwise he would stay on the continent and they would get no money at all. Thus she purchased with fifteen hundred pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount of debt.
Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer. She made the lawyers of the creditors themselves do the business. And they complimented her upon the brilliant way in which she dealt with them, and declared that no professional man could beat her.
Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; ordered a bottle of sherry to her dingy lodgings to treat the enemy's lawyers: shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good humour, and returned straightway to the Continent, to rejoin her husband and tell him the good news. Her son had been neglected during his mother's absence; for her French maid, forming an attachment for a soldier, forgot her charge, and little Rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands, where she had left and lost him.
