There was nothing to be
said to him, his bench was broken, _banco rotto, banca rotta_; he could
even, in certain towns, keep all his property and baulk his creditors,
provided he seated himself bare-bottomed on a stone in the presence of
all the merchants. This was a mild derivation of the old Roman
proverb--_solvere aut in aere aut in cute_, to pay either with one's
money or one's skin. But this custom no longer exists; creditors have
preferred their money to a bankrupt's hinder parts.
In England and in some other countries, one declares oneself bankrupt in
the gazettes. The partners and creditors gather together by virtue of
this announcement which is read in the coffee-houses, and they come to
an arrangement as best they can.
As among the bankruptcies there are frequently fraudulent cases, it has
been necessary to punish them. If they are taken to court they are
everywhere regarded as theft, and the guilty are condemned to
ignominious penalties.
It is not true that in France the death penalty was decreed against
bankrupts without distinction. Simple failures involved no penalty;
fraudulent bankrupts suffered the penalty of death in the states of
Orleans, under Charles IX., and in the states of Blois in 1576, but
these edicts, renewed by Henry IV., were merely comminatory.
It is too difficult to prove that a man has dishonoured himself on
purpose, and has voluntarily ceded all his goods to his creditors in
order to cheat them.
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