Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1859

pg 350            The amount of the floating debt was slightly diminished since 
             the visit of His Reverence in September 1857, but it was still 
             very high.  For the present there was hardly means to meet the 
             daily expenses.  And yet it was necessary by the 19th of this 
             month [February] to find $10,000, that is, 50,000fr., or to lose 
             $25,000.  Great indeed was the uneasiness.  An attempt was made in 
             various directions to borrow this sum, but without result.  Still, 
             there was at the bottom of each one's soul a conviction that the 
             same providential had which had so often drawn the Lake out of its
             difficulties would not fail it in this critical case.
                  The very day on which the budget was signed and a crushing 
             debt was again discovered, a letter was received from Paris 
             announcing a subsidy of 10,000fr. instead of 7,000fr. from the 
             Propagation of the Faith.  Next day a gentleman brought two little 
             boys to the college and placed in F. Sorin's hands a mortgage of 
             $2,000 as security for the payment of the education of his 
             children, not being able to pay immediately in cash.  Now under