Everyone loves a bargain, a bit of financial good fortune to the buyer’s advantage. When it’s exceptionally good, we call it the deal of a lifetime.

Sixty years ago, a lawyer made an arrangement that he thought would quickly reap a highly profitable windfall. But as so often happens, it didn’t turn out that way.

Our story begins in February 1875, when Nicolas and Marguerite Gilles welcomed daughter Jeanne into their well-to-do family in Arles in southern France.

For historical context, the United States was only 99 years old at the time; the telephone and electric light bulb hadn’t been invented yet; and the Statue of Liberty was still a decade away from delivery.

Nicolas was a shipbuilder, and the family lived in a coastal city on the Mediterranean. Jeanne attended private schools, pa

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