The Mississippi Bubble Part 34

"Our friend stepped to the door but on the instant," said De la Chaise.

"He is perhaps--"

"That he has," cried Varenne. "He is the first of us to profit! Monsieur le Prince, in virtue of what I have said to you, if you could favor me with an advance of a few hundred louis, I could a.s.sure my family of independence. Monsieur le Prince! Monsieur le Prince--"

Monsieur le Prince, however, was not so far behind the Austrian! Varenne followed him, tugging at his coat, but Conti shook him off, sprang into his carriage and was away.

"To the Place Vendome!" he cried to his coachman, "and hasten!"

De la Chaise, aristocratic, handsome and thick-witted, remained alone at the table, wondering what was the cause of this sudden commotion.

Varenne re-appeared at the door wringing his hands.

"What is it, my friend?" asked De la Chaise. "Why all this haste? Why this confusion?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Varenne, bitterly, "except that every minute of this day is worth a million francs. Man, do you know?"--and in his frenzy he caught De la Chaise by the collar and half shook him out of his usual calm--"man, can you not see that Jean L'as has brought revolution into Paris? Oh! This L'as, this devil of a L'as! A thousand louis, my friend, a hundred, ten--give me but ten louis, and I will make you rich! A day of miracles is here!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GREATEST NEED

There sprang now with incredible swiftness upward and outward an Aladdin edifice of illusion. It was as though indeed this genius who had waved his wand and bidden this fairy palace of chimera to arise, had used for his material the intangible, iridescent film of bubbles, light as air.

Wider and wider spread the balloon of phantasm. Higher and higher it floated, on it fixed the eyes of France. And France laughed, and asked that yet other bubbles should be blown.

All France was mad, and to its madness there was joined that of all Europe. The population of Paris doubled. The prices of labor and commodities trebled in a day. There was now none willing to be called artisan. Every man was broker in stocks. Bubbles, bubbles, dreams, fantasies--these were the things all carried in their hands and in their hearts. These made the object of their desire, of their pursuit unimaginably pa.s.sionate and frenzied.

With a leap from the somberness of the reign of Louis, all France went to the extreme of levity. Costumes changed. Manners, but late devout, grew debonair. Morals, once lax, now grew yet more lax. The blaze and tinsel, the music and the rouge, the wine, the flowing, uncounted gold--all Paris might have been called a golden brothel of delirious delight, tenanted by a people utterly gone mad.

It was a house made of bubbles. Its domes were of bubbles. Its roof was of bubbles, and its walls. Its windows were of that nacreous film. Even its foundations had naught in them more substantial than an evanescent dream of gauze-like web, frail as the spider's house upon the dew-hung gra.s.ses.

Yet as to this latter, there should be somewhat of qualification. The wizard who created this fairy structure saw it swiftly grow beyond its original plan, saw unforeseen results spring from those causes which were first well within his comprehension.

Berated by later generations as an adventurer, a schemer, a charlatan, Law originally deserved anything but such a verdict of his public.

Dishonest he was not, insincere he never was; and as a student of fundamentals, he was in advance of his age, which is ever to be accursed. His method was but the forerunner of the modern commercial system, which is of itself to-day but a tougher faith bubble, as may be seen in all the changing cycles of finance and trade. His bank was but a portion of a n.o.bler dream. His system was but one vast belief, one glorious hope.

The Company of the West--this it was that made John Law's heart throb.

America--its trade--its future! John Law, dead now and gone--he was the colossal pioneer! He saw in his dreams what we see to-day in reality; and no bubble of all the frenzied Paris streets equaled this splendid dream of a renewed and revived humanity that is a fact to-day.

But there came to this dreamer and doer, at the very door of his success, that which arrested him even upon his entering in. There came the preliminary blow which in a flash his far-seeing mind knew was to mean ultimate ruin. In a word, the loose principles of a dissolute man were to ruin France, and with it one who had once saved France from ruin.

Philippe of Orleans found it ever difficult to say no to a friend, and more so if that friend were a woman; and of the latter sort, none had more than he. Men and women alike, these could all see only this abundance of money made of paper. What, then, was to prevent the regent, all powerful, from printing more and yet more of it, and giving it to his friends? The regent did so. Never were mistresses better paid than those of Philippe of Orleans, receiving in effect faithlessness in return for insincerity.

Philippe of Orleans could not see why, since credit based on specie made possible a great volume of accepted notes, a credit based on all France might not warrant an indefinite issue of such notes. He offered his director-general all the concessions which the crown could give, all the revenue-producing elements of France--in effect, all France itself, as security. In return he asked but the small privilege of printing for himself as much money as he chose and whenever he saw fit!

The notes of the private bank of Law were an absolute promise to pay a certain and definite sum, not a changeable or indefinite sum; and Law made it a part of his published creed that any banker was worthy of death who issued notes without having the specie wherewith to pay them.

He insisted that the payment should mean specie in the value of the day on which the note was issued. This item the regent liked little, as being too irksome for his temper. Was it not of record how Louis, the Grand Monarque, had twice made certain millions for himself by the simple process of changing the value of the coin? Dicing, drinking, amorous Philippe, easy-going, shallow-thinking, truly wert thou better fitted for a throne than for a banker's chair!

The royal bank, which the regent himself hastened to foster when he saw the profits of the first private bank of circulation and discount France had ever known, issued notes against which Law entered immediately his firm protest. He saw that their tenor spelled ruin for the whole system of finance which, at such labor, he had erected. These notes promised to pay, for instance, fifty livres "in silver coin," not "in coin of the weight and standard of this day," as had the honester notes of Law's bank. That is to say, the notes meant nothing sure and nothing definite.

They might be money for a time, but not forever; and this the director-general was too shrewd a man not to know.

"But under this issue you shall have all France," said the regent to him one day, as they renewed their discussion yet again upon this scheme.

"You shall have the farming of the taxes. I will give you all the foreign trade as monopoly, if you like--will give you the mint--will give you, in effect, as I have said, all France. But, Monsieur my director-general, I must have money. It is for that purpose that I appoint you director-general--because I find you the most remarkable man in all the world."

"Your Grace," said Law, "print your notes thus, and print them to such extent as you wish, and France is again worse than bankrupt! Then, indeed, you have worse than repudiated the debts of France."

"Ah bah! _mon drole_! You are ill to-day. You have a _migraine_, perhaps? What folly for you to speak thus. France hath swiftly grown so strong that she can never again be ruined. What ails my magician, my Prince of Golconda, this morning? France bankrupt! Even were it so, does that relieve me of this begging of De Prie, of Parabere, and all the others? My G.o.d, Monsieur L'as, they are like leeches! They think me made of money."

"And your Grace thinks France made of money."

"Nay; I only think my director-general is made of money, or can make it as he likes."

And this was ever the end of Law's reproaches and his expostulations.

This, then, was to be the end of his glorious enterprises, thought he, as he sat one morning, staring out of the window when left alone. This sordid love for money for its own sake--this was to be the limit of an ambition which dealt in theories, in men, in nations, and not in livres and louis d'or! Law smiled bitterly. For an instant he was not the confident man of action and of affairs, not the man claiming with a.s.surance the perpetual protection of good fortune. He sat there, alone, feeling nothing but the great human craving for sympathy and trust. A line of carriages swept back across the street at his window, and streams of n.o.bles besought entrance at his door. And the man who had called out all these, the man for whose friends.h.i.+p all Europe clamored--that man sat with aching heart, longing, craving, begging now of fortune only the one thing--a friend!

At last he arose, his face showing lean and haggard. He pa.s.sed into another room.

"Will," said he, "I am at a place where I am dizzy and need a hand. You know what hand it means for me. Can you go--will you take her, as you did once before for me, a message? I can not go. I can not venture into her presence. Will you go? Tell her it is the last time! Tell her it is the last!"

CHAPTER VII

THE MIRACLE UNWROUGHT

"You do not know my brother, Lady Catharine."

Thus spoke Will Law, who had been admitted but a half hour since at the great door of the private hotel where dwelt the Lady Catharine Knollys.

"'Twould seem, then, 'tis by no fault of his," replied Lady Catharine, hotly.

"And is that not well? There are many in Paris who would fain change places with you, Lady Catharine."

"Would heaven they might!" exclaimed she. "Would that my various friends, or the prefect of police, or heaven knows who that may have spread the news of my acquaintance with your brother, would take me out of that acquaintance!"

"They might hold his friends.h.i.+p a high honor," said Will.

"Oh, an honor! Excellent well comes this distinguished honor. Sirrah, carriages block my street, filled with those who beseech my introduction to John Law. I am waylaid if I step abroad, by women--persons of quality, ladies of the realm, G.o.d knoweth what--and they beg of me the favor of an introduction to John Law! There seems spread, I know not how, a silly rumor of the child Kate. And though I did scarce more than name a convent for her attendance, there are now out all manner of reports of Monsieur John Law's child, and--what do I say--'tis monstrous! I protest that I have come closer than I care into the public thoughts with this prodigy, this John Law, whose favor is sought by every one. Honor!--'tis not less than outrage!"

"'Tis but argument that my brother is a person not without note."

"But granted. 'We have seen his carriage at your curb,' they say. I insist that it is a mistake. 'But we saw him come from your door at such and such an hour.' If he came, 'twas but for meeting such answer as I have always given him. Will they never believe--will your brother himself never believe that, though did he have, as he himself says, all France in the hollow of his hand, he could be nothing to me? Now I will make an end to this. I will leave Paris."

"Madam, you might not be allowed to go."

"What! I not allowed to go! And what would hinder a Knollys of Banbury from going when the hour shall arrive?"