The Mississippi Bubble Part 39

"How now, Monsieur L'as, how now?" fumed the regent, his heavy face glowing a dull red, his prominent eyes still more protruding, his forehead bent into a heavy frown. "You deny entrance to our person, who are next to the body of his Majesty?"

"Did you have delay?" asked Law, sweetly. "'Twas unfortunate."

"'Twas execrable!"

"True. I myself find these crowds execrable."

"Nay, execrable to suffer this annoyance of delay!"

"Your Grace's pardon," said Law, coolly. "You should have made an appointment a few days in advance."

"What! The regent of France need to arrange a day when he would see a servant!"

"Your Grace is unfortunate in his choice of words," replied Law, blandly. "I am not your servant. I am your master."

The regent sank back into a chair, gasping, his hand clutching at the hilt of his sword.

"Seize him! Seize him! To the Bastille with him! The presumer! The impostor!"

Yet even the guards hesitated before the commanding presence of that man whom all had been so long accustomed to obey. With hand upraised, Law gazed at them for one instant, and then gave them no further attention.

"Yet these words I must hasten to qualify," resumed he. "True, I am at this moment your master, your Grace, but two minutes hence, and for all time thereafter, I shall no longer be your master. Your Grace was once so good as to make me head of certain financial matters, and to give me control of them. The fabric of this Messasebe, which you see without, was all my own. It was this which made me master of Paris, and of every man within the gates of Paris. So far, very well. My plans were honest, and the growth of France--nay, let us say the resurrection of France--the new life of France--shows how my own plans were made and how well I knew that which was to happen. I made you rich, your Grace. I gave you funds to pay off millions of your private debts, millions to gratify your fancies. I gave you more millions to pay the debts of France. France and her regent have again taken a position of honor in the eyes of the world. You may well call me master of your fate, who have been able to accomplish these things. So long as you knew your master, you did well. Now your Grace has seen fit to change masters. He would be his own master again. There can not be two in control of a concern like this. Sir, the two minutes hare elapsed. I am your very humble servant!"

The regent still sat staring from his chair, and speech was yet denied him.

"There are your people. There is your France," said Law, beckoning as he turned toward the window and pointing to the crowd without. "There is your France. Now handle it, my master! Here are the reins! Now drive; but see that you be careful how you drive. Come, your Grace," said he, mockingly, over his shoulder. "Come, and see your France!"

The audacity of John Law was a thing without parallel, as had been proved a hundred times in his strange life and in a hundred places. His sheer contemptuous daring brought Philippe of Orleans to his senses. He relaxed now in his purpose, changeable as was his wont, and advanced towards Law with hand outstretched.

"There, there, Monsieur L'as, I did you wrong, perhaps," said he. "But as to these hasty words, pray reconsider them at once. 'Twill have a bad effect should a breath of this get afloat. Indeed, 'twas because of some such thing that I came to see you this morning. A most unspeakable, a most incredible thing hath occurred. It comes to me with certain confirmation that there have been shares sold upon the street at twelve thousand livres to the _action_, whereas, as you very well know, fifteen thousand should be the lowest price to-day."

"And what of that, your Grace?" said Law, calmly. "Is it not what you planned? Is it not what you have been expecting?"

"How, sirrah! What do you mean?"

"Why, I mean this, your Grace," said Law, calmly, "that since you have taken the reins, it is you who must drive the chariot. I shall suggest no plans, shall offer no remedy. But, if you still lack ability to see how and why this thing has attained this situation, I will take so much trouble as to make it plain."

"Go on, then, sir," said the regent. "Is not all well? Is there any danger?"

"As to danger," said Law, "we can not call it a time of danger after the worst has happened."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, that the worst has happened. But, as I was about to say, I shall tell you how it happened."

The gaze of the regent fell. His hand trembled as he fumbled at his sword hilt.

"Your Grace," said Law, calmly, "will do me the kindness to remember that when I first asked of you the charter of the Banque Generale, to be taken privately in the name of myself and my brother, I told you that any banker merited the punishment of death if he issued notes or bills of exchange without having their effective value safe in his own strong boxes."

"Well, what of that?" queried the regent, weakly.

"Nothing, your Grace, except that your Grace deserves the punishment of death."

"How, sir! Good G.o.d!"

"If the truth of this matter should ever become known, those people out there, that France yonder, would tear your Grace limb from limb, and trample you in the dust!"

The livid face of the regent went paler as the other spoke. There was conviction in those tones which could not fail to reach even his heavy wits.

"Let me explain," went on Law. "I beg your Grace to remember again, that when your Grace was good enough to take out of the hands of my brother and myself our little bank--which we had run honorably and successfully--you changed at one sweep the whole principle of honest banking. You promised to pay something which was unstipulated. You issued a note back of which there was no value, no fixed limit of measurement. Twice you have changed the coinage of the realm, and twice a.s.signed a new value to your specie. No one can tell what one of your shares in the stock of the Indies means in actual coin. It means nothing, stands for nothing, is good for nothing. Now, think you, when these people, when this France shall discover these facts, that they will be lenient with those who have thus deceived them?"

"Yet your theory always was that we had too great a scarcity of money here in France," expostulated the regent.

"True, so I did. We had not enough of good money. We can not have too little of false money, of money such as your Grace--as you thought without my knowledge--has been so eager to issue from the presses of our Company. It had been an easy thing for the regent of France to pay off all the debts of the world from now until the verge of eternity, had not his presses given out. Money of that sort, your Grace, is such as any man could print for himself, did he but have the linen and the ink."

The regent again dropped to his chair, his head falling forward upon his breast.

"But what does it all mean? What shall be done? What will be the result?" he asked, his voice showing well enough the anxiety which had swiftly fallen upon his soul.

"As to that," replied Law, laconically, "I am no longer master here. I am not controller of finance. Appoint Dubois, appoint D'Argenson. Send for the Brothers Paris. Take them to this window, your Grace, and show them your people, show them your France, and then ask them to tell you what shall be done. Cry out to all the world, as I know you will, that this was the fault of an unknown adventurer, of a Scotch gambler, of one John Law, who brought forth some pretentious schemes to the detriment of the realm. Saddle upon me the blame for all this ruin which is coming.

Malign me, misrepresent me, imprison me, exile me, behead me if you like, and blame John Law for the discomfiture of France! But when you come to seek your remedies, why, ask no more of John Law. Ask of Dubois, ask of D'Argenson, ask of the Paris Freres; or, since your Grace has seen fit to override me and to take these matters in his own hands, let your Grace ask of himself! Tell me, as regent of France, as master of Paris, as guardian of the rights of this young king, as controller of the finances of France, as savior or destroyer of the welfare of these people of France and of that America which is greater than this France--tell me, what will you do, your Grace? What do you suggest as remedy?"

"You devil! you arch fiend!" exclaimed the regent, starting up and laying his hand on his sword. "There is no punishment you do not deserve! You will leave me in this plight--you--you, who have supplanted me at every turn; you who made that horrible scene but last night at my own table, within the very gates of the Palais Royal; you, the murderer of the woman I adored! And now, you mocker and flouter of what may be my bitterest misfortune--why, sir, no punishment is sharp enough for you!

Why do you stand there, sir? Do you dare to mock me--to mock us, the person of the king?"

"I mock not in the least, your Grace," said John Law, "nor do aught else that ill beseems a gentleman. I should have been proud to be known as the friend of Philippe of Orleans, yet I stand before that Philippe of Orleans and tell him that that man doth not live, nor that set of terrors exist, which can frighten John Law, nor cause him to depart from that stand which he once has taken. Sir, if you seek to frighten me, you fail."

"But, look you--consider," said the regent. "Something must be done."

"As I said," replied Law.

"But what is going to happen? What will the people do?"

"First," said Law, judicially, flicking at the deep lace of his cuff as though he were taking into consideration the price of a wig or cane, "first, the price of a share having gone to twelve thousand livres this morning, by two o'clock will be so low as ten thousand. By three o'clock this afternoon it will be six thousand. Then, your Grace, there will be panic. Then the spell will be broken. France will rub her eyes and begin to awaken. Then, since the king can do no wrong, and since the regent is the king, your Grace can do one of two things. He can send a body-guard to watch my door, or he can see John Law torn into fragments, as these people would tear the real author of their undoing, did they but recognize him."

"But can nothing be done to stop this? Can it not be accommodated?"

"Ask yourself. But I must go on to say what these people will do. All at once they will demand specie for their notes. The Prince de Conti will drive his coaches to the door of your bank, and demand that they be loaded with gold. Jacques and Raoul and Pierre, and every peasant and pavior in Paris will come with boxes and panniers, and each of them will also demand his gold. Make edicts, your Grace. Publish broadcast and force out into publicity, on every highway of France, your decree that gold and silver are not so good as your bank notes; that no one must have gold or silver; that no one must send his gold and silver out of France, but that all must bring it to the king and take for it in exchange these notes of yours. Try that. It ought to succeed, ought it not, your Grace?" His bantering tone sank into one of half plausibility.

"Why, surely. That would be the solution."

"Oh, think you so? Your Grace is wondrous keen as a financier! Now take the counsel of Dubois, of D'Argenson, my very good friends. This is what they will counsel you to do. And I will counsel you at the same time to avail yourself of their advice. Tell all France to bring in its gold, to enable you to put something essential under the value of all this paper money which you have been sending out so lavishly, so unthinkingly, so without stint or measure."

"Yes. And then?"

"Why, then, your Grace," said Law, "then we shall see what we shall see!"

The regent again choked with anger. Law continued. "Go on. Smooth down the back of this animal. Continue to reduce these taxes. The specie of the realm of France, as I am banker enough to know, is not more than thirteen hundred millions of livres, allowing sixty-five livres to the marc. Yet long before this your Grace has crowded the issue of our _actions_ until there are out not less than twenty-six hundred millions of livres in the stock of our Company. Your Brothers Paris, your D'Argenson, your Dubois will tell you how you can make the people of France continue to believe that twice two is not four, that twice thirteen is not twenty-six!"