The Mississippi Bubble Part 32

"Ask the farmers of the taxes. Ask Chamillard of the Treasury. My faith, look out of the window! Listen! Do I not tell you that France is laughing?"

"Very well. Let us also laugh. Let us all laugh together. There is money in France, more money in Europe. I a.s.sure you these people can be brought to give you cheerfully all they have."

"It sounds well, Monsieur L'as, but let me ask you how?"

"France is bankrupt--this is brutal, but none the less true. France must repudiate her obligations unless something be swiftly done. It is not n.o.ble to repudiate, your Grace. Yet, if we cancel and not repudiate, if we can obtain the gold of France, of Europe--"

"Body of G.o.d! but you speak large, my friend."

"Not so large. All subjects shrink as we come close to them by study.

'Tis easy to see that France has not money enough for her own business.

If we had more money in France, we should have more production, and if we had more production, we might have taxes. Thereby we might have somewhat in our treasury wherewith to keep the king in the saddle, and not under foot."

"Then, if I follow you," said Philippe, leaning slightly forward and again placing his finger tips judicially together, "you would coin greater amounts of money. Then, I would ask you, where would you get your gold for the coinage?"

"It is not gold I would coin," said Law, "but credit."

"The kingdom hath been run on credit for these many years."

"No, 'tis not that kind of credit that I mean. I mean the credit which comes of confidence. It is fate, necessity, which demands a new system.

The world has grown too much for every man to put his sixpence into the other man's hand, and carry away in a basket what he buys. We are no longer savages, to barter beads for hides. Yet we were as savages, did we not come to realize that this insufficient coin must be replaced, in the evolution of affairs, just as barter has long ago been, replaced."

"And by what?"

"As I said, by credit."

"Do not annoy me by things too deep, but rather suggest some definite plan, if that may be."

"First of all, then, as I said to you years ago, we need a bank, a bank in which all the people of France shall have absolute confidence."

"You would, then, wish a charter of some sort?"

"Only provided your Grace shall please. I have of my own funds a half million livres or more. This I would put into a bank of general nature, if your Grace shall please. That should be some small guarantee of my good faith in these plans."

"Monsieur L'as would seem to have followed play to his good fortune."

"Never to so good fortune as when first I met your Grace," replied Law.

"I have given to games of chance the severest thought and study. Just as much more have I given thought and study to this enterprise which I propose now to lay before you."

"And you ask the patent of the Crown for your bank?"

"It were better if the inst.i.tution received that open endors.e.m.e.nt."

A slow frown settled upon the face of the other. "That is, at the beginning, impossible, Monsieur L'as," said the regent. "It is you who must prove these things which you propose."

"Let it be so, then," said Law, with conviction. "I make no doubt I shall obtain subscriptions for the shares. Remember my words. Within a few months you shall see trebled the energies of France. Money is the only thing which we have not in France. Why, your Grace, suppose the collectors of taxes in the South of France succeed in raising the king's levies. That specie must come by wheeled vehicle all the way to Paris.

Consider what loss of time is there, and consider what hindrance to the trade of the provinces from which so much specie is taken bodily, and to which it can return later only a little at a time. Is it any wonder that usury is eating up France? There is not money enough--it is the one priceless thing; by which I mean only that there is not belief, not confidence, not credit enough in France. Now, given a bank which holds the confidence of the people, and I promise the king his taxes, even as I promise to abolish usury. You shall see money at work, money begetting money, and that begetting trade, and that producing comfort, and comfort making easier the collection of the king's taxes."

"By heaven! you begin to make it somewhat more plain to me."

"One thing I beg you to observe most carefully, your Grace," said Law, "nor must it ever be forgotten in our understanding. The shares of this bank must have a fixed value in regard to the coin of the realm. There must be no altering of the value of our coin. Grant that the coin does not fluctuate, and I promise you that my bank _actions_, notes of the chief bank of Paris, shall soon be found better than gold or silver in the eyes of France. Moreover, given a greater safety to foreign gold, and I promise you that too shall pour into Paris in such fashion as has never yet been seen. Moreover, the people will follow their coin. Paris will be the greatest capital of Europe. This I promise you I can do."

"In effect," said the regent, smiling, "you promise me that you can build a new Paris, a new world! Yet much of this I can in part believe and understand. Let that be as it may. The immediate truth is that something must be done, and done at once."

"Obviously."

"Our public debt is twenty-six hundred millions of livres. Its annual interest is eighty millions of livres. We can not pay this interest alone, not to speak of the princ.i.p.al. Obviously, as you say, the matter admits of no delay. Your bank--why, by heaven, let us have your bank!

What can we do without your bank? Lastly, how quickly can we have it?"

"Sire, you make me the happiest man in all the world!"

"The advantage is quite otherwise, sir. But my head already swims with figures. Now let us set the rest aside until to-morrow. Meantime, I must confess to you, my dear friend, there is somewhat else that sits upon my mind."

A change came upon the demeanor of his Grace the regent. Laying aside the dignity of the ruler with the questions of state, he became again more nearly that Philippe of Orleans, known by his friends as gay, care free and full of _camaraderie_.

"Your Grace, could I be of the least personal service, I should be too happy," said Law.

"Well, then, I must admit to you that this is a question of a diamond."

"Oh, a diamond?"

"The greatest diamond in the world. Indeed, there is none other like it, and never will be. This Jew hounds me to death, holding up the thing before mine eyes. Even Saint Simon, that priggish little duke of ours, tells me that France should have this stone, that it is a dignity which should not be allowed to pa.s.s away from her. But how can France, bankrupt as she is, afford a little trifle which costs three million francs? Three million francs, when we can not pay eighty millions annual interest on our debts!"

"'Tis as you say, somewhat expensive," said Law.

"Naturally, for I say to you that this stone had never parallel in the history of the world. It seems that this overseer in the Golconda mines got possession of it in some fashion, and escaped to Europe, hiding the stone about his person. It has been shown in different parts of Europe, but no one yet has been able to meet the price of this extortioner who owns it."

"And yet, as Saint Simon says, there is no dignity too great for the throne of France."

"Yet, meantime, the king will have no use for it for several years to come. There is the Sancy stone--"

"And, as your Grace remembers, this new stone would look excellent well upon a woman?" said Law. He gazed, calm and unsmiling, directly into the eyes of Philippe of Orleans.

"Monsieur L'as, you have the second sight!" cried the latter, unblushingly. "You have genius. May G.o.d strike me blind if ever I have seen a keener mind than thine!"

"All warm blood is akin," replied John Law. "This stone is perhaps for your Grace's best beloved?"

"Eh--ah--which? As you know--"

"Ah! Perhaps for La Parabere. Richly enough she deserves it."

"Ah, Monsieur L'as, even your mind is at fault now," cried the regent, shaking his finger exultingly. "I covet this new stone, not for Parabere nor for any one of those dear friends whom you might name, and whom you may upon occasion have met at some of my little suppers. It is for another, whose name or nature you can not guess."

"Not that mysterious beauty of whom rumor goes about this week, the woman rated surpa.s.sing fair, who has lately come into the acquaintance of your Grace, and whom your Grace has concealed as jealously as though he feared to lose her by some highway robbery?"

"It is the same, I must admit!"

Law remained thoughtful for a time. "I make no doubt that the Hebrew would take two million francs for this stone," said he.