The regent of France kept his promise to Law, and the latter in turn fulfilled his prophecy to the regent.  Moreover, he swiftly went far toward verifying his boast to the Lady Catharine Knollys; for in less than a month his name was indeed on every tongue in Paris.  The Banque Generale de L’as et Compagnie was seized upon by the public, debtor and creditor alike, as the one new thing, and hence as the only salvation.  As ever, it pleased Paris to be mystified.  In some way the rumor spread about that Monsieur L’as was philosophique; that the Banque Generale was founded upon “philosophy.”  It was catch-word sufficient for the time.

“Vive Jean L’as, le philosophe—­Monsieur L’as, he who has saved France!” So rang the cry of the shallow-witted people of an age splendid even in its contradictions.  And meantime the new bank, crudely experimental as it was, flourished as though its master spirit had indeed in his possession the philosopher’s stone, turning all things to gold.

One day, shortly after the beginning of that brilliantly spectacular series of events destined so soon to make Paris the Mecca of the world, there sat at table, in a little, obscure cabaret of the gay city, a group of persons who seemed to have chosen that spot for purposes of privacy.  Yet privacy was difficult where all the curious passers-by stared in amaze at the great coach near the door, half filling the narrow and unclean street—­a vehicle bearing the arms of no less a person than that august and unscrupulous representative of the French nobility, the Prince de Conti.  No less a person than the prince himself, thin-faced, aquiline and haughty, sat at this table, looking about him like any common criminal to note whether his speech might be overheard.  Next to him sat a hook-nosed Jew from Austria, Fraslin by name, one of many of his kind gathered so quickly within the last few weeks in Paris, even as the scent of carrion fetches ravens to the feast.  Another of the party was a man of middle age, of handsome, calm, patrician features and an unruffled mien—­that De la Chaise, nephew of the confessor of Louis the Grand, who Was later to represent the young king in the provinces of Louisiana.

Near by the latter, and indeed the central figure of this gathering, was one less distinguished than either of the above, evidently neither of churchly ancestry nor civic distinction—­Henri Varenne, sometime clerk for the noted Paris Freres, farmers of the national revenues.  Varenne, now serving but as clerk in the new bank of L’as et Compagnie, could have been called a man of no great standing; yet it was he whose presence had called hither these others to this unusual meeting.  In point of fact, Varenne was a spy, a spy chosen by the jealous Paris Freres, to learn what he might of the internal mechanism of this new and startling institution which had sprung into such sudden prominence.