“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.”