"Good God! What mean you?" cried Lady Catharine, her own face blanching behind her protecting fan. The blood swept back upon her heart, leaving her cold as a statue.
"Why," continued the caller, in her own excitement to tell the news scarce noting what went on before her, "it seems that this mysterious beauty of the regent's, of whom there has been so much talk, proved to be none other than a former mistress of this same Mr. Law, who is reputed to have been somewhat given to that sort of thing, though of late monstrous virtuous, for some cause or other. Mr. Law came suddenly upon her at the table of the regent, arrayed in some kind of savage finery—for 'twas in fashion a mask that evening, as you must know. And what doth my director-general do, so high and mighty? Why, in spite of the regent and in spite of all those present, he upbraids her, taunts her, reviles her, demanding that she fall on her knees before him, as it seems indeed she would have done—as, forsooth, half the dames of Paris would do to-day! Then, all of a sudden, my Lord Director changes, and he craves pardon of the woman and of the regent, and so stalks off and leaves the room! And now then the poor creature walks to the table, would lift a glass of wine, and so—'tis over! 'Twas like a play! Indeed all Paris is like a play nowadays. Of course you know the rest."
A gesture of negative came from the hand that lay in Lady Catharine's lap. The busy gossip went on.
"The regent, be sure, was angry enough at this cheapening of his own wares before all, and perhaps 'tis true he had a fancy for the woman. At any rate, 'tis said that this very morning he quarreled hotly with Mr. Law. The latter gave back words hot as he received, and so they had it violent enough. 'Tis stated on the Quinquempoix that another must take Mr. Law's place. But if Mr. Law goes, what will become of the System? And what would the System be without Mr. Law? And what would Paris be without the System? Why, listen, Lady Catharine! I gained fifty thousand livres yesterday, and my coachman, the rascal, in some manner seems to have done quite as well for himself. I doubt not he will yet build a mansion of his own, and perhaps my husband may drive for him! These be strange days indeed. I only hope they may continue, in spite of what my husband says."
"And what says he?" asked Lady Catharine, her own voice sounding to her unfamiliar and far away.
"Why, that the city is mad, and that this soon must end—this Mississippi bubble, as my Lord Stair calls it at the embassy."
"Yet I have heard all France is prosperous."
"Oh, yes indeed. 'Tis said that but yesterday the kingdom paid four millions of its debt to Bavaria, three millions of its debt to Sweden—yet these are not the most pressing debts of France."
"Meaning—"
"Why, the debts of the regent to his friends—those are the important things. But the other day he gave eighty thousand livres to Madame Châteauthiers, as a little present. He gave two hundred thousand livres to the Abbé Something-or-other, who asked for it, and another thousand livres to that rat Dubois. The thief D'Argenson ever counsels him to give in abundance now that he hath abundance, and the regent is ready with a vengeance with his compliance. Saint Simon, that priggish duke, has had a million given him to repay a debt his father took on for the king a generation ago. To the captain of the guard the regent gives six hundred thousand livres, for carrying the fan of the regent's forgotten wife; to the Prince Courtenay, two hundred thousand, most like because the prince said he had need of it; a pension of two hundred thousand annually to the Marquise de Bellefonte, the second such sum, because perhaps she once made eyes at him; a pension of sixty thousand livres to a three-year-old relative to the Prince de Conti, because Conti cried for it; one hundred thousand livres to Mademoiselle Haidée, because she has a consumption; and as much more to the Duchesse de Falari, because she has not a consumption. Bah! The credit of France might indeed, as my husband says, be called leaking through the slats of fans."