"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!"