Then, as an effect of all the formidable advertising, the probability of an increase of capital, the rumour of a new issue of fifty millions, fevered even the most sensible of that agitated society, ripe for every folly. From humble dwellings to aristocratic mansions, from the dark dens of door-porters to the drawing-rooms of duchesses, all heads took fire; the general infatuation became blind faith, heroic and ready for battle. Folks enumerated the great things done by the Universal--its first startling successes, its unexpected dividends, such as no other company had distributed in the early phases of its existence. They recalled that happy idea of the United Steam Navigation Company, which had so speedily yielded a magnificent profit, and whose shares already commanded a premium of a hundred francs. Then there was the Carmel silver-mine, with its miraculous yield of the precious metal, to which a reverend preacher had referred during Lent from the pulpit of Notre-Dame, calling it a gift from the Most High to trusting Christians.[21] And, besides this, there was another company established to work the immense deposits of coal which had been discovered; and yet another which was going to work the vast Lebanon forests, felling a certain number of trees every year, to say nothing of the establishment of that substantial concern, the National Turkish Bank at Constantinople. There had not been one check; good fortune, ever on the increase, changed everything that the Universal touched into gold. There was already a large _ensemble_ of prosperous creations, providing an immovable basis for future operations and justifying the rapid increase of the capital. Then there was the future which opened before overheated imaginations--the future so big with great enterprises that it necessitated that call for another fifty millions, the mere announcement of which was sufficient to upset men's brains. In this respect there was an unlimited field for Bourse and drawing-room rumours; however, the approaching grand affair of the Oriental Railway Company stood out amid all other projects, found its way into all conversations, decried by some and exalted by others.