"Nothing!" exclaimed Varenne, bitterly, "except that every minute of this day is worth a million francs. Man, do you know?"--and in his frenzy he caught De la Chaise by the collar and half shook him out of his usual calm--"man, can you not see that Jean L'as has brought revolution into Paris? Oh! This L'as, this devil of a L'as! A thousand louis, my friend, a hundred, ten--give me but ten louis, and I will make you rich! A day of miracles is here!" CHAPTER VI THE GREATEST NEED There sprang now with incredible swiftness upward and outward an Aladdin edifice of illusion. It was as though indeed this genius who had waved his wand and bidden this fairy palace of chimera to arise, had used for his material the intangible, iridescent film of bubbles, light as air. Wider and wider spread the balloon of phantasm. Higher and higher it floated, on it fixed the eyes of France. And France laughed, and asked that yet other bubbles should be blown. All France was mad, and to its madness there was joined that of all Europe. The population of Paris doubled. The prices of labor and commodities trebled in a day. There was now none willing to be called artisan. Every man was broker in stocks. Bubbles, bubbles, dreams, fantasies--these were the things all carried in their hands and in their hearts. These made the object of their desire, of their pursuit unimaginably passionate and frenzied. With a leap from the somberness of the reign of Louis, all France went to the extreme of levity. Costumes changed. Manners, but late devout, grew debonair. Morals, once lax, now grew yet more lax. The blaze and tinsel, the music and the rouge, the wine, the flowing, uncounted gold--all Paris might have been called a golden brothel of delirious delight, tenanted by a people utterly gone mad. It was a house made of bubbles. Its domes were of bubbles. Its roof was of bubbles, and its walls. Its windows were of that nacreous film. Even its foundations had naught in them more substantial than an evanescent dream of gauze-like web, frail as the spider's house upon the dew-hung grasses. Yet as to this latter, there should be somewhat of qualification. The wizard who created this fairy structure saw it swiftly grow beyond its original plan, saw unforeseen results spring from those causes which were first well within his comprehension. Berated by later generations as an adventurer, a schemer, a charlatan, Law originally deserved anything but such a verdict of his public. Dishonest he was not, insincere he never was; and as a student of fundamentals, he was in advance of his age, which is ever to be accursed. His method was but the forerunner of the modern commercial system, which is of itself to-day but a tougher faith bubble, as may be seen in all the changing cycles of finance and trade. His bank was but a portion of a nobler dream. His system was but one vast belief, one glorious hope.