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.

The Company of the West—­this it was that made John Law’s heart throb.  America—­its trade—­its future!  John Law, dead now and gone—­he was the colossal pioneer!  He saw in his dreams what we see to-day in reality; and no bubble of all the frenzied Paris streets equaled this splendid dream of a renewed and revived humanity that is a fact to-day.

But there came to this dreamer and doer, at the very door of his success, that which arrested him even upon his entering in.  There came the preliminary blow which in a flash his far-seeing mind knew was to mean ultimate ruin.  In a word, the loose principles of a dissolute man were to ruin France, and with it one who had once saved France from ruin.

Philippe of Orleans found it ever difficult to say no to a friend, and more so if that friend were a woman; and of the latter sort, none had more than he.  Men and women alike, these could all see only this abundance of money made of paper.  What, then, was to prevent the regent, all powerful, from printing more and yet more of it, and giving it to his friends?  The regent did so.  Never were mistresses better paid than those of Philippe of Orleans, receiving in effect faithlessness in return for insincerity.