the number of
thousands, filled the whole thoroughfare, they took apartments in the
adjoining houses, that they might be continually near the temple whence
the new Plutus was diffusing wealth. Every day the value of the old shares
increased, and the fresh applications, induced by the golden dreams of the
whole nation, became so numerous that it was deemed advisable to create no
less than three hundred thousand new shares, at five thousand livres each,
in order that the regent might take advantage of the popular enthusiasm to
pay off the national debt. For this purpose, the sum of fifteen hundred
millions of livres was necessary. Such was the eagerness of the nation,
that thrice the sum would have been subscribed if the government had
authorised it.
Law was now at the zenith of his prosperity, and the people were rapidly
approaching the zenith of their infatuation. The highest and the lowest
classes were alike filled with a vision of boundless wealth. There was not
a person of note among the aristocracy, with the exception of the Duke of
St. Simon and Marshal Villars, who was not engaged in buying or selling
stock. People of every age and sex and condition in life speculated in the
rise and fall of the Mississippi bonds. The Rue de Quincampoix was the
grand resort of the jobbers, and it being a narrow, inconvenient street,
accidents continually occurred in it, from the tremendous pressure of the
crowd. Houses in it, worth, in ordinary times, a thousand livres of yearly
rent, yielded as much as twelve or sixteen thousand. A cobbler, who had a
stall in it, gained about two hundred livres a day by letting it out, and
furnishing writing materials to brokers and their clients. The story goes,
that a hunchbacked man who stood in the street gained considerable sums by
lending his hump as a writing-desk to the eager speculators! The great
concourse of persons who assembled to do business brought a still greater
concourse of spectators. These again drew all the thieves and immoral
characters of Paris to the spot, and constant riots and disturbances took
place. At nightfall, it was often found necessary to send a troop of
soldiers to clear the street.
[Illustration: THE HUNCHBACK.]
Law, finding the inconvenience of his residence, removed to the Place
Vendome, whither the crowd of _agioteurs_ followed him. That spacious
square soon became as thronged as the Rue de Quincampoix: from morning to
night it presented the appearance
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