if your Grace took immediate steps,
not only for the safety of his person, but for the safety of the
Government."

"Sir, do you mean that the people would dare, that they would presume--"

"The people are not what they were. There hath come into Europe the
leaven of the New World. I had looked there to see a nobler and a better
France. It is too late for that, and surely it is too late for the old
ways of this France which we see about us. You can not presume now upon
the temper of these folk as you might have done fifty years ago. The
Messasebe, that noble stream, it hath swept its purifying flood
throughout the world! Look you, at this moment there is tumbling this
house which we have built of bubbles, one bubble upon another, blowing
each bubble bigger and thinner than the last. Mine is not the only
fault, nor yet the greatest fault. I was sincere, where others cared
naught for sincerity. Another day, another people, may yet say the world
was better for my effort, and that therefore at the last I have not
failed."

CHAPTER XI

THE BREAKING OF THE BUBBLE

It was the evening of the day following that on which John Law and the
regent of France had met in their stormy interview. During the morning
but little had transpired regarding the significant events of the
previous day. In these vast and excited crowds, divided into groups and
cliques and factions, aided by no bulletins, counseled by no printed
page, there was but little cohesion of purpose, since there was little
unity of understanding. The price of shares at one kiosk might be
certain thousands of livres, whereas a square away, the price might vary
by half as many livres; so impetuous was the advance of these
continually rising prices, and so frenzied and careless the temper of
those who bargained for them.

Yet before noon of the day following the decree of the regent, which
fixed the value of _actions_ upon a descending scale, the news, after a
fashion of its own, spread rapidly abroad, and all too swiftly the truth
was generally known. The story started in a rumor that shares had been
offered and declined at a price which had been current but a few moments
before. This was something which had not been known in all these
feverish months of the Messasebe. Then came the story that shares could
not be counted upon to realize over eight thousand livres. At that the
price of all the _actions_ dropped in a flash, as Law had prophesied. A
sudden wave o