in! Thief! Traitor!" No word of the
vocabulary of scorn and loathing was wanting in their cries.

Hearing these cries, the face of this fighting man now grew hot with
anger, and now it paled with grief and sorrow. Yet he faltered not, but
stepped on, confidently. The Swiss opened the door and stood at the head
of the flight of stairs. Tall, calm, pale, fearless, John Law stood
facing the angry mob, his eyes shining brightly. He laid his hand for an
instant upon his sword, yet it was but to unbuckle the belt. The weapon
he left leaning against the wall, and so stepped on down toward the
crowd.

He was met by a rush of excited men and women, screaming, cursing,
giving vent to inarticulate and indistinguishable speech. A man laid his
hand upon his shoulder. Law caught the hand, and with a swift wrench of
the wrist, threw the owner of it to the ground. At this the others gave
back, and for half a moment silence ensued. The mob lacked just the
touch of rage to hurl themselves upon him. He raised his hand and
motioned them aside.

"Are you not Jean L'as?" cried one dame, excitedly, waving in his face a
handful of the paper shares of the latest issue in the Company of the
Indies. "Are you not Jean L'as? Tell me, then, where is my money for
these things? What shall I get for this rotten paper?"

"You are Jean L'as, the director-general!" cried a man, pushing up to
his side. "'Twas you that ruined the Company. See! Here is all that I
have!" He wept as he shook his bunch of paper in John Law's face. "Last
week I was worth half a million!" He wept, and tore across, with
impotent rage, the bundle of worthless paper.

"Down with Jean L'as! Down with Jean L'as!" came the recurrent cry. A
rush followed. The carriage, towering above the ring of the surrounding
crowd, showed its coat of arms, and thus was recognized. A paving-stone
crashed through its heavy window. A knife ripped up the velvets of the
cushions.

The coachman was pulled from his box. The horses, plunging with terror,
were cut loose from the pole and led away. With shouts and cries of rage
and busy zeal, one madman vied with another in tearing, cutting and
destroying the vehicle, until it stood there ruined, without means of
locomotion, defaced and useless. And still the ring of desperate
humanity closed around him who had late been master of all France.

"What do you want, my friends?" asked he, calmly, as for an instant
there came a lull in the tumult. He stood