es they had gotten. Law moved to a
roomier street, and the crazy mob crowded harder than ever; so that the
Chancellor, who held his court of law hard by, could not hear his
lawyers.

A tremendous uproar surely, that could drown the voices of those
gentlemen! And so he moved again, to the great Hotel de Soissons, a vast
palace, with a garden of some acres. Fantastic circumstances variegated
the wild rush of speculation. The haughtiest of the nobility rented mean
rooms near Law's abode, to be able to get at him. Rents in his
neighborhood rose to twelve and sixteen times their usual amount. A
cobbler, whose lines had fallen in those pleasant places, made $40 a day
by letting his stall and furnishing writing materials to speculators.
Thieves and disreputable characters of all sorts flocked to this
concourse. There were riots and quarrels all the time. They often had to
send a troop of cavalry to clear the street at night. Gamblers posted
themselves with their implements among the speculators, who gambled
harder than the gamblers, and took an occasional turn at roulette by way
of slackening the excitement; as people go to sleep, or go into the
country. A hunchback fellow made a good deal of money by letting people
write on his back. When Law had moved into the Hotel de Soissons, the
former owner, the Prince de Carignan, reserved the gardens, procured an
edict confining all stock-dealings to that place; put up five hundred
tents there, leased them at five hundred livres a month each, and thus
made money at the rate of $50,000 a month. There were just two of the
aristocracy who were sensible and resolute enough not to speculate in
the stock--the Duke de St. Simon and the old Marshal Villars.

Law became infinitely the most important person in the kingdom. Great
and small, male and female, high and low, haunted his offices and
ante-chambers, hunted him down, plagued his very life out, to get a
moment's speech with him, and get him to enter their names as buyers of
stock. The highest nobles would wait half a day for the chance. His
servants received great sums to announce some visitor's name. Ladies of
the highest rank gave him anything he would ask of them for leave to buy
stock. One of them made her coachmen upset her out of her carriage as
Law came by, to get a word with him. He helped her up; she got the word,
and bought some stock. Another lady ran into the house where he was at
dinner, and raised a cry of fire. The rest r