an out, but she ran further
in to reach Law, who saw what she was at, and like a pecuniary Joseph,
ran away as fast as he could.

As the frenzy rose toward its height, and the Regent took advantage of
it to issue stock enough to pay the whole national debt, namely, three
hundred thousand new shares, at $1,000 each, or a thousand per cent. in
the par value. They were instantly taken. Three times as many would have
been instantly taken. So violent were the changes of the market, that
shares rose or fell twenty per cent. within a few hours. A servant was
sent to sell two hundred and fifty shares of stock; found on reaching
the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons, that since he left his master's
house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to
$2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a
share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France
that evening. Law's coachman became so rich that he left service, and
set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor,
he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the
other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich.
There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count
de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous
case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for
the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite
of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent
had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.

The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten
and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely
inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more
it arose to 1,200 per cent. All winter it still went up until, in April
1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share
would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.

At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining
splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it
received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because
Law would not send him some shares on his own terms, sent three
wagon-loads of bills to Law's bank, demanding specie. Law paid it, and
complained to the Regent, who made him put two-thirds of it back again.
A shrewd stock-gambler drew s