Chapter 27 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM
Whilst the people who had acclaimed Mr Law for his princely liberality and for the prosperity which he had brought to their humble ranks, were acclaiming him more loudly still for what they believed to have been his part in the justice done upon the Count of Horn, the quality began to look askance upon him for the same reason.
Whilst artisans and others, whose daily earnings had by now been quintupled by the grace of John Law, were doffing their hats when he passed and shouting "Long live Monsieur Lass," the nobles, many of them enriched by him, were beginning to mutter his name with execration.
However much Horn, in their eyes, may have merited death, yet they began to tell one another that it was time to look to their privileges when a foreign adventurer usurped a power that could insist upon the infamy which had attended Horn's execution. For this was the tale, sedulously disseminated by the vindictive d'Argenson, and soon to take the still uglier shape that Horn had been wrongly convicted; that he was not the thieving murderer he had been represented, but an avenging husband whose misfortune it had been to mistake his man.
It was his friend the Duke of Antin who brought Mr Law the warning that this tale was spreading.
"Of course I know it for a foul lie," said his Grace. "But how to prove it? The world loves a foul lie, and the fouler it is, the better it loves it."
D'Antin had the rare experience of beholding the imperturbable Mr Law livid with anger. "The truth was proved at the trial. And here is the evidence." He sought and produced from amongst his papers the Duchatel letter.
"Conclusive enough, in all faith," the Duke agreed. "What can be done to make it known, I'll do. But slander is of rank and hardy growth."
"I am aware of the source of it," said Mr Law. "But, of course, it is too late to seal it up."
Nevertheless, he went off to the British Embassy, demanded to see Lord Stair, and made his plaint in uncompromising terms.
"This abominable tale, my lord, is a mean return for the profit you have had from me so as to repair your down-at-heel circumstances. I warned your lordship that if this thing were put about I should require a strict account of you."
They faced each other across Stair's writing table, the tall Scot and the short one. The ambassador strove with his dignity. His face was white, his prominent eyes bulging with wrath. He spoke stiltedly. "I resent your terms, sir. Yet I'll condescend to assure you that the rumour is not of my circulating."
"Will you condescend to assure me that it is not of your wife's? Or do you take shelter behind her ladyship's petticoats? If you deny that between you you are responsible for the slander, I shall give you the lie. For by my own indiscretion, it was known only to you that McWhirter was mistaken for me."
Stair's livid face, attempting a lofty smile, achieved a death's-head grin. "You will have the decency, sir, to remember my office here, and that it precludes me from asking satisfaction."
"The Count of Horn took some such tone with me when I required him to cease his attentions to my wife. I broke him for it, as I shall break you, my lord."
"Break me!" gasped his lordship, and laughed in derisive anger.
But Mr Law had already turned on his heel and was striding from the room.
He went straight to the Palais Royal and Dubois. He urged his demands peremptorily. "Monsieur l'Abbé, that man Stair is circulating a lie that hurts my honour."
The Abbé looked up at him, startled by the absence from his tone of its normal urbanity. "And what, pray, can I do about it?"
"If nothing suggests itself, I'll tell you. He denies me satisfaction, sheltering himself behind his office. Strip him of it."
"Strip him of it? In God's name, how can I do that?"
"How? Are you not Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs? Require Lord Stanhope to recall him."
"God save us!" Dubois was appalled. "What are you asking? You know there are limits..."
"There are none. You are slow to understand. These slanders may endanger me, and I am not to be endangered. I carry on my back the whole burden of the finances of France, like Atlas shouldering the world. If through the malice of that man I am made to stumble, there will be chaos. Do you understand?"
The Abbé scratched his fulvid head, sucked in his hollow cheeks. "But you are asking for extreme measures, Monsieur Atlas."
"No less. You'll take them, or you may never get to Cambrai, and there'll be no red hat for you."
"And now, God forgive you, I believe you are threatening me."
"No. I'm warning you. Or shall I ask His Highness to do it?"
"But no, but no," the Abbé soothed him. "You'll understand, at least, that I could not take such a step without the Regent's authority."
"For that all you need do is to explain the gravity of the case. His Highness doesn't want to see the finances in confusion, as they will be if I am overthrown by a campaign of slander. So make it clear to him. If necessary let him know that either Stair goes or I resign the Comptrollership. But you'll find that so much will not be necessary. Good day to you, Monsieur l'Abbé."
He stalked out, and Dubois went quavering to the Regent.
"I should never have believed that Monsieur Lass could be so violent," he lamented, in delivering his message.
It took effect the more readily because His Highness had no affection for the ambassador, and a courier set out that very day to inform Lord Stanhope that the Earl of Stair was no longer persona grata at the Court of France. Privately, Lord Stanhope was acquainted by Dubois with the fact that Stair had become obnoxious to Mr Law. It was enough. For such by then was Europe's view of the financial preponderance acquired by France and such the respect for its architect that no foreign government accounted it prudent to incur the Comptroller-General's displeasure.
Within the week the Earl of Stair had the mortification of being recalled and the further mortification of knowing whence the blow descended. He made what mischief he could whilst packing his bags, and let it be widely known by whose agency he was being sent home in disgrace.
Although there was little love for him, and, as the Regent's mother wrote, the Regent was glad to be rid of him, yet his recall served, as he reckoned, to deepen in Court circles the growing resentment of the pride and power of a Scotsman, so swollen that he could break ambassadors at his will. Law became the more detested, because it was now perceived how much he was to be feared, and this detestation began to study ways to sap the ground under his feet.
The Regent, aware of that wave of weighty hostility against his Comptroller, threw all his prestige into the scales against it, honouring Law in public on every occasion, and showing himself frequently with him in his box at the Opera. If, as a consequence, none dared to display open incivility, yet the campaign against him was preparing underground, led by his whilom friend and now bitterest enemy, the dispossessed d'Argenson.
The Marquis' shrewdness perceived that vast and imposing though the financial edifice of Mr Law's construction might be, the frenzy of speculation had rendered it top heavy. This frenzy continuing, the shares of the India Company had reached by now the monstrous price of twenty thousand livres, which was forty times their issued value.
Just as this nourished the hostile hopes of d'Argenson and his associates, so it renewed the fears of the prudent William Law. Armed with a sheet of figures, he sought his brother on a day of spring, a little while after Stair's recall, the day on which the shares had reached that phenomenal level.
"I've brought you a statement for the year, John, which you should study. It shows a profit on overseas trading of seventeen millions, with another seven millions from benefits on tobacco, salt and minting. Add to this sixty-three millions between interest on the national debt and profit on the tax farms, and you have a total revenue of some eighty millions. This might provide a dividend of five per centum on the capital for which the shares in the India Company were originally issued. Will you tell me what is the imperceptible fraction of that available for the ten milliards which is the present capital value of the stock?"
Mr Law studied the sheet cursorily, and tossed it back. "You are telling me that for a reasonable interest on that capital we require four or five hundred millions, whereas at present we possess but eighty. That is merely to renew the old arguments."
"Do you know of any fresh ones?"
"As I've told you before, those who buy at these prices must understand what are the present resources. They are easily computed. It follows, then, that they buy for the sake of future profits from the colonies when developed."
"Ay, ay, when developed. But when will they be developed to the extent of offering an adequate return on a capital value such as this? You promised to take order about the colonists of Louisiana. But nothing's done. Every report shows that native labour is proving useless without proper direction, whilst the white population is composed of wastrels who will not work. The riches on which you count remain locked in the soil."
"I've not overlooked it. In fact, I've prepared a plan, and have waited only until I could persuade the Regent to let me adopt it."
He disclosed it. It was a plan clearly inspired by the system of press gangs that obtained in England for the navy. Now that he possessed the Regent's authority he would apply it in France, so as to populate the colonies.
He would see Le Blanc, the present Lieutenant-General of Police, and decree a round-up of all useless idlers, gaol birds, thieves, able-bodied beggars, vagabonds, prostitutes and the like, and ship them out to find an honest outlet for their activities on the Mississippi plantations. Thus he would give those wretches the chance of a fresh start in life, whilst cleansing France of their undesirable presence and enriching her by the fruits of their labours in the New World.
It dissipated some of William's gloom. "I like it fine. I'll allow it's a canny notion." Then with a return of his misgivings, "I would you had thought of it earlier," he grumbled. "If you had had the notion two years ago, we might be garnering the fruits by now. As it is...what if overblown faith should turn to panic? Have you thought of that?"
"It has never been out of my reckonings since those crazy speculators got to work to drive the price to these wild levels."
"Can you provide for it?"
Mr Law shrugged irritably. "They say I work miracles. But, after all, I am not God. I can only hope that they will possess themselves in patience until shipments from Louisiana bring us that abundance. Meanwhile, we'll do as we can. A little judicious manipulation of the market, by making gambling easier, may keep them entertained."
"Do you sleep o' nights, John?"
"Peacefully."
"Ay, ye've the gamester's temperament. Would God I shared it. I might sleep easier myself."
"Perhaps my handling of the stock will help you."
Craftily he went about it. He brought down prices by apparently forced liquidations which compelled weak holders to sell, and then allowed them to rebound, only to drive them down once more. These fluctuations rendered speculation wilder than ever, but, thus deliberately encouraged, they achieved the immediate object of distracting attention from the lack of dividends by supplying quick gains for the fortunate operators.
But whilst Law gave his attention to this pumping so as to keep the ship afloat until harbour should be reached, d'Argenson went about intensifying the storm by which he hoped to wreck it.
He decided to open his campaign with an attack upon Law's paper money. He computed that the banknotes in circulation represented some two thousand five hundred millions, which was three times the value of France's minted gold. This grossly excessive paper currency, which rendered Law's position extremely vulnerable, resulted from the original omission to provide that only bondholders of the national debt should have the right to subscribe for the respective issue of the India Company stock.
As a consequence, by the time a great many of them had been paid off in notes, they were unable to acquire shares unless prepared to pay the inflated prices demanded by the speculators who had snatched them up. Out of reluctance to do this they had clung to their banknotes, so that these had not come to the India Company to be cancelled as was projected, but remained to swell to a dangerous extent the circulation.
Quietly at first, but sedulously, d'Argenson's agents spread the tale that Law was depositing for himself abroad large quantities of the French gold he had obtained in exchange for worthless paper. Alarm spread quickly and a run on the bank for specie was led by the Prince de Conti, who by the favour of Mr Law had amassed an enormous fortune.
In order to turn his paper into coin the Prince came to the Rue Quincampoix ostentatiously with three wagons, upon which he loaded the gold and the silver which he drew from the Bank. The effect of this spectacular action was to spread the general alarm upon which de Conti reckoned. The share market was suddenly paralysed, and the operators fell into queues to besiege the Bank with their demands for specie.
For a moment it looked as if this avalanche must sweep away Mr Law and his system. But the public had to deal with absolute power which could be yielded with unscrupulous skill, and Mr Law was prompt to wield it. By an immediate edict he officially depreciated specie in contrast with paper, by one tenth, and he was prepared, if necessary, to depreciate it further.
It was not necessary. In counter-panic the run ceased abruptly. Those who had queued to withdraw their gold, now queued as impetuously to return it.
At Mr Law's instances the Prince de Conti was severely reprimanded by the Regent and all but threatened with impeachment for his part in a conspiracy which might seriously have imperilled the finances of the State. Peremptorily he was ordered to return at least two-thirds of this specie to the Bank.
The position being restored, and in order to prevent a repetition, a further edict was promulgated delimiting the amount of specie to be possessed by any private person, completely forbidding its exportation, and restricting its use in trade to small payments only. At the same time an injunction was placed upon the manufacture of plate and articles of gold and silver beyond a certain weight.
It was one of those desperate measures of compulsion which governments in difficulties have occasionally adopted, and which, of whatever immediate result have never ended otherwise than in disaster. Its effect now was to sow disquiet in the public mind. Of this, d'Argenson, foiled in his first assault, took advantage to attack in another quarter. This time it was against the India Company that he unmasked his batteries.
Operations happened to be favoured for him by a spreading scandal resulting from the activities of Mr Law's press gangs, which by now were operating throughout France. The measure, wise and provident in itself, if belatedly adopted, was being grossly ill-conducted.
The men charged with the impressments, and commonly known by now as the Bandoleers of the Mississippi, were executing them with a brutality that shocked the country. The fundamental dishonesty so commonly displayed by underlings in the exercise of government authority, especially in the case of coercive measures, was actively at work.
By the peculation of those responsible, hordes of unfortunates of both sexes, carted to Bordeaux for shipment, were left on the way without proper nourishment or shelter, so that many of them perished miserably.
The survivors were embarked in overcrowded floating hells to be further decimated by disease and death, whilst those hardy enough to reach Louisiana alive, instead of labouring, were soon pursuing in the New World the activities which had made them infamous in the Old. And even this inhumanity was not the worst of it.
The Bandoleers of the Mississippi were not slow to perceive in their functions the opportunity for further and still more remunerative corrupt practices. They no longer confined their impressments to rogues and vagabonds. Many a respectable citizen found himself caught up in that infamous net to the end that he might ransom himself by payment.
The knowledge of these abominations spread rapidly, and the blame for them was assigned to Law at the prompting of his enemies. The mutterings of a storm of execration swelled up and at last broke upon him. Instead of the acclamations to which he had become accustomed on his public appearances, he was greeted now by obloquy, and more than once his carriage was pelted with filth and stones.
As indomitable in the face of this as he had been imperturbable in the face of plaudits, he took immediate steps to put an end to the abuses. The press gangs were abolished, and agents were dispatched to Germany, Italy and Switzerland, to recruit industrious labour of experience on the land with the offer of two hundred and eighty acres in Louisiana free of all rent and imposts for three years.
Even the gloomy William admitted the excellence of this measure, if not one that could ease the battle against time which must be more strenuously joined than ever now that the activities of d'Argenson were becoming apparent.
The Marquis was rendering the public conscious of the ludicrously inflated value of the India Company stock, with the assertion, which it was now impossible to contradict, that it would be many years before any return might be expected, if indeed ever, considering the scandalous failure of the colonizing experiments.
He reminded the world of the high rate of interest he had paid on the stock of the anti-system, which Mr Law had crushed and replaced by a stock that bore no fruit at all. He and his friends eloquently advocated those who held these fictitious values should convert them into stable ones: houses, land, jewels and the like.
The eloquence did its work. The confidence already shaken by the enforced measures, was shaken further by that insidious advocacy, and holders of the stock began to realize. Gathering momentum, the realization came to sweep the Rue Quincampoix like a wind of catastrophe, bringing about a rapid fall in the price of the shares.
When they had dropped from twenty to twelve thousand livres, William Law beheld in this the beginning of the verification of those fears which had been his ever since his brother had extended his operations from banking to the monopoly and direction of the nation's commerce. He adjured his brother, at least, to save the Bank by sacrificing the Company.
"The Bank," he contended, "is built on solid foundations, and can withstand these seas tossed by speculation. Let the gamblers of the India Company take their chance. If they lose, they can blame only their own rashness."
The advice was sound; but Law faced with these malign influences was no longer the cool gamester of former days. Anger and anxiety robbed him of his clarity of vision, dulled his gift of unerring calculation.
The man who had thriven by studying why others lose and by his accurate estimation of the odds, was made as reckless as the commonest punter, and, like the commonest punter, practised a desperate tenacity in the face of this adverse fall of the cards. So it was with something of defiance that he rejected his brother's advice and chose, instead, to have recourse to expedients.
Greatly daring, he made an ostentatious appearance on foot in the Rue Quincampoix, arrayed in the robes of his office of Comptroller-General and attended by a brilliant retinue of nobles, which included the Duke of Antin and the young Duke of Bourbon.
The odium visited upon him as a result of the operations of the press gangs had faded by now from the public memory, so notoriously short, and his appearance in the panoply of his high estate, handsome, serene and masterful, became the occasion of a demonstration above all his expectations. D'Argenson, who had hoped that he would be beaten to death for his daring, might gnash his teeth in disappointment.
He paused in an almost royal progress to greet some of the more prominent agioteurs and hold them in talk. Airily he announced that very soon the Regent would be promulgating fresh edicts of great advantage to the Company. Further profitable properties, he assured them, were shortly to be added to its already vast possessions, whilst the new colonists setting out for Louisiana were industrious men chosen for their expertness in cultivation. Although an immediate yield was naturally not to be expected, the India Company's foundations were too sound to leave in the discerning any doubts of its ultimate success. The fall in values could, therefore, be no more than a passing phase, and those deluded men whose timidity had produced it would soon have reason for regrets.
Remembering that his every forecast, even when most derided, had never failed to be fulfilled, his words were attended by a revival of confidence and a recovery began at once.