Chapter 29 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
THE NADIR
Unobtrusively and unrecognized, Mr Law made his way back to the Hôtel de Nevers, and the waiting, distracted Catherine.
He greeted her with an ease that belied his feelings, "You see how idle were your alarms."
"Idle!" Her voice was shrill with reproach. "Do you think I do not know that your carriage was smashed to matchwood, and that it is only by the mercy of God that you were not in it at the time?"
"You haven't realized yet that I work miracles."
She seized his arms as if she would shake him. "How can you laugh, John, at such a time? How can you?"
"Calm, my dear. Be calm. The masses are fickle, mere emotional animals, never long of the same mind. This mood will pass, and all will again be well. Before long you'll hear them shouting 'Vive Monsieur Lass,' as before. Meanwhile, I've taken thought for you. You will leave tonight for Guermande with the children, and remain there until this storm blows itself out."
"Go to Guermande? I?" She spoke as if scandalized. "And leave you here to face these dangers alone?"
"Dangers! Faugh! Do not let us exaggerate."
"You would have me believe that there are none. Then why do you wish me to go?"
"Because I shall have a more tranquil mind for what is to do if I know that you and the children are safely away from these disturbances."
"And I? Should I be tranquil if I went? Should I know a single moment's peace, wondering whether you are alive or dead? I remain here, John. Understand that. Of the two evils it is the less."
This unusual resoluteness took him by surprise. He still sought to persuade her to leave Paris for a while; but in the end, finding all insistence vain, he yielded reluctantly to her determination to remain. Deeply touched by it in that hour of trouble and by its renewed implication of an affection in which he had long since ceased to believe, he recalled his brother's last representations to him, and for a moment wondered again whether it was possible that William's sight was clearer than his own. He might have given it deeper thought had his mind not been commanded and obsessed by the need to consider means of arresting the cataclysm that was overtaking them.
To this he applied himself at once, and what could be done he did, so that the Regent, with revived hope had reason presently to praise the prodigies by which his Comptroller-General still sought in these unutterably difficult circumstances to direct the finances of the Kingdom.
His plan for absorbing the excessive banknotes lay in the re-creation of a public debt for those four or five hundred millions, offering it to the State creditors who had failed to purchase India Company stock, and whose hands remained full of paper currency for which they could find no investment. Meanwhile, in order to gain time, he delimited by edict the use of specie by restricting the amount to be withdrawn from the Bank on any given day. At the same time he shortened the banking hours, and enjoined leisureliness upon the cashiers in exchanging the paper offered. Where formerly he had arbitrarily depreciated specie in order to enhance the value of paper, he now took the opposite arbitrary course of raising the value of specie by one-third, so that less should be required to meet the daily tender of banknotes.
He laid other plans calculated to restore credit once the situation had been stabilized. His hopes of winning out were strengthened by the cessation of the fury of the fickle populace, which had so far spent itself that he could once more show himself in public without danger of being stoned. He was even seen once or twice at the opera in the Regent's box.
A few weeks, however, served to show that all hope of recovery was vain illusion.
In those last throws of the gamester to retrieve what was lost, he was to find that d'Argenson and his party had cogged the dice too heavily against him before being reduced to impotence. The Chancellor's edict and its revocation had so ruined the credit of the paper currency that no conceivable measures could restore it. Merchants were refusing to accept it, or if they accepted it at all they did so at their own valuation, and this fell so low that within a month of d'Argenson's edict the louis d'or was selling for a hundred and twenty livres. Those who retained specie in contravention of the edict employed it secretly for the purchase of their requirements. The prices of commodities which had soared under prosperity, continued still to soar in adversity because of money's loss of purchasing power. Bread was selling at five sous a pound, which was ten times its normal cost, with meat, butter, eggs and wine in proportion. For cloth previously purchasable at fifteen livres the ell, one hundred and twenty-five livres was being paid.
This catastrophic alteration of values bore most heavily upon the industrious bourgeois, the backbone of the State's prosperity in every age, and upon the labouring classes, which were no longer able to find employment. As all this became swiftly aggravated, producing chaos in the national life, the tide of execration against Law and the Regent, which for a moment had receded, rolled up again, storm-tossed once more when that universal misery had fully succeeded the universal false prosperity of a year ago.
Obscene lampoons against the Regent became of daily publication, and once again neither he nor Law could drive through the streets without being exposed to insult and to the danger of violence.
At last there came a day of early autumn when after a peculiarly hostile demonstration against the Regent during a performance of Phaeton at the opera, Mr Law confessed himself defeated and the game lost, and made admission of it to his brother.
"Not only must I own defeat, but by owning it I may do a last service to the Regent. I owe it to him for the loyalty with which he has supported me through all."
William Law was too fully and dolefully in agreement with him to argue, nor did he wish it, for in the pass to which things were come he almost found relief in this decision.
So once more and for the last time the Laird of Lauriston sought the Regent, and found him in gloomy consultation with Dubois.
"Ah, Baron," His Highness greeted him, "I was about to send for you. You will have heard what happened to me last night at the opera. Not the rabble this time, but men of good condition, people of quality, the last support remaining me in this crisis."
"That is what brings me, monseigneur." Mr Law was becomingly and sincerely solemn. "Your Highness needs a whipping boy. That is the only office I can now fill with advantage to you."
"Eh?" His Highness was startled.
"I am here, may it please Your Highness, to resign the Comptrollership."
"You have taken fright, then, have you?"
The Scot's long, noble countenance wore a melancholy smile. "No, monseigneur, not fright. I have become poignantly aware that it will be in Your Highness' best interests. Your Highness will announce that you have dismissed me."
"I see. I am to fling you to the lions, eh?"
"The measure will be so generally approved that the lightnings of public wrath will be deflected from Your Highness' head."
"To strike yours instead, Baron. I do not happen to be made of that kind of wood. I do not accept your resignation."
"Permit me to observe, monseigneur, with the utmost submission, that it is as much Your Highness' duty to accept it as it is mine to offer it."
"And you will permit me to observe, Monsieur le Baron, that I am not to be instructed in my duty."
Mr Law, nevertheless, went on instructing him. "Your Highness stands for France. I stand only for myself, and do not matter. Once you have dismissed me--who am regarded as the cause of all this evil--some calm will be restored; then a reaction will follow, and make it possible to carry out the plan I have outlined, and others which your Council will be able to devise, for restoring order."
The Regent pondered gloomily. "Devil take it, I am to play the coward, then; cast all the blame upon you, and shelter myself behind you. That is the sum of your advice. Eh bien, my dear Baron, it is not how I conceive it. The responsibility is equally mine."
"Not equally, monseigneur. The application of the system devolved solely upon me, and I am guilty of two miscalculations. The first was not to have provided against the speculative buying of the India Company's stock before the State creditors had been given the opportunity to acquire it. The second was not to have foreseen how frenziedly the greed of profit would drive up that stock once speculation in it had begun. The ill will that has precipitated this ruin was beyond my control. But had I avoided those two errors and perhaps others, it is possible that ill will would have been denied opportunity. In time the exploitation of Louisiana might have become, as I still confidently believe that it will, a source of inexhaustible wealth to France."
The Regent looked at Dubois, dull-eyed. "Can I possibly do this, my friend, and preserve my self-respect."
The Archbishop's lean face twitched. "Since Your Highness asks me, I do not hesitate to say that you can do nothing else. Monsieur Lass has supplied--nobly supplied, if I may say so--the sword that cuts this Gordian knot. As he points out, monseigneur's duty to France asks no less."
"No less than that I acquire some rehabilitation at the Baron's expense! Parbleu, it's a noble thing to be a prince. And the Baron, Archbishop? What is to become of him? Not even his life may be left him once it is assumed that he is in disgrace and that the full force of public hatred may be loosed upon him."
"Do not be concerned, monseigneur. I shall not be here to meet it. My brother, who, I am relieved to think, shares none of this execration in which I am now held, will remain for as long as Your Highness considers necessary in winding up the Bank." He paused a moment, whilst the Regent, with rumpled brow, sat staring gloomily before him. Then he resumed. "Because of slanders that may spring up when I am gone, Your Highness will bear with me if I add that whilst I have made the fortunes of many I have taken no thought for my own. With opportunities to enrich myself such as probably have never been afforded to any man, I will ask Your Highness to believe that I have not placed a single louis out of France. The Bank's reserve of gold will prove it. Such wealth as I have acquired here, which, apart from my lands of Guermande, may amount to some ten millions, I leave behind."
"Ah, that, no!" the Regent impulsively protested. "So much is not necessary, my dear Lass."
"Most necessary, Highness, for my honour. It will remain in order to shield me from defamation."
Sadly the Regent bowed his head, and for a moment there was silence. "If I let you go," he said at last, "it is in the hope that I may recall you once all this has died down, once order is restored, once the yield of Louisiana, due to your enterprise, shall, as I hope, have repaired our finances. You see, my friend," he ended on a sad smile, "I still have faith in you."
He stood up, and held out his hand. Mr Law accepted it and bore it to his lips. "My heart is full of gratitude for those words, monseigneur." Then, erect once more, placid as ever, elegant and commanding, he added: "Whenever Your Highness thinks that I may serve you, a word will bring me."
But his smile as he spoke was sardonic, for he was too fully assured that his repute could never survive the full discredit which he now invited in payment of his debt to a prince who had so fully trusted him.