reat soldier, who was
not distinguishable from the subaltern in a peaceful club, could you see
him issuing the order to his aids-de-camp amidst the smoke and roar of
the battle-field.

"Ah, Marquis!" said Graham Vane, "are you gazing at Duplessis? He is the
modern genius of Paris. He is at once the Cousin, the Guizot, and
the Victor Hugo of speculation. Philosophy, Eloquence, audacious
Romance,--all Literature now is swallowed up in the sublime epic of
'Agiotage,' and Duplessis is the poet of the Empire."

"Well said, M. Grarm Varn," cried Frederic, forgetting his recent
lesson in English names. "Alain underrates that great man. How could an
Englishman appreciate him so well?"

"'Ma foi!'" returned Graham, quietly. "I am studying to think at Paris,
in order some day or other to know how to act in London. Time for the
Bois. Lemercier, we meet at seven,--Philippe's."

CHAPTER V.

"What do you think of the Bourse?" asked Lemercier, as their carriage
took the way to the Bois.

"I cannot think of it yet; I am stunned. It seems to me as if I had been
at a 'Sabbat,' of which the wizards were 'agents de change,' but not
less bent upon raising Satan."

"Pooh! the best way to exorcise Satan is to get rich enough not to be
tempted by him. The fiend always loved to haunt empty places; and of all
places nowadays he prefers empty purses and empty stomachs."

"But do all people get rich at the Bourse? or is not one man's wealth
many men's ruin?"

"That is a question not very easy to answer; but under our present
system Paris gets rich, though at the expense of individual Parisians. I
will try and explain. The average luxury is enormously increased even in
my experience; what were once considered refinements and fopperies are
now called necessary comforts. Prices are risen enormously, house-rent
doubled within the last five or six years; all articles of luxury are
very much dearer; the very gloves I wear cost twenty per cent more than
I used to pay for gloves of the same quality. How the people we meet
live, and live so well, is an enigma that would defy AEdipus if AEdipus
were not a Parisian. But the main explanation is this: speculation and
commerce, with the facilities given to all investments, have really
opened more numerous and more rapid ways to fortune than were known a
few years ago.

"Crowds are thus attracted to Paris, resolved to venture a small capital
in the hope of a large one; they live on that capita