, in virtue of what I have said to you, if you could favor me
with an advance of a few hundred louis, I could assure my family of
independence. Monsieur le Prince! Monsieur le Prince--"

Monsieur le Prince, however, was not so far behind the Austrian! Varenne
followed him, tugging at his coat, but Conti shook him off, sprang into
his carriage and was away.

"To the Place Vendome!" he cried to his coachman, "and hasten!"

De la Chaise, aristocratic, handsome and thick-witted, remained alone at
the table, wondering what was the cause of this sudden commotion.
Varenne re-appeared at the door wringing his hands.

"What is it, my friend?" asked De la Chaise. "Why all this haste? Why
this confusion?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Varenne, bitterly, "except that every minute of
this day is worth a million francs. Man, do you know?"--and in his
frenzy he caught De la Chaise by the collar and half shook him out of
his usual calm--"man, can you not see that Jean L'as has brought
revolution into Paris? Oh! This L'as, this devil of a L'as! A thousand
louis, my friend, a hundred, ten--give me but ten louis, and I will make
you rich! A day of miracles is here!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GREATEST NEED

There sprang now with incredible swiftness upward and outward an Aladdin
edifice of illusion. It was as though indeed this genius who had waved
his wand and bidden this fairy palace of chimera to arise, had used for
his material the intangible, iridescent film of bubbles, light as air.
Wider and wider spread the balloon of phantasm. Higher and higher it
floated, on it fixed the eyes of France. And France laughed, and asked
that yet other bubbles should be blown.

All France was mad, and to its madness there was joined that of all
Europe. The population of Paris doubled. The prices of labor and
commodities trebled in a day. There was now none willing to be called
artisan. Every man was broker in stocks. Bubbles, bubbles, dreams,
fantasies--these were the things all carried in their hands and in their
hearts. These made the object of their desire, of their pursuit
unimaginably passionate and frenzied.

With a leap from the somberness of the reign of Louis, all France went
to the extreme of levity. Costumes changed. Manners, but late devout,
grew debonair. Morals, once lax, now grew yet more lax. The blaze and
tinsel, the music and the rouge, the wine, the flowing, uncounted
gold--all Paris might have been called a golden brothel of del