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A stock exchange was established in a house in the Rue Quincampoix, and became immediately the gathering place of stock-jobbers. The exchange opened at seven o'clock, with the beat of drum and sound of bell, and closed at night with the same signals. Guards were stationed at each end of the street, to maintain order and exclude carriages and horses.
"Of the 'Corruption of the State, concerning which our fair teacher has spoken to-night," he continued, with another quick glance at Lotys "there can be no manner of doubt. But we should, I think, say the 'Corruption of the Ministry' rather than of the State. It is not because a few stock-jobbers rule the Press and the Cabinet, that the State is necessarily corrupt.
But besides the notoriety of his public corruption, Lord Vargrave was secretly suspected by some of personal dishonesty, suspected of selling his State information to stock-jobbers, of having pecuniary interests in some of the claims he urged with so obstinate a pertinacity.
In lieu of well-dressed or well-behaved persons of both sexes, this garden, including its purlieus, presents, morning and evening, nothing but hordes of stock-jobbers, money-brokers, gamblers, and adventurers of every description.
"I went away completely enraptured with this woman, dazzled by the luxury around her, gratified in every faculty of my soul noble and base, good and evil. When I felt myself so excited, eager, and elated, I thought I understood the attraction that drew thither those artists, diplomatists, men in office, those stock-jobbers encased in triple brass.
As soon as Law was installed in his new abode, an edict was published, forbidding all persons to buy or sell stock anywhere but in the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons. In the midst among the trees, about five hundred small tents and pavilions were erected, for the convenience of the stock-jobbers.
He introduced the pernicious practice of borrowing upon remote funds; an expedient that necessarily hatched a brood of usurers, brokers, contractors, and stock-jobbers, to prey upon the vitals of their country. He entailed upon the nation a growing debt, and a system of politics big with misery, despair, and destruction.
Faithless to his country, in the course of his gambling speculations he transferred to England a great amount of specie, which had been paid into the royal treasury; thus contributing to the subsequent dearth of the precious metals. The female sex participated in this sordid frenzy. Princesses of the blood, and ladies of the highest nobility, were among the most rapacious of stock-jobbers.
They did not look the kind of men who were likely to pit themselves successfully against opulent financiers and stock-jobbers in Montreal, but something in their grim faces suggested that at least they meant to fight. "Well," he said, "I'll start to-morrow, and do what I can. It's quite likely that before we put the thing through we'll have trouble."
Morning, noon, and night the offices of bankers and stock-jobbers were besieged by files of carriages and clamorous crowds, even by ladies of rank, to purchase shares in companies which were to make everybody's fortune, and which at one time had risen fifteen hundred per cent, giving opportunities for boundless frauds.
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