Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-06-09

nOtSS. Inc FRINGE uS NonII VIII drive
his coaches to the door of your bank,
and demand that they be loaded with
gold Jacques and Raoul and Pierre,
and every peasant and payior in Paris
will come with boxes and panniers,
and each of them will also demand his
gold Make edicts, your grace. Pub
lish broadcast and force out into pub
licity, on every highway of France,
your decree that gold and silver are
not so good as your bank notes; that
no one must have gold or silver; that
no one must. send his gold and silver
out of France, but that all must bring
1t to the king and take for it in ex-
change these notes Of yours Try that
1t ought to succeed, ought it not, your
grace?" His bantering tone sank in
to one Of half FEASIBILITY.
why, surely. That would be the
solution"
ooh, think you so? Your grace is
wondrous keen as financier! Now
take the counsel of Dubois, of D'Argen-
son, my very good friends This is
what they will counsel you to do. And
will counsel you at the same time to
avail yourself of their advice Tell all
France to bring in its gold, to enable
you to put something essential under
the value of all this paper money which
you have been sending out SO layishly,
so unthinkingly, so without stint or
measure
yes And them"
ssWhy, then, your grace said Law,
then we shall see what we shall seei"
The regent again choked with anger.
Law continued. go on. Smooth down
the back of this animal Continue to
redece these taxes. The specie Of the
realm of France, as am banker
enough to know, is not more than
1900, 100000 livres, allowing 65 livres
to the marc. Yet long before this your
grace has crowded the issue of our
actions until there are out not less than
2,600,000,000 livres in the stock of
our company Your Brothers Paris,
your D'Argenson, your Dubois will tell
you how you can make the people of
France continue to believe that twice
two is not four, that twice 10 is not
26!'
But this they are doing" broke in
The regent, with a ray of hope in his
face. This they are doing We have
provided for that. In the council not
an hour ago the Able Dubois and
Monsieur d'Argenson decided that the
time had come to make some fixed
proportion between the specie and
these notes. We have to-day framed
an edict, which the parliament will
register, stating that the interests Of
the subjects of the king require that
the price Of these bank notes should
be lessened, SO that there may be some
sort of accommodation between them
and the coin of the realm. We have
ordered that the shares shall, within
80 days, drop to 1900 ivres, in another
30 days to 1000 livres, and SO on, at
500 lfvres a month, until at last they
shall have value of one-half what
they were to-day. Then, tell me, my
wise Monsieur Las, would not the issue
of our notes and the total of our specie
be equal, one with the other? The
only wrong thing is this insulting pre-
sumption of these people, who have
sold actions at price lower than we
have decreed"
Law smiled as he replied. "You say,
excellently well, my master. These
plans surely show that you and your
able counselors have studied deeply
the questions of f1naneei l have told
you what would happen to-day with
out any decree of the king. Now go
you on, and make your DEGREES. You
will find that the people are much
more eager for values which are going
up than values which are going down.
Start your shares down hill, and you
will see all France scramble for such
coin, such plate, such jewels as may
be within the ability of France to lay
her hands upon Tell me, your grace,
did Monsieur d'Argenson advise you
this morning as to the total issue of
the actions of this company"
Surely he did, and here I have it in
memorandum, for I was to have taken
it up with yourself, replied the re-
gent
so" exclaimed Law, a look Of sur
prise passing over his countenance, UNI
til now rigidly controlled, as he gazed
at the little slip Of paper. Your grace
advises me that there are issued at
this time in the shares of the company
no less than two 1926, 0S5, $50 livres in
notes! Against this, as your grace is
good enough to agree with me, we have
1 ,300,000,000 of specie. Your grace,
yourself and I have seen some pretty
games in our day. Look you, the mer-
REST game of all your life is now but
just before you"
And you would go and leave me at
this time?"
Never in my life have I forsaken a
friend at the time of distress" replied
Law But your grace absolyed me
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