I will not attempt to describe the welcome that met me on my return, nor
the gratitude with which my mother overwhelmed my kind protector. The
whole school, and no inconsiderable part of the village itself, had gone
forth to meet us, and we were conducted back in a sort of triumph. Over
and over again was I obliged to recount my story, of which the mystery
still remained unexplained. Who and what was the strange recluse who
so long had inhabited the castle of the Forlorn Glen, and who now stood
before them, old and simply clad, but still bearing unmistakable marks
of having been a person of some condition?
As Mr. Robert he desired to be known by me, and as such was he received
by my mother. He declined the offer she freely made him of a room in
her own small house, and hired a little lodging in the toll-house on the
bridge, and which he said was convenient to the garden of the château,
where he obtained the liberty of walking. If the interest which he
manifested in me was at first a cause of anxiety to my mother, not
knowing what it portended, nor how far it might contribute to withdraw
my affection from herself, it was clear that she soon became
satisfied with whatever explanation he afforded, and that those long
conversations, frequently prolonged to a late hour of the night, which
they held together, had the effect of reconciling her to his views and
intentions.
Thus was a new individual introduced into the little circle of our
family party, and each Sunday saw him seated at our dinner-table, of
which his conversation formed the great charm. It was not alone that his
mind was stored with varied information the most rare and curious, but
his knowledge of the world itself and of mankind seemed more remarkable
still; and frequently, after he had left us of an evening, have I
overheard my mother express her wonder to Raper who and what he
had been, and by what strange events he was reduced to his present
condition. These remarks of hers at first showed me that whatever
revelations he might have made in his long interviews with her, he had
told little or nothing of his own story. Such was indeed the case, and
I can remember well a little scene, in itself unimportant and of no
consequence, which can both portray my mother's intense curiosity on
this theme, and display some traits of him for whom it was excited.
It happened that at the period when her little quarterly pittance came
due, my mother was confined to home by a slight feverish cold, and Herr
Klann, the banker and moneychanger of the village, was condescending
enough to come in person and hand her the amount. In spite of her narrow
fortune, my mother had always been treated with a marked deference by
the village, and Herr Klann demeaned himself on the occasion with every
show of courtesy and politeness. He indeed did not scruple to display
that he was the great depositary of riches for miles and miles around;
that all the relations of trade and commerce, all the circumstances
of family fortune,--the dowries of brides, the portions of younger
sons,--were in his charge and keeping. He talked much of the
responsibility of his station and its requirements, and, like many
others, while encomiumizing his secrecy, he exhibited the very opposite
quality. There was not a house in the village or its neighborhood of
which he did not incidentally relate some story or incident. He became,
in fact, candor itself in his confessions. It is but fair to own that my
mother looked most becomingly in her half invalid costume, and that the
little straw-wrapped flask of “Sieben-berger” with which she regaled him
was excellent. Herr Klann was a man to acknowledge both such influences.
He possessed the Hebrew weaknesses both as regards gold and beauty. He
therefore became largely confidential,--taking a survey of the whole
neighborhood, and revealing their circumstances with the minute anatomy
that a surgeon might have employed in displaying their structure. My
mother heard him with no peculiar interest till by accident he alluded
to the “Herr Robert;” it was a mere reference to the toll-house where he
lived, but the name at once awakened her attention.
“With him, I conclude,” said she, “your money dealings are few. He does
not appear to be wealthy.”
“He is a mystery in every way, madam,” replied Klann, “his very cash
does not come through a banker or an agent; he has no credit, no
bills--nothing. He comes down to me at times, say once a month or so,
to change a few gold pieces,--they are always 'Louis.' I remark, and
sometimes of the time of the late reign. They are good money, and full
weight invariably, that I must say.”
“And what may be your own opinion of all this?”
“I can form none,--positively none, madam. Of course I need not say that
I regret the vulgar notion in the village that he is in communication
with supernatural agencies; neither you nor I, madam, are likely to fall
into this absurd mistake.”
“And so you rather incline to suppose--” She drew out the words tardily,
and fixed on Herr Klann a look of ineffable softness and intelligence
together.
“I do, madam,--that is my private opinion,” said he, sententiously.
“Would that account for the life he has been leading for some years
back,--should we have found him passing such a long term in isolation
from all the world?” asked she.
“I think so, madam, and I will tell you why. The agents employed by the
regency, and in the beginning of the present reign in France, were all
men of certain condition,--many of them belonged to high families, and,
having ruined their fortunes by extravagance, were fain to take any
occupation for mere subsistence. Some of them resided as nobles in
Vienna, and were received at the court of the Empress. Others gained
admittance to St. James's. They were supplied with money, both for
purposes of play and bribery; and that they used such means to good
account is now matter of history. When the game was played out, and they
were no longer needed by the government, such men were obliged to
retire from the stage whereon they had only played a part. The Duc de
Senneterre went into a monastery; Count Leon de Rhode set off for the
New World; and there was one taken ill in this very village, whose
name I now forget, who had gone into the priesthood, and was head of a
seminary in Flanders. What more likely, then, than that our friend at
the bridge yonder was some great celebrity of those times, of which I
hear he loves to talk and declaim?”
The hint thus thrown out made a deep impression on my mother. It served
to explain not only many circumstances of Herr Robert's position, but
also to account for the strange glimpses of a great and glorious future,
in which at moments of excitement he would indulge. A life of intrigue
and plot would naturally enough suggest ambitious hopes, and conduce to
the very frame of mind which he appeared to reach. That I should become
the follower of such a man, and the disciple of such a school, revolted
against all her feelings. The spy, no matter how highly accredited and
how richly rewarded, was, in her eyes, the most ignoble of all careers;
and she would rather have seen me clad in the sheepskin of an Alpine
shepherd than wearing, in this capacity, the decorations of every order
of Europe.
From the moment, therefore, the suspicion crossed her mind that Herr
Robert had been such, she firmly determined to withdraw me altogether
from his intimacy. Nor was the step an easy one. He had become a
recognized member of our little household; each evening saw him seated
at our hearth or board; on every Sunday he dined with us. His little
presents of wine and fruit, and occasionally of books, showed that he
intended reciprocity to be a basis of our intercourse, of which, indeed,
the balance lay in our favor. How, therefore, was such a state of things
to be suddenly arrested? How bring to an abrupt conclusion an intimacy
of which nothing had hitherto interrupted the peaceful course? This was
a matter of no common difficulty, and for several days did she ponder
over it to herself.
It chanced that, for the first time since her arrival at Reichenau, Herr
Robert had been slightly indisposed, and being unable to come and see
us, had sent for me to come each evening and read to him. At any other
moment my mother would have thought no more of this, but coming now, at
the very time when her feelings of doubt and suspicion were torturing
her, she regarded the circumstance with actual apprehension.
At first, she thought of sending Raper along with me, in the guise
of protector; but as Herr Robert had not requested his company, there
seemed an awkwardness in this; then she half resolved to refuse me
permission, on pretence of requiring my presence at home: this, too,
would look ungracious; and when at last she did accord her leave, it was
for a very limited time, and with strict injunctions to be back by an
early hour.
It chanced that Herr Robert felt on this evening a more than ordinary
desire to be frank and confidential. He related to me various anecdotes
of his early days, the scenes he had mixed in, and the high associates
with whom he was intimate; and when he had excited my curiosity and
wonderment to a high degree, by gorgeous narratives of the great world,
he stopped short and said: “I would not have you think, Jasper, that
these dukes and princes were more gifted or more endowed than other
men; the only real difference between them is, that they employ their
faculties on great events, not little ones; and all their pleasures,
their amusements, their very vices, react upon the condition of mankind
in general, and consequently whatever goes forward in their society has
a certain amount of importance, not for itself, but for what may follow
it.”
These words made a profound impression upon me, leading to the
conviction that out of this charmed circle life had no ambition worth
striving for, no successes that deserved a struggle. From my mother I
had no concealment, and before I went to my bed I told her all that the
Herr Robert had said to me, and showed how deeply this sentiment had
sunk into my mind.
I conclude that it must have been from some relation to her former fears
she took immediate alarm at the possible bent my mind was receiving.
Assuredly she deemed that his influence over me was not without peril,
and resolved the following morning to send for the Herr Robert, and
in all frankness avow her fears, and appeal to his friendship to allay
them.
I was about to set off for school when the old man was ascending the
stairs, and taking me by the hand he led me back again into the little
chamber, where my mother awaited him.
“Let Jasper remain with us, madam,” said he; “the few words of your note
have shown me what is passing in your mind, and it will save you and me
a world of explanation if he be suffered to be present.”
My mother assented, not over willingly, perhaps, and the old man, taking
a seat, at once begun,--
“If I had ever suspected, madam, that my history could have possibly
possessed any interest for you, you should certainly have heard it ere
now. My opinion was, however, different; and I thought, moreover, that
as I had strictly abstained from encroaching upon your confidence, an
equal reserve might have protected mine. Forgive me if by any accident
the slightest word should escape me to cause you pain or displeasure.
Nothing can be further from my thoughts than this intention, and I beg
of you so to receive whatever I say.
“Some years ago, a physician, in whom I had and have the fullest
confidence, forewarned me that if certain symptoms which I then labored
under should ever recur, my case would be beyond remedy, and my life
could not be prolonged many days. Two days since, the first signs of
these became evident; yesterday the appearance became more palpable;
to-day I recognize them in full force. When a man of my age talks of his
approaching death, he only speaks of what has been before his thoughts
every day and every night for years back. Whatever benefit I was ever
capable of rendering my fellow-men in my younger days, I have been
latterly a useless and profitless member of the guild, and for this
reason, that though time had not effaced my powers of intellect, the
energy and the force that should develop them was gone. Without youth
there is no vitality; without vitality, no action; without action,
no success. I often fancied what results might arise if to the mature
thoughts and experience of age were to be added the fire, the energy,
and the passion of youth. If caution and rashness, reserve and
intrepidity, the distrust that comes of knowing men, with that credulous
hope that stirs the young heart, were all to centre in one nature, what
might we not effect? The fate that brought Jasper and myself together
whispered to me that he might become such! I pictured to my mind the
training he should go through, the hard discipline of work and labor,
and yet without impairing in the slightest that mainspring of all power,
the daring courage and energy of a young and brave spirit. To this end,
he should incur no failures in early life, never know a reverse till
it could become to him the starting-point for higher success. And thus
launched upon life with every favoring breeze of fortune, what might not
be predicted of his course?
“He who would stand high among his fellow-men, and be regarded as their
benefactor and superior during his lifetime, must essentially be a man
of action! The great geniuses of authorship, the illustrious in art,
have received their best rewards from posterity; contemporaries have
attacked them, depreciated and reviled them; the very accidents of their
lives have served to injure the excellence of their compositions. But
the man of action stands forth to his own age great and distinguished;
the world on which his services have bestowed benefits is proud to
reward him! and either as a legislator, a conqueror, or a discoverer,
his claims meet full acknowledgment.
“Who would not be one of these, then?--who would not aspire to win the
enthusiasm that tracks such a career, and makes a mere mortal godlike?
“To be such I possessed the secret! Nay, madam, this is not the weakness
of faltering intellect, nor the outpouring of a silly vanity. Hear me
out with patience but a very little longer. It is not of some wonder of
science or of mystery, of occult art, that I speak; and yet the power to
which I allude is infinitely greater than any of these were ever fancied
to bestow. Imagine an engine by which the failing energies of a whole
nation can be rallied, its wasting vigor repaired, its resources
invigorated. Fancy a nation--millions--brought out of poverty, debt, and
distress, into wealth, affluence, and abundance; the springs of their
industry reinforced, the sources of their traffic refreshed. Picture
to your mind the change from an embarrassed government, a ruined
aristocracy, an indebted, poverty-stricken people, to a full treasury,
a splendid nobility, and a prosperous and powerful nation. Imagine all
this; and then, if you can ascribe the transformation to the working of
one man's intelligence, what will you say of him?
“I am not conjuring up a mere visionary or impossible triumph; what I
describe has been actually done, and he who accomplished it was my own
father!
“Yes, madam, the mightiest financial scheme the world has ever
witnessed, the grandest exemplification of the principle of credit that
has ever been promulgated by man, was his invention. He farmed the whole
revenues of France, and at one stroke annihilated the peculation of
receivers-general, and secured the revenue of the nation. He fructified
the property of the state by employing its vast resources in commercial
speculations; from the east to the west, from the fertile valley of the
Mississippi to the golden plains of Asia, he opened every land to the
enterprise of Frenchmen. Paris itself he made the capital city of the
world. Who has not heard of the splendor of the regency, of Chantilly,
the gorgeous palace of the Duc d'Orléans, the very stables more
magnificent than the residences of many princes? The wealth and the
rank of Europe flocked thither; and in the pleasures of that paradise
of capitals lies the history of an age! He who did all this was my own
father, and his name was John Law, of Lauriston! Ay, madam, you see
before you, poor, humbly clad, and gray-haired, going down to the
grave in actual want, the son of a man who once counted his revenue by
millions, whose offerings to the Church of St. Roch would have made a
meet dowry for a princess, and whose very menials acquired fortunes such
as modern nobility cannot equal.”
As he spoke, he drew forth a large silver-clasped pocket-book, and,
opening it, took out a mass of papers.
“I do not ask you to take any part of this on trust,” continued he.
“There, with the seal of the chancellor, and the date, January the 5th,
1720, is his patent as comptroller-general of France. Here are letters
from the Regent, the Prince of Deux-Ponts, the Duke of Rohan; I leave
them in your hands, and will send you others that authenticate all I
have stated. Of my own life, humble and uneventful, I have no wish
to speak; more than this I know, for I have long studied the great
principles of my father's secret. The causes of his reverses I have
thoroughly investigated; they are not inherent in the system, nor are
they reasonably attributable to it in any way. His discovery must not be
disparaged by the vices of a profligate prince, a venal administration,
and an ignorant cabinet; nor must the grandeur of his conception be
charged with the rash infatuation of a nation of gamblers. Law's system
stands free from every taint of dishonesty, when dissociated with the
names of those who prostituted it. For years long have I studied the
theory, and tested it by every proof within my power. To make the fact
known to the world; to publish abroad the great truth, that credit well
based and fortified is national wealth, and that national wealth, so
based, is almost boundless,--this became the object of my whole life. I
knew that a certain time must elapse ere the disasters that followed my
father's downfall were forgotten, and that I should, in all likelihood,
never live to see the day when his glorious system would be revived, and
his memory vindicated; but I hoped to have found one worthy to inherit
this secret, and in whose keeping it might be transmitted to after
ages. I will not weary you with the story of all my disappointments, the
betrayals, and the treachery, and the falsehoods I have endured. Enough!
I became a recluse from mankind. I gave myself up to my old pursuits of
calculation and combination, undisturbed; and I have lived on, to this
hour, with one thought ever before me, and one fear,--is this great
secret to die out with me? and are countless millions of men destined
to toil and slavery, while this vast source of affluence and power shall
lie rusting and unused?”
The intense fervor of his voice, and his tone of self-conviction as he
spoke, had evidently impressed my mother strongly in his favor; and when
she turned over one by one the letters before her, and read passages
penned by the hand of Du Pin, the chief secretary of the Regent,
D'Argen-son, Alberoni the Cardinal, and others of like station, and then
turned to look on the feeble and wasted figure of the old man, her eyes
filled with tears of pity and compassion.
“My heart is now relieved of a weary load,” said he, sighing. “Now I
shall go back to my home, and to-morrow, if I be not able to come here,
you and Jasper will visit me, for I have still much to tell you.”
My mother did her utmost to detain him where he was. She saw that the
excitement of his narrative had greatly increased the symptoms of fever
upon him, and she wished to tend and watch over him; but he was resolute
in his determination, and left us, almost abruptly.
Raper and myself went several times that evening to see him, but he
would not receive us. The reply to our inquiries was, that he was deeply
engaged, and could not be disturbed. I remember well how often during
the night I arose from my bed to look out at the little window of the
tollhouse, which was that of Herr Robert's room. A light burned there
the whole night through, and more than once I could see his figure pass
between it and the window. Poor old man!--was it that he was devoting
the last few hours of his life to the weary task that had worn him to
a very shadow? Towards daybreak I sank into a heavy sleep, from which
I was suddenly awakened by Raper calling on me to get up and dress at
once.
“Herr Robert is dying!” said he, “and wishes to see you and speak with
you. Be quick, for there is not a moment to lose.”
I dressed myself as speedily as my trembling limbs would permit, and
followed Raper down the stairs and into the street. My mother was
already there, waiting for us, and we hurried along towards the
toll-house without a word.
The toll-keeper's wife beckoned to us impatiently as we came in sight,
and we pressed eagerly on, and entered the little chamber where Herr
Robert lay half-dressed upon his bed. He knew us, and took each of us by
the hand as we came forward. His face was greatly flushed, and his eyes
stared wildly, and his dry, cracked lips muttered frequently and fast.
Several large packages of papers lay beside him, sealed and addressed,
and to these he made a motion with his hand, as if he would speak of
them.
“Tell us of yourself, Herr Robert,” said my mother, in a kind voice, as
she sat down beside him. “Do you feel any pain?”
He seemed not to hear her, but muttered indistinctly to himself. Then,
turning short round to me, he said,--
“I have forgotten the number of the house, but you can't mistake it. It
is the only one with a stone balcony over the entrance gate. It was well
enough known once. John Law's house,--the 'Rue Quincampoix.' The room
looks to the back--and the safe--Who is listening to us?”
I reassured him, and he went on:--
“The ingots were forged as if coming from the gold mines of Louisiana.
D'Argenson knew the trick, and the Regent too. They it was who wrecked
him,--they and Tencivi.”
His eyes grew heavy, and his voice subsided to a mere murmur after this,
and he seemed to fall off in a drowsy stupor. The whole of that day
and the next he lingered on thus, breathing heavily, and at intervals
seeming to endeavor to rally himself from the oppression of sleep; but
in vain! Exhaustion was complete, and he passed away calmly, and so
quietly that we did not mark the moment when he ceased to breathe.
My mother led me away weeping from the room, and Raper remained to look
after his papers and make the few arrangements for his humble burial.
The same day that we laid him in the earth came a letter from the Count
de Gabriac to say that he would be with us on the morrow. It was the
only letter he had written for several months past, and my mother's joy
was boundless at the prospect of seeing him. Thus did sunshine mingle
with shadow in our life, and tears of happiness mingle with those of
sorrow!