The French indemnity flew to people's heads like champagne, and in a kind of drunken frenzy every one imagined himself a millionaire.

Some had even seen exhibited a reproduction of the hidden treasure.

The great heap of glittering pieces was certainly there, a tempting reality, piled up mountains high, millions on millions, craftily arranged to glitter in the flaring gas-light before their covetous eyes.

The real treasure must be at least as substantial as its counterfeit.

People began to see gold everywhere; red streaks of gold shone through the window-panes, instead of the warm spring sun; they heard murmuring chinking streams of gold flowing behind the walls of their houses, under the pavements of the streets, and every one hastened to fill their hands, and thirsted for their share in the subterranean gold whose stream was concealed from their eyes.