novelty, involving the most unlimited consequences, whether for good or evil. By the caution or timidity of the Scottish legislature it was rejected, a resolution being put upon the journals, "that to establish any kind of paper credit, so as to force it to pass, was an improper expedient." In France, perhaps so early as 1708, Law proposed his plan to the Finance Minister. But the King was probably startled at its boldness, and got rid of it, on the easy plea of his being a heretic-an objection which was fatal in the most superstitious, yet most immoral, court of Europe. Law was never able to remain long in one place. The vocation of a gamester is locomotive, and when he has plucked his dupes sufficiently in one quarter, he naturally looks for fresh plunder wherever he can. He now made his way into Italy; but, on the road, he attempted the credulity of the Duke of Savoy. It is remarkable, and yet only a common instance of the advantages of difficulty to sovereigns as well as their inferiors, that the dukes of Savoy during the last two centuries, with scarcely an exception, had been able princes. The secret seems to have lain in the hazard of their thrones, placed on the frontier of Italy, and always involved in the attacks and intrigues carried on by France on the one side, and Austria and the Italian States on the other. Savoy was kept in perpetual peril, of course compelled to use all its skill to save its existence, and thus the dukes became diplomatists and warriors malgré. The general quietude of Italy towards the close of the last century relaxed the fears of the Piedmon. taise Government, and probably relaxed the activity; for nothing can be more certain, than that when Napoleon, at the head of his ragged republicans, dashed into the duchy, he swept every thing before him, as the horse's tail sweeps flies. Piedmont and Savoy, the strongest countries in Europe, a continued fortress of mountain, torrent, and precipice, was overrun as if it had been a sheepfold king, court, and all, were hurried off as if the French army had been an inundation, and the Piedmontaise royalty stubble floating on its surface. The mountaineer army was beaten by the rabble of the French cities, and the monarch was glad to make his escape to the last remnant of his dominions, and be king over the melancholy soil and half savages of Sardinia. Law proposed to the Duke to establish a land bank. But Victor Amadeus laughed at the charlatan, and pleasantly told him that he was too poor a sovereign to afford to be ruined. With equal keenness he recommended him to try the French again, for there "novelty was every thing." The advice, however, given in jest, was adopted in earnest; and no sooner was Louis XIV. dead, than Law flew back to Paris, and the year 1715 saw him make his début under the auspices of sovereignty itself. The difficulties of the Regent have been already stated. Law offered to relieve them at once; and he was received as if he had come invested with the mantle of Plutus. On the 5th of May 1716, by a royal edict, he was authorized to establish a bank, under the firm of " Law and Company," whose notes should be received in payment of the taxes. His capital was fixed at six millions of livres, in 12,000 shares of 500 livres each, purchasable one-fourth in specie, and the remainder in billets d'etat. Law was certainly, if not profound in the mystery of banking clever in the art of making his schemes popular. His first stroke was masterly. The people had been peculiarly fretted by the changes of the coinage. The late depreciation had made every man distrustful of the circulating coin. Law made all his notes payable at sight, and in the coin current at the time of their issue. The result instantly was, that his notes, being regarded as more permanent, obtained a higher estimation than the coin, and were at a premium of one per cent. Their use in restoring the languid finances and commerce of the nation was so apparent, that they were called for every where, and thus rapidly rose to a premium of fifteen per cent. In the mean time, the government paper, or billets d'etat, sunk desperately in the opposite scale, and were even at a discount of 781 per cent. This, of course, increased the demand for the notes of the firm. Law's protestations, that a banker who should issue notes beyond his power to repay in full, deserved to lose his head, sustained public infatu ation prodigiously. Branch banks were formed in the provinces, and the clever Scot had evidently discovered the philosopher's stone, except that paper was the subject of his transmutation into gold. It is difficult to say what might have been the ultimate fate of Law's project, if he had remained content with his original plan. His capital was undoubtedly, in its chief part, visionary; and the least shock to its credit would have rapidly brought him under his own sentence, for he probably could not have paid a shilling in the pound. But France was a virgin soil for the financier-her means were in their infancy-every year of undisturbed commerce and agriculture would have given her substantial wealth, the shock might not have come at all, and, if it did, she would have speedily acquired strength enough to bear much severer financial shocks than she was likely to encounter with out a war. But when was a projector content with success?-he must have been a miracle. Like the shell thrown from the mortar, if his fortunes sweep above the heads of men, it is only preparatory to their bursting-it is their character to explode. Law was, like the rest of his compeers, born to be undone. The French traders in America had penetrated to the Mississippi, and they had brought back romantic tales of the prairies; they were a paradise, covered with boundless luxuriance, and even filled with gold and diamond mines. The romance pleased the French, as it has always done, and Law now offered himself as the man to realize it. He had already done so much, that he got credit for being able to do every thing, and his proposal to form a "Company," which should have the exclusive privilege of trading with the vast and redundant region of the west, and making the Mississippi its canal, was embraced with national rapture. Two hundred thousand shares of 500 livres each, were to form the capital, the whole of which might be paid in billets d'etat at their nominal value, though that value was now at a depreciation of seventy or eighty per cent. The effect of this measure was of course to raise the value of the billets d'etat, and thus relieve the government. To give greater force to Law's operations, the regent gave his bank the monopoly of tobacco, and the sole refinage of the gold and silver; thus, undoubtedly giving additional wealth and stability to the bank. But the regent was himself a gamester, and he resolved to dabble in the precarious play on public credulity.. Law had hitherto conducted his operations within a limit of comparative moderation; his issues of paper had never exceeded sixty millions. The regent suddenly erected his bank into a royal establishment, and called it the Royal Bank of France. The title might have been advantageous, by giving it an additional claim to national confidence. But it was dearly purchased by the extraordinary and profligate issue of paper, to the amount of one thousand millions of livres. Without going into the minutiae of these remote transactions, they are curious as a part of the history of public credit, itself the most curious and characteristic product of modern Europe. They have also a political importance in exhibiting nearly the first example of that resistance of the French parliaments to the will of the court, which was the preliminary to the great revolution of 1789. The Chancellor D'Aguesseau had so strongly expressed his alarm at the repeated issues of paper, and depreciation of the coin, that he was dismissed by the regent, and D'Argenson, a more complying minister, was put in his place. The new official instantly showed his zeal by a new project for extinguishing the billets d'etat; and it was this singular one, that each depositor of 4000 livres of the old standard, and 1000 livres in billets d'etat, should receive 5000 new livres. By this piece of dexterity, it is evident that the government would gain the extinction of the 1000 notes, while it would lose nothing by the exchange of the coin; 5000 of the new, by the depreciation already mentioned, being exactly equal to 4000 of the old. But others were to the full as keen on the subject as the minister; and the measure was instantly met by a strong remonstrance from the parliament. The regent refused to listen to it. But the parliament felt that it was backed by the nation, and boldly ordered that no money should be received in payment but that of the old standard. Thus began the battle; the regent annulled the order; the par liament issued another; the regent annulled this too. The parliament then fell on Law, whom they regarded as the original source of the evil, and prohibited his bank to have any concern in the revenue; and, to make the prohibition more effective, forbade any foreigner to have any share in the management of the public revenues; some of them even proposing that Law should be brought to trial, and on conviction, hanged at the door of the Palace of Justice. Law, in alarm, sought an audience of the regent, and urged that the parliament should be compelled to submit. He found a willing hearer in the regent, who had also a previous personal quarrel with the parliament. His power was resistless. The president and two of the members were seized and sent to provincial prisons, and the parliament gave up its opposition. Law now applied himself to his Mississippi scheme; and in addition to its monopoly of the imaginary trade of the west, he proposed to enlarge it by an equally imaginary monopoly of the trade of the east. He, in 1718, obtained an edict, granting this company the exclusive privilege of trading to China, India, and the South Seas, and all the possessions of the French East India Company. This company now adopted a new title, "Company of the Indies," and created 50,000 additional shares. Its pros. pects undoubtedly were tempting, if they could be realized. For he proposed, for every share of 500 livres, to give a dividend of 200; and as he was to take the billets d'etat at their nominal value, the profit would have been 120 per cent. It is obvious, that, in a great commercial country, the exclusive possession of the right of trading to America and India, would have enabled a company to supply this dividend. If England, for instance, were the scene, it might have supplied ten times the dividend. But the Parisians omitted in their calculations the most important fact of the whole, namely, that France had scarcely any foreign trade whatever. Thus, to expect stability in the dividends, was a dream. shares were only made to sell, and the discovery was equally rapid and ruin ous. The Of all nations, France seems the fondest of being deceived. She seems the most inclined to take a whim for a reality, and to find in the wild excitement of the delusion, some unaccountable indulgence to the restless fantasies of her nature. For the time, she gave herself up to this delusion with an eagerness which seemed almost a determination to be deceived; for nothing could be clearer to common sense, if it had then existed within the borders of the land, than that Law's paper had no foundation whatever, that his bank had no resources in land, in revenue, or in commerce, and yet all France rushed to purchase. For the 50,000 shares, there were immediately upwards of 300,000 applications. The accounts of the pressure, the solicitations, and even the intrigues to obtain those shares, would be ludicrously extravagant, if their extravagance were not true to the letter. Persons of the highest rank constantly crowded Law's doors, to ascertain the success of their applications. When unable to enter, they remained in the street for hours in their carriages; when the continual growth of the crowd rendered the pressure hazardous, they took lodgings in the neighbouring houses, to be at least near the new distributor of fortune. The mania increased so rapidly, that the regent, delighted at this new art of money-making, ordered the issue of 300,000 shares at 5000 livres each. They were instantly disposed of. The people paid 1500 millions of livres for them; and they would have taken ten times the number in the madness of the moment, if they could have got them. The street in which Law lived, the Rue de Guincampoix, was a narrow one, like most of the Parisian streets in that day, and the accidents from the tumults and pressure were frequent and serious. But the householders, at least, had no reason to complain; houses that had formerly let for one thousand livres a-year, now brought sixteen thousand; apartments had a corresponding rise; even fragments of apartments had their new value; and a cobbler, whose only tenement was his stall, made two hundred livres a-day by letting it, and by the supply of pens, ink, and paper, to the stock-dealers. As the Parisians always have their burlesque, a man who was lucky enough to have a hump-back made a little fortune by hiring the use of it as a desk, for the financial operations of the multitude. The street must have been a lively one in every sense of the word. The pickpocket naturally follows the crowd, and the Rue de Guincampoix became the grand scene of petty larceny. Other adjuncts of the dissipation of a great capital followed; and at length the soldiery were found necessary to keep the street clear at nightfall. The whimsicality of this scene was still carried on, when Law, for the purpose of preventing the tumult, removed to the Place Vendome. The brokers and buyers flocked after him, and the square presented the appearance of a place of public festivity. Tents were erected for the transaction of business, and the sale of refreshments; gaming-tables were of course among the ornaments of the scene, and the Place Vendome was the grand lounge of Paris. From this position he removed again, and only with the effect of exhibiting the grotesque frenzy of the people in a stronger light. The Chancellor of France, whose court was in the Place Vendome, had complained of the perpetual noise as disturbing his court. Law, who was in all probability wearied with it himself, acceded to the wish of this high functionary, and took the Hotel Soissons, a large mansion, in a more retired situation, and with a garden of several acres in the rear. The hotel belonged to the Prince de Langnan, whose conduct showed that a capital specu lator had been thrown away, when he was born a prince. In selling the house to Law, which was done at an enormous price, the prince dexterously reserved the garden for himself. Immediately afterwards, an edict was issued, however obtained, prohi biting the sale of stock any where but in the gardens of the hotel. The prince let out his privilege to a handsome purpose. Nearly five hundred small tents and pavilions were immediately erected for the mingled purposes of trade and festivity. In France, every thing on which a riband can be hung, has its riband, and the tents were made as gay and glittering as possible. The Parisians crowded to the garden, and music, feasting, and making fortunes were the order of the day; but the prince was the substantial gainer. He let out his tents at the rate of five hundred livres a month; his monthly receipts were calculated at 250,000 livres, equal to ten thousand pounds sterling, or at the rate of £120,000 a-year. We doubt whether any prince on record made a better bargain than himself, or land was ever made so much of before. Of course the great magician, the master of the gold mine, the discoverer of this philosopher's stone, led a life of celebrity. Law was the true monarch of France. The regent could not command courtiership enough for a levee. Every body was at the "Court" of the Hotel de Soissons. Judges, Peers, and even Prelates, were seen duly and daily doing homage in his antechambers, and waiting the will of this new distributor of the grand matériel of power, luxury, and existence. Dukes and duchesses were too happy if they obtained a smile. It may be presumed that the humbler grades of society were not backward to enforce their claims when they saw the front rank on their knees. Six hours was an usual time of waiting for even a look of recognition, and the man who received a nod looked upon his fortune as made. His domestics had a fine season for their harvest too. Large sums were constantly poured into their ever open palms, simply for engaging them to announce the givers' names. The ladies of France, at no time remarkable for timidity in pursuing their objects, came round the great financier in such crowds, and solicited him for shares with such smiling perseverance, that he often declared that they were more formidable than all the battalions and squadrons of foot and horse which charged him from hour to hour. It is only astonishing that Law, who well knew the world, who, of course, knew that the bubble must burst, and who had no kind of scruple on the subject of personal appropriation, did not run away in the height of the frenzy, carry off half a dozen millions of livres, and seat himself in a German principality, or take wing for America, purchase half a continent, and anticipate the rebellion. But if farce could detain him, where could the earth show him any thing the hundredth part so farcical as the scene which he saw every day from his win dows? The grand object of life was, to find any mode of making way to M. Law. A lady who could discover no other means of introduction, ordered her coachman to overturn her carriage in front of his hotel. It was done, the lady was taken out fainting, and Law ordered her to be brought into the house. While he was in the act of sprinkling her face with essence, she sprang up, threw her arms round his neck, and insisted on her being put down for a share. Another lady, knowing where Law was engaged to dine, drove to the door, and gave the alarm of fire. The company rushed out, and Law among the rest, but soon discovering the trick, he made his escape, and left the fair engineer behind. The regent happened to mention in the presence of his minister his intention of sending a lady of the rank of a duchess to attend on his daughter at Madeira, adding: "But I do not know exactly where to find one." "Indeed!" observed one of the party, in affected surprise, "I can tell you where to find every duchess in France. Send to M. Law's, you will see every one of them in his antechamber." The rapidity with which those shares rose, was, like every thing else belonging to them, astonishing. A large holder, thinking himself dying, sent his servant to sell out 250 shares at 8000 livres each, the price of that morning. The servant went, but by the time of his arrival at the Jardin de Soissons, they had risen 2000 livres each; the difference on the 250 shares being thus-500,000 livres, £20,000 sterling, with which he fled from France. The poor suddenly started into opulence. Law's coachman grew so wealthy, that he determined to be a servant no longer, and gave his master warning. His master desired him, before he left his place, to find him another coachman. In the evening, the fellow returned, bringing with him two candidates, and bidding Law "take his choice of them, as he intended to take the other himself." The details of this kind were numberless, as we may well conceive, in a country where every thing excites every body, and where whim is the study of the nation. But, with the burlesque, was sometimes mingled atrocity, as might be expected among a multitude maddened by the passion for wealth, and gaining it in the most stimulating style. Paris had become one huge gaming-house, and, of course, had the passions of a gaminghouse. One affair of conspicuous barbarity attracted general attention. The Count d' Horn, a younger brother of the Prince d'Horn, and related to some of the first French families, connecting himself with Mille, an Italian officer, and Lestang, a Fleming, laid a plan to rob and murder a broker, who was known to carry India shares about his person. The contrivance was, to inveigle him to a low publichouse near the Place Vendome, and there plunder him. The unfortunate man came, induced by an appointment for the purchase of Indian shares; he was met by the confederates, and while he was conversing on the pretended purchase, the count threw himself upon him, and gave him three stabs of his poniard. The man fell expiring, on the ground. The count robbed his portfolio of Mississippi and Indian shares to the amount of 100,000 crowns, while the Italian, with brute ferocity, stabbed the dying man again and again. But he still struggled, until his cries brought persons to the spot. Lestang, who had been planted at a window to watch, leaped from it, and escaped. But the Count and Mille were seized in the fact. A crime of this dreadful order could not be passed over even in the most relaxed state of society, and the two assassins were brought to trial next day, and condemned to be broken on the wheel. The noble families to whom the count was related made the most powerful efforts to save him, but the regent was not to be moved. They next tried to avert the disgrace of a public execution. The regent answered in the fine phrase of Corneille, "Le crime fait la honte, et non pas l'échafaud." (The guilt, and not the scaffold, makes the shame.) The Duke de St Simon, a man of great influence, was then sent to represent to the regent, that in Germany, where the family had large possessions, no relative of an individual broken on the wheel could obtain any public office until a whole generation had passed away. He prayed for be |