thousand millions, now reduced, by arbitrary reductions, to a little more than two, the interest of which, at four per cent., exceeded eighty millions per annum. The national securities, therefore, it will readily be seen, were of uncertain value; the national finances in the utmost disorder, and France itself on the brink of ruin.

The first care of the regent, was to remedy this evil; and a council was therefore called. The Duke De St Simon, advised the regent to convoke the States General, and declare a national bankruptcy. Others represented the expedient as dishonest and ruinous, and this desperate remedy was, for a time, postponed. The one, however, finally adopted, though it promised fair, aggravated the evil. A recoinage was ordered, and the whole currency of the kingdom was depreciated one fifth in its value. A chamber of justice was next instituted to inquire into the malversations of the loan contractors and farmers of the revenue. Extravagant joy at once seized the nation, and fear and alarm were depicted on the countenances of every office-holder. The officers charged, met with no sympathy. The Bastile shortly was filled. The country prisons teemed with guilty and suspected persons, and royal edicts were issued to prevent innkeepers and postmasters from furnishing horses for their escape. Some were condemned to the galleys, and the least guilty to fine and imprisonment; and one, a Mr. Bernard, to death, although he had offered six millions of livres to be allowed to escape. Courtiers and courtiers' wives, however, pocketed the spoils, and the country was poor and distressed as ever. Out of one hundred millions of livres thus collected, eighty millions only were applied to the public debt.

In the midst of this financial confusion, John Law presented himself at court, and was cordially received. He insisted, that all the evils which had befallen France were owing, not to the improvidence, extravagance, or the malversation of those who had been, or were then in power, but to an insufficient currency. That the specie of France, unaided by paper money, was inadequate to its wants, and cited England and Holland as examples. He thereupon proposed to set up a bank, which should have. the management of the royal revenues, and issue notes on that and landed security. That it should be administered in the king's name, and be subject to the control of commissioners, to be appointed by the States General.

On the 5th of May, 1716, a royal edict was published, by which Law and his brother were authorized to establish a bank, with a capital of six millions of livres, the notes of which should be received in the payment of taxes. They were issued, payable at sight, and in the coin current at the time they were issued. This last was a master stroke of policy, and immediately rendered his notes more valuable than the precious metals. The capital consisted of one-fourth specie, and three-fourths state securities. The stock was, of course, immediately subscribed. A thousand livres of silver might be worth their nominal value one day, and one-fifth less the next; but a note of Law's bank retained its original

value. Law, in the meantime, publicly declared, that a banker deserved death, who made issues without means for their redemption. The consequence was, that his notes shortly commanded a premium of "fifteen per cent.," while the notes issued by Government, as security for debts contracted by the extravagance of Louis XIV., were at seventy-eight and a half per cent. discount.

The contrast was so great, that Law's credit rapidly extended itself, and branches of his bank were at the same time established in Lyons, Rochelle, Tours, Amiens, and Orleans. The regent became astonished at its success; and paper money, which could thus aid metallic currency, it was thought could supersede it altogether. On this fundamental error, both the regent and the French people, simultaneously acted.

Law, whose influence was now irresistible, next proposed his famous Mississippi scheme. This became afterward a connecting link between his history and ours, and rendered his name immortal.

Letters patent were issued in 1717, to establish a trading company to the Mississippi, known at first as the Western company, to be divided into two hundred thousand shares, of five hundred livres each. Its capital to be composed of state securities at par; a hundred millions of the most depreciated stocks were thus absorbed, and the Government became indebted to a company, of its own creation, instead of individuals, for that amount. Through the bank previously established by Law, the interest in this portion of the public debt was punctually paid, in consequence whereof, an immediate rise in its value took place, from a depreciation of seventy-eight and a half per cent. to par. The person, therefore, who had purchased a hundred livres of state debts, which he could have done at any time for twenty-one and a half livres, and invested it in stocks of the Western company, was now enabled to realize in cash, one hundred livres for his investment. Large fortunes were thus speedily acquired. Although the union of the bank with the risks and responsibilities of a commercial company, was ominous of its future destiny; the interest of its capital for one year, having been paid-not from its profits, for none had yet accrued, but from other sources, all of them fictitious-public credit was apparently restored, as if by a miracle. Hope is the parent of joy. Humanity abounds in hope. Men acting in masses, frequently with, and sometimes without cause, anticipate the approach of better times. How far these anticipations were realized in the case now under review, will appear in the sequel.

Crozat having resigned the commerce of Louisiana, it was transferred immediately to the Western company, and the valley of the Mississippi inflamed at once the public mind. The whole of France saw, in prospect, its future glory, and beheld the opulence of coming ages already in their grasp.

On the 25th of August, 1717, eight hundred emigrants arrived in three vessels, and cast anchor near Dauphin Island, instead of ascending the Mississippi. They there disembarked; some perished for want of

enterprise, some for want of food, some from the climate, and some prospered exceedingly. Du Tissinet, taking a compass and an escort of men, went to Quebec, and returned from thence across the country, with his family. Other hardy emigrants from Canada resorted thither, and these, by their enterprise, were more successful than any other colonists. The city of New-Orleans was immediately founded among cane-brakes, and named after the dissolute regent, who "denied God, and trembled at a star."

Law's bank, in the meantime, had wrought such wonders in France, that new privileges were conferred upon it daily. It monopolized the tobacco trade; it monopolized, also, the slave trade; for the French colonies, it enjoyed the right of refining gold and silver; and was finally, in January, 1717, erected into the royal bank of France. The Western or Mississippi company, was also merged into the "company of the Indies," and new shares of its stock were created, and sold at an enormous profit. New monopolies were granted to it, and the trade to the India. The profits of the royal mint, and the profits of farming the whole revenue of France were afterward appended. The Government, whose power was absolute, conspired to give the widest extension to its credit; "and Law," says Marmontel, "might have regulated, at his pleasure, the interest of money, the value of stocks, and the price of labor and produce."

seas.

A speculating frenzy at once pervaded the whole nation. The maxims which Law had promulgated, "that a banker deserved death, who made issues of paper without the means of redeeming it," were overlooked, or forgotten. While the affairs of the bank were under the control of Law, its issues did not exceed about 60,000,000 livres; on becoming the royal bank of France, they rose at once to 1,000,000,000. Whether this was the act of Law, or the regent, we are uninformed. That Law, however, lent his aid to inundate the whole country with paper money, is conceded by all; and dazzled by his former success, he may not have foreseen the evil day which was fast approaching.

The chancellor, who opposed the issues, was dismissed at the instance of Law, and a tool of the regent appointed his successor. The French Parliament foresaw the danger, and remonstrated with the regent. Their remonstrances, however, were all in vain. The regent annulled their decrees, and on their proposing that Law, who they considered as the cause of the whole evil, should be brought to trial, and if found guilty, be hung at the gates of the palace of justice; the president, and two of its most prominent councillors, were committed to prison. Law, alarmed for his safety, fled to the Palais Royal, threw himself on the regent's protection, and, for awhile, thus escaped the public indignation.

The danger of personal violence at length being removed, he devoted himself to the Mississippi scheme; the shares of which rose rapidly. In spite of Parliament, fifty thousand new shares were added, and its privileges extended. The stock was paid for in state securities, with

only one hundred livres for five hundred of stock; and Law promised to each holder, yearly, a dividend of two hundred livres, upon a share equal to forty per cent. on the whole capital thus invested. Visions so splendid could not be resisted.

The company of the Indies being now connected with the royal bank of France, its first attempts at colonization were conducted with careless prodigality. To entice emigrants thither, the richest prairies, the most inviting fields in the whole valley of the Mississippi, were conceded to companies, or to individuals who sought principalities in America. An extensive prairie in Arkansas, bounded on all sides by the sky, was conceded to Law himself, where he designed to plant a city, and actually expended a million and a half of livres for that purpose. He also purchased, and sent to Louisiana, three hundred slaves. Mechanics from France, and emigrants from Germany were, at his expense, transported thither, and gifts of great value, were lavished by his agents upon those savage tribes with whom they had smoked the calumet. Notwithstanding: however, his efforts and his expenditures, that industry, that economy and perseverance, so essential to the prosperity of a new settlement, was not there; and when a Jesuit priest, in 1729, visited the colony, thirty miserable Frenchmen alone remained, and those had been abandoned by their employ ers.

During this paroxysm, when every stockholder in the Western com pany supposed that his coffers were already filled, and his happiness complete, Fort Chartres, near Kaskaskia, in this state, was projected. It was built by the company in 1720, to protect themselves against the Spaniards, with whom France was then at war, and was located near the centre of the French settlements in Illinois. Father Charlevoix, who visited this country in 1721, observes, that "Fort Chartres stands about the distance of a musket-shot from the river, (Mississippi,) and that M. Duque de Boisbriant, a gentleman from Canada, commands there for the company to whom the place belongs." (See note.)

We have already observed, that in spite of Parliament, eighty thousand shares were added to the stock of the royal India company, at one time. For these new shares, three hundred thousand applications were made, and Law's house was beset from morning till night, with eager applicants; and as it was some time before the list of fortunate stockholders could be completed, the public impatience rose to a pitch of frenzy.

Dukes, marquisses, and counts, with their wives and daughters, waited for hours in the streets, before his door, to know the result; and to avoid being jostled by the plebeian crowd, took apartments in the adjacent houses, the rents of which rose from a thousand livres, to twelve, and in some instances, sixteen thousand livres per annum. The demand for shares was so great, induced by so many golden dreams, that it was thought advisable to increase them three hundred thousand more, at five hundred livres each; and such was the eagerness of the nation to become

subscribers, that three times the amount, if Government had ordered it, would at once have been taken.

Law was now in the zenith of his glory, and the people in the zenith of their infatuation. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, were at once filled with the visions of boundless wealth; and people of every age and sex, rank and condition, were engaged in buying and selling stock. A cobbler, who had a stall near Mr. Law's, gained two hundred livres a day by letting it out, and finding materials, to brokers and other clients. A hump-backed man, who stood in the street, as the story goes, gained considerable sums by lending his back, as a writing-desk, to the eager spectators.

Law, finding his residence inconvenient, removed to the Place Vendôme, whither the crowd followed him; and the spacious square had the appearance of a public market. Booths and tents were erected for the transaction of business and the sale of refreshments; the boulevards and public gardens were forsaken, and the Place Vendôme became the most fashionable lounge for parties of pleasure. A lease of the Hotel de Soissons, which had a garden of several acres in its rear, was taken, and the garden reserved to the owner. This contained some fine statues, and several fountains, and was laid out with much taste. About five hundred tents and pavillions were here erected, for the convenience of stockjobbers, and each tent was let at five hundred livres a month, making a monthly revenue of two hundred and fifty thousand livres.

The honest old soldier, Marshal Villars, was so vexed at the folly of his countrymen, that he could never speak upon the subject with any temper; and, passing through the Place Vendôme in his carriage one day, he ordered his coachman to stop, and putting his head out of the carriage-window, harangued the people, till hisses and shouts, and something more tangible, were seen flying in the direction of his head; when he was glad to drive on, and never afterward repeated the experiment.

Peers, judges, and bishops, thronged the Hotel de Soissons; officers of the army and navy, ladies of title and fashion, were seen waiting in the ante-chamber of Mr. Law, to beg for a portion of his India stock. He was unable to see one-tenth part of the applicants, and every species of ingenuity was employed to gain an audience. Peers, whose dignity would have been outraged if the regent had made them wait half an hour for an interview, were content to wait six hours, for the purpose of seeing this wily adventurer. Enormous fees were paid to his servants, merely to announce their names; and ladies of rank employed the blandishments of all their smiles. One lady in particular, who had striven many days in vain to see him, ordered her coachman to keep strict watch, and when he saw him coming, to drive against a post and upset her. last she espied Mr. Law, and pulling the string, called out to the coachman: Upset us now." The coachman drove against a post, the lady screamed, the coach was overturned, and Mr. Law, who had seen the accident, came to her assistance. She was led to his house, and as soon

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