Book: The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 13

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On Wednesday, the 29th, a pretty little comedy was played. Le Blanc,
Secretary of State, went to Law, told him that M. le Duc d'Orleans
discharged him from his office as comptroller-general of the finances,
thanked him for the attention he had given to it, and announced that as
many people in Paris did not like him, a meritorious officer should keep
guard in his house to prevent any accident that might happen to him. At
the same time, Benzualde, major of the regiment of Swiss guards, arrived
with sixteen of his men to remain night and day in Law's house.

The Scotchman did not in the least expect this dismissal or this guard,
but he appeared very tranquil respecting both, and maintained his usual
coolness. The next day he was taken by the Duc de la Force to the Palais
Royal. Then comedy number two was played. M. le Duc d'Orleans refused
to see the financier, who went away without an interview. On the day
after, however, Law was admitted by the back stairs, closeted with the
Regent, and was treated by him as well as ever. The comedies were over.

On Sunday, the 2nd of June, Benzualde and his Swiss withdrew from Law's
house. Stock-jobbing was banished at the same time from the Rue
Quincampoix, and established in the Place Vendome. In this latter place
there was more room for it. The passers-by were not incommoded. Yet
some people did not find it as convenient as the other. At this time the
King gave up to the bank one hundred million of shares he had in it.

On the 5th July, a decree of the Council was issued, prohibiting people
from possessing jewels, from keeping them locked up, or from selling them
to foreigners. It may be imagined what a commotion ensued. This decree
was grafted upon a number of others, the object of all, too visibly,
being to seize upon all coin, in favour of the discredited paper, in
which nobody could any longer have the slightest confidence. In vain M.
le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc, and his mother, tried to persuade others, by
getting rid of their immense stores of jewels, that is to say, by sending
them abroad on a journey--nothing more: not a person was duped by this
example; not a person omitted to conceal his jewels very carefully: a
thing much more easy to accomplish than the concealment of gold or silver
coin, on account of the smaller value of precious stones. This jewellery
eclipse was not of long duration.




CHAPTER CI

Immediately after the issue of this decree an edict was drawn up for the
establishment of an Indian commercial company, which was to undertake to
reimburse in a year six, hundred millions of bank notes, by paying fifty
thousand dollars per month. Such was the last resource of Law and his
system. For the juggling tricks of the Mississippi, it was found
necessary to substitute something real; especially since the edict of the
22nd of May, so celebrated and so disastrous for the paper. Chimeras
were replaced by realities--by a true India Company; and it was this name
and this thing which succeeded, which took the place of the undertaking
previously known as the Mississippi. It was in vain that the tobacco
monopoly and a number of other immense monopolies were given to the new
company; they could not enable it to meet the proper claims spread among
the public, no matter what trouble might be taken to diminish them at all
hazard and at all loss.

It was now necessary to seek other expedients. None could be found
except that of rendering this company a commercial one; this was, under a
gentler name, a name vague and unpretending, to hand over to it the
entire and exclusive commerce of the country. It may be imagined how
such a resolution was received by the public, exasperated by the severe
decree, prohibiting people, under heavy penalties, from having more than
five-hundred livres, in coin, in their possession, subjecting them to
visits of inspection, and leaving them nothing but bank notes to, pay for
the commonest necessaries of daily life. Two things resulted; first,
fury, which day by day was so embittered by the difficulty of obtaining
money for daily subsistence, that it was a marvel all Paris did not
revolt at once, and that the emeute was appeased; second, the Parliament,
taking its stand upon this public emotion, held firm to the end in
refusing to register the edict instituting the new company.

On the 15th of July, the Chancellor showed in his own house the draught
of the edict to deputies from the Parliament, who remained with him until
nine o'clock at night, without being persuaded. On the morrow, the 16th,
the edict was brought forward in the Regency Council. M. le Duc
d'Orleans, sustained by M. le Duc, spoke well upon it, because he could
not speak ill, however bad his theme. Nobody said a word, and all bowed
their necks. It was resolved, in this manner, to send the edict to the
Parliament on the morrow, the 17th of July.

That same 17th of July, there was such a crowd in the morning, at the
bank and in the neighbouring streets, for the purpose of obtaining enough
money to go to market with, that ten or twelve people were stifled.
Three of the bodies were tumultuously carried to the Palais Royal, which
the people, with loud cries, wished to enter. A detachment of the King's
guards at the Tuileries was promptly sent there. La Vrilliere and Le
Blanc separately harangued the people. The lieutenant of police came;
brigades of the watch were sent for. The dead bodies were afterwards
carried away, and by gentleness and cajoleries the people were at length
dispersed. The detachment of the King's guards returned to the
Tuileries. By about ten o'clock in the morning, all being over, Law took
it into his head to go to the Palais Royal. He received many
imprecations as he passed through the streets. M. le Duc d'Orleans
thought it would be well not to let him leave the Palais Royal, and gave
him a lodging there. He sent back Law's carriage, however, the windows
of which were smashed on the way by the stones thrown at them. Law's
house, too, was attacked, amid much breaking of windows. All this was
known so late in our quarter of the Jacobins of the Saint-Dominique, that
when I arrived at the Palais Royal there was not a vestige visible of any
disturbance. M. le Duc d'Orleans, in the midst of a very small company,
was very tranquil, and showed that you would not please him unless you
were so also. I did not stop long, having nothing to do or say.

This same morning the edict was carried to the Parliament, which refused
to register it, and sent a deputation to M. le Duc d'Orleans with its
reasons for this, at which the Regent was much vexed. The next morning
an ordonnance of the King was pasted all over the town, prohibiting the
people, under heavy penalties, to assemble, and announcing that in
consequence of the disturbances which had taken place the previous day at
the bank, that establishment would remain closed until further notice,
and no more money would be paid by it. Luck supplied the place of
prudence; for people knew not how they were to live in the meanwhile, yet
no fresh disturbance occurred fact which shows the goodness and obedience
of the people, subjected to so many and to such strange trials. Troops,
however, were collected at Charenton, who were at work upon the canal of
Montargis: some regiments of cavalry and of dragoons were stationed at
Saint-Denis, and the King's regiment was posted upon the heights of
Chaillot. Money was sent to Gonesse to induce the bakers to come as
usual, and for fear they should refuse bank notes, like the Paris workmen
and shopkeepers, nearly all of whom would no longer receive any paper,
the regiment of the guards had orders to hold itself ready, and the
musketeers to keep within their quarters, their horses saddled and
bridled.

As for the Parliament, M. le Duc d'Orleans determined to punish its
disobedience by sending it to Blois. This resolution was carried in full
council. The Regent hoped that the Parliamentary men, accustomed to the
comfort of their Paris homes, and to the society there of their wives;
children, and friends, would soon grow tired of being separated from
them, and of the extra expense they would be put to, and would give in.
I agreed to the project, although I saw, alas! that by this exile the
Parliament would be punished, but would be neither conciliated nor tamed
into submission. To make matters worse, Blois was given up, and Pontoise
was substituted for it! This latter town being close to Paris, the
chastisement became ridiculous, showed the vacillating weakness of the
Regent, and encouraged the Parliament to laugh at him. One thing was,
however, well done. The resolution taken to banish the Parliament was
kept so secret that that assembly had not the slightest knowledge of it.

On Sunday, the 21st of July, squadrons of the guards, with officers at
their head, took possession, at four o'clock in the morning, of all the
doors of the Palais de justice. The musketeers seized at the same time
upon the doors of the Grand Chamber, whilst others invaded the house of
the Chief-President, who was in much fear during the first hour. Other
musketeers went in parties of four to all the officers of the Parliament,
and served them with the King's order, commanding them to repair to
Pontoise within twice twenty-four hours. All passed off very politely on
both sides, so that there was not the slightest complaint: several
members obeyed the same day and went to Pontoise.

Rather late in the evening M. le Duc d'Orleans sent to the Attorney-
General 200,000 livres in coin, and as much in bank notes of 100 livres,
and of 10 livres to be given to those who should need them for the
journey, but not as gifts. The Chief-President was more brazen and more
fortunate; he made so many promises, showed so much meanness, employed so
much roguery, that abusing by these means the feebleness and easiness of
the Regent, whom he laughed at, he obtained more than 100,000 ecus for
his expenses. The poor prince gave him the money, under the rose, in two
or three different payments, and permitted the Duc de Bouillon to lend
him his house at Pontoise, completely furnished, and the garden of which,
on the banks of the river, is admirable and immense, a masterpiece of its
kind, and had been the delight of Cardinal Bouillon, being perhaps the
only thing in France he regretted. With such fine assistance the Chief-
President--on bad terms with his companions, who had openly despised him
for some time--perfectly made it up with them. He kept at Pontoise open
table for the Parliament; all were every day at liberty to use it if they
liked, so that there were always several tables, all equally, delicately,
and splendidly served. He sent, too, to those who asked for them,
liquors, etc., as they could desire. Cooling drinks and fruits of all
kinds were abundantly served every afternoon, and there were a number of
little one and two-horse vehicles always ready for the ladies and old men
who liked a drive, besides play-tables in the apartments until supper
time. The result of all this magnificence was, as I have said, that the
Chief-President completely reinstated himself in the good graces of his
companions; but it was at the expense of the Regent, who was laughed at
for his pains. A large number of the members of the Parliament did not
go to Pontoise at all, but took advantage of the occasion to recreate
themselves in the country. Only a few of the younger members mounted
guard in the assembly, where nothing but the most trivial and make-
believe business was conducted. Everything important was deliberately
neglected. Woe! to those, therefore, who had any trial on hand. The
Parliament, in a word, did nothing but divert itself, leave all business
untouched, and laugh at the Regent and the government. Banishment to
Pontoise was a fine punishment!

This banishment of the Parliament to Pontoise was followed by various
financial operations and by several changes in the administrations. Des
Forts had the general control of the finances and all authority, but
without the name. The disordered state of the exchequer did not hinder
M. le Duc d'Orleans from indulging in his strange liberalities to people
without merit and without need, and not one of whom he could possibly
care a straw for. He gave to Madame la Grande Duchesse an augmentation
of her pension of 50,000 livres; one of 8,000 livres to Trudaine: one of
9,000 livres to Chateauneuf; one of 8,000 livres to Bontems, chief valet
de chambre of the King; one of 6,000 livres to the Marechal de
Montesquieu; one of 3,000 livres to Faucault; and one of 9,000 livres to
the widow of the Duc d'Albemarle, secretly remarried to the son of
Mahoni.

All this time the public stock-jobbing still continued on the Place
Vendome. The Mississippi had tempted everybody. It was who should fill
his pockets first with millions, through M. le Duc d'Orleans and Law.
The crowd was very great. One day the Marechal de Villars traversed the
Place Vendome in a fine coach, loaded with pages and lackeys, to make way
for which the mob of stock-jobbers had some difficulty. The Marechal
upon this harangued the people in his braggart manner from the carriage
window, crying out against the iniquity of stock-jobbing, and the shame
it cast upon all. Until this point he had been allowed to say on, but
when he thought fit to add that his own hands were clean, and that he had
never dabbled in shares, a voice uttered a cutting sarcasm, and all the
crowd took up the word, at which the Marechal, ashamed and confounded,
despite his ordinary authority, buried himself in his carriage and
finished his journey across the Place Vendome at a gentle trot in the
midst of a hue and cry, which followed him even beyond, and which
diverted Paris at his expense for several days, nobody pitying him.

At last it was found that this stock-jobbing too much embarrassed the
Place Vendome and the public way; it was transferred, therefore, to the
vast garden of the Hotel de Soissons. This was, in fact, its proper
place. Law, who had remained at the Palais Royal some time, had returned
to his own house, where he received many visits. The King several times
went to see the troops that had been stationed near Paris; after this
they were sent away again. Those which had formed a little camp at
Charenton, returned to Montargis to work at the canal making there.

Law, for commercial reasons, had some time ago caused Marseilles to be
made a free port. The consequence of this was that an abundance of
vessels came there, especially vessels from the Levant, and from want of
precautions the plague came also, lasted a long while, desolated the
town, province; and the neighbouring provinces. The care and precautions
afterwards taken restrained it as much as possible, but did not hinder it
from lasting a long time, or from creating frightful disorders. These
details are so well known that they can be dispensed with here.

I have a few more words to say of Law and his Mississippi. The bubble
finally burst at the end of the year (1720). Law, who had no more
resources, being obliged secretly to depart from the realm, was
sacrificed to the public. His flight was known only through the eldest
son of Argenson, intendant at Mainbeuge, who had the stupidity to arrest
him. The courier he despatched with the news was immediately sent back,
with a strong reprimand for not having deferred to the passport with
which Law had been furnished by the Regent. The financier was with his
son, and they both went to Brussels where the Marquis de Prie, Governor
of the Imperial Low Countries, received them very well, and entertained
them. Law did not stop long, gained Liege and Germany, where he offered
his talents to several princes, who all thanked him; nothing more. After
having thus roamed, he passed through the Tyrol, visited several Italian
courts, not one of which would have him, and at last retired to Venice.
This republic, however, did not employ him. His wife and daughter
followed him some time after. I don't know what became of them or of the
son.

Law was a Scotchman; of very doubtful birth; tall and well made; of
agreeable face and aspect; gallant, and on very good terms with the
ladies of all the countries he had travelled in. His wife was not his
wife; she was of a good English family and well connected; had followed
Law for love; had had a son and a daughter by him, passed for his wife,
and bore his name without being married to him. This was suspected
towards the end; after his departure it became certain. She had one eye
and the top of one cheek covered by an ugly stain as of wine; otherwise
she was well made, proud, impertinent in her conversation and in her
manners, receiving compliments, giving next to none, paying but few
visits, these rare and selected, and exercising authority in her
household. I know not whether her credit over her husband was great; but
he appeared full of regard, of care, and of respect for her; at the time
of their departure they were each about fifty and fifty-five years old.
Law had made many acquisitions of all kinds and still more debts, so that
this tangle is not yet unravelled by the committee of the council
appointed to arrange his affairs with his creditors. I have said
elsewhere, and I repeat it here, that there was neither avarice nor
roguery in his composition. He was a gentle, good, respectable man, whom
excess of credit and fortune had not spoiled, and whose deportment,
equipages, table, and furniture could not scandalise any one. He
suffered with singular patience and constancy all the vexations excited
by his operations, until towards the last, when, finding himself short of
means and wishing to meet his difficulty, he became quick and bad-
tempered, and his replies were often ill-measured. He was a man of
system, of calculation, of comparison, well and profoundly instructed in
these things, and, without ever cheating, had everywhere gained at play
by dint of understanding--which seems to me incredible--the combinations
of cards.

His bank, as I have elsewhere said, was an excellent thing for a
republic, or for a country like England, where finance is as in a
republic. His Mississippi he was the dupe of, and believed with good
faith he should make great and rich establishments in America. He
reasoned like an Englishman, and did not know how opposed to commerce and
to such establishments are the frivolity of the (French) nation, its
inexperience, its avidity to enrich itself at once, the inconvenience of
a despotic government, which meddles with everything, which has little or
no consistency, and in which what one minister does is always destroyed
by his successor.

Law's proscription of specie, then of jewels, so as to have only paper in
France, is a system I have never comprehended, nor has anybody, I fancy,
during all the ages which have elapsed since that in which Abraham, after
losing Sarah, bought, for ready-money, a sepulchre for her and for her
children. But Law was a man of system, and of system so deep, that
nobody ever could get to the bottom of it, though he spoke easily, well
and clearly, but with a good deal of English in his French.

He remained several years at Venice, upon very scanty means, and died
there a Catholic, having lived decently, but very humbly, wisely, and
modestly, and received with piety the last sacraments of the Church.

Thus terminates all I have to say of Law. But a painful truth remains.
I have to speak of the woful disorder in the finances which his system
led to, disorder which was not fully known until after his departure from
France. Then people saw, at last, where all the golden schemes that had
flooded upon popular credulity had borne us;--not to the smiling and
fertile shores of Prosperity and Confidence, as may be imagined; but to
the bleak rocks and dangerous sands of Ruin and Mistrust, where dull
clouds obscure the sky, and where there is no protection against the
storm.




CHAPTER CII

Not long after the flight of Law, that is to say, on Sunday, the 24th of
January, of the new year, 1721, a council was held at the Tuileries, at
four o'clock in the afternoon, principally for the purpose of examining
the state of the finances and of Law's Bank and India Company. It was,
in fact, high time to do something to diminish the overgrown disorder and
confusion everywhere reigning. For some time there had been complete
stagnation in all financial matters; the credit of the King had step by
step diminished, private fortune had become more and more uncertain. The
bag was at last empty, the cards were cast aside, the last trick was
played: The administration of the finances had passed into the hands of
La Houssaye, and his first act was to call the attention of the Regency
Council to the position of the bank and the company. We were prepared to
hear that things were in a very bad state, but we were scarcely prepared
to find that they so closely resembled utter ruin and bankruptcy.

I need not relate all that passed at this council; the substance of it is
enough. From the statement there of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it appeared
that Law had issued 1,200,000,000 livres of bank notes more than he ought
to have issued. The first 600,00,000 livres had not done much harm,
because they had been kept locked up in the bank; but after the 22nd of
May, another issue of 600,000,000 had taken place, and been circulated
among the public, without the knowledge of the Regent, without the
authorisation of any decree. "For this," said M. le Duc d'Orleans, "Law
deserved to be hanged, but under the circumstances of the case, I drew
him from his embarrassment, by an ante-dated decree, ordering the issue
of this quantity of notes."

Thereupon M. le Duc said to the Regent, "But, Monsieur, why, knowing
this, did you allow him to leave the realm?"

"It was you who furnished him with the means to do so," replied M. le Duc
d'Orleans.

"I never asked you to allow him to quit the country," rejoined M. le Duc.

"But," insisted the Regent, "it was you yourself who sent him his
passports."

"That's true," replied M. le Duc, "but it was you who gave them to me to
send to him; but I never asked you for them, or to let him leave the
realm. I know that I have the credit for it amongst the public, and I am
glad of this opportunity to explain here the facts of the case. I was
against the proposition for sending M. Law to the Bastille, or to any
other prison, because I believed that it was not to your interest to
sanction this, after having made use of him as you had; but I never asked
you to let him leave the realm, and I beg you, Monsieur, in presence of
the King, and before all these gentlemen, to say if I ever did."

"'Tis true," replied the Regent, "you never asked me; I allowed him to
go, because I thought his presence in France would injure public credit,
and the operations of the public."

"So far was I from asking you," said M. le Duc, "that if you had done me
the honour to demand my opinion, I should have advised you to take good
care not to let him depart from the country."

This strange conversation, which roused our astonishment to an incredible
point, and which was sustained with so much out-spoken freedom by M. le
Duc, demands a word or two of explanation.

M. le Duc was one of those who, without spending a farthing, had drawn
millions from Law's notes and shares. He had had large allotments of the
latter, and now that they had become utterly valueless, he had been
obliged to make the best of a bad bargain, by voluntarily giving them up,
in order to lighten the real responsibilities of the Company. This he
had done at the commencement of the Council, M. le Prince de Conti also.
But let me explain at greater length.

The 22nd of May, the day of the decree, was the period at which commenced
the final decay of the Company, and of the bank, and the extinction of
all confidence by the sad discovery that there was no longer any money
wherewith to pay the bank notes, they being so prodigiously in excess of
the coin. After this, each step had been but a stumble: each operation a
very feeble palliation. Days and weeks had been gained, obscurity had
been allowed to give more chance, solely from fear of disclosing the true
and terrible state of affairs, and the extent of the public ruin. Law
could not wash his hands of all this before the world; he could not avoid
passing for the inventor and instrument, and he would have run great risk
at the moment when all was unveiled. M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, to
satisfy his own prodigality, and the prodigious avidity of his friends,
had compelled Law to issue so many millions of livres of notes more than
he had any means of paying, and who had thus precipitated him into the
abyss, could not let him run the chance of perishing, still less to save
him, could he proclaim himself the real criminal. It was to extricate
himself from this embarrassment that he made Law leave the country, when
he saw that the monstrous deceit could no longer be hidden.

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