splendour, and to enrich himself, his connexions, and his favourites; and had hoped that the catastrophe of the system would not take place until after the expiration of the regency.

He now saw his mistake-that it was impossible much longer to prevent an explosion; and he determined at once to get Law out of the way, and then to charge him with the whole tissue of delusions of this paper alchemy. He accordingly took occasion of the recal of parliament in December 1720, to suggest to Law the policy of his avoiding an encounter with that hostile and exasperated body. Law needed no urging to the measure. His only desire was to escape from Paris and its tempestuous populace. Two days before the return of parliament, he took his sudden and secret departure. He travelled in a chaise bearing the arms of the Regent, and was escorted by a kind of safe-guard of servants in the Duke's livery. His first place of refuge was an estate of the Regent's, about six leagues from Paris, from whence he pushed forward to Bruxelles.

As soon as Law was fairly out of the way, the Duke of Orleans summoned a council of the regency, and informed them that they were assembled to deliberate on the state of the finances, and the affairs of the India Company. Accordingly, La Houssaye, Comptroller-general, rendered a perfectly clear statement, by which it appeared that there were bankbills in circulation to the amount of two milliards, seven hundred millions of livres, without any evidence that this enormous sum had been emitted in virtue of any ordinance from the general assembly of the India Company, which alone had the right to authorize such emissions.

The council was astonished at this disclosure, and looked to the Regent for explanation. Pushed to the extreme, the Regent avowed that Law had emitted bills to the amount of twelve hundred millions beyond what had been fixed by ordinances, and in contradiction to express prohibitions; that the thing being done, he, the Regent, had legalized, or rather covered the transaction, by decrees ordering such emissions, which decrees he had antedated.

A stormy scene ensued between the Regent and the Duke de Bourbon, little to the credit of either, both having been deeply implicated in the cabalistic operations of the system. In fact, the several members of the council had been among the most venal "beneficiaries" of the scheme, and had interests at stake which they were anxious to secure. From all the circumstances of the case, I am inclined to think that others were more to blame than Law for the disastrous effects of his financial projects. His bank, had it been confined to

its original limits, and left to the control of its own internal regulations, might have gone on prosperously, and been of great benefit to the nation. It was an institution fitted for a free country; but unfortunately, it was subject to the control of a despotic government, that could at its pleasure alter the value of the specie within its vaults, and compel the most extravagant expansions of its paper circulation. The vital principle of a bank is security in the regularity of its operations, and the immediate convertibility of its paper into coin; and what confidence could be reposed in an institution, or its paper promises, when the sovereign could at any moment centuple those promises in the market, and seize upon all the money in the bank? The compulsory measures used, likewise, to force bank-notes into currency, against the judgment of the public, was fatal to the system; for credit must be free and uncontrolled as the common air. The Regent was the evil spirit of the system, that forced Law on to an expansion of his paper currency far beyond what he had ever dreamed of. He it was that in a manner compelled the unlucky projector to devise all kinds of collateral companies and monopolies, by which to raise funds to meet the constantly and enormously increasing emissions of shares and notes. Law was but like a poor conjuror in the hands of a potent spirit that he has evoked, and that obliges him to go on, desperately, and ruinously, with his conjurations. He only thought at the outset to raise the wind, but the Regent compelled him to

raise the whirlwind.

The investigation of the affairs of the company by the council resulted in nothing beneficial to the public. The princes and nobles, who had enriched themselves by all kinds of juggles and extortions, escaped unpunished, and retained the greater part of their spoils. Many of the " suddenly rich," who had risen from obscurity to a giddy height of imaginary prosperity, and had indulged in all kinds of vulgar and ridiculous excesses, awoke as out of a dream, in their original poverty, now made more galling and humiliating by their transient elevation.

The weight of the evil, however, fell on more valuable classes of society-honest tradesmen and artisans, who had been seduced away from the slow accumulations of industry to the specious chances of speculation. Thousands of meritorious families, also, once opulent, had been reduced to indigence by a too great confidence in Government. There was a general derangement in the finances that long exerted a baneful influence over the national prosperity; but the most disastrous effects of the system were upon the morals and manners of the nation. The faith of engagements, the sanctity of promises

in affairs of business, were at an end. Every expedient to grasp present profit, or to evade present difficulty, was tolerated. While such deplorable laxity of principle was generated in the busy classes, the chivalry of France had soiled their pennons; and honour and glory, so long the idols of the Gallic nobility, had been tumbled to the earth, and trampled in the dirt of the stock-market.

As to Law, the originator of the system, he appears eventually to have profited but little by his schemes. "He was a quack," says Voltaire, "to whom the state was given to be cured, but who poisoned it with his drugs, and who poisoned himself." The effects which he left behind in France were sold at a low price, and the proceeds dissipated. His landed estates were confiscated. He carried away with him barely enough to maintain himself, his wife, and daughter, with decency. The chief relic of his immense fortune was a great diamond, which he was often obliged to pawn. He was in England in 1721, and was presented to George the First. He returned shortly afterward to the Continent, shifting about from place to place, and died in Venice in 1729. His wife and daughter, accustomed to live with the prodigality of princesses, could not conform to their altered fortunes, but dissipated the scanty means left to them, and sank into abject poverty. "I saw his wife," says Voltaire, at " Bruxelles, as much humiliated as she had been haughty and triumphant at Paris." An elder brother of Law remained in France, and was protected by the Duchess of Bourbon. His descendants acquitted themselves honourably in various public employments; and one of them was the Marquis Lauriston, some time Lieutenant-General and Peer of France.

123

SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825:

FROM THE TRAVELLING NOTE-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.

THE PARISIAN HOTEL.

A GREAT hotel in Paris is a street set on end; the grand staircase is the highway, and every floor or apartment a separate habitation. The one in which I am lodged may serve as a specimen. It is a large quadrangular pile, built round a spacious paved court. The ground floor is occupied by shops, magazines, and domestic offices.

Then comes the entresol, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers; then succeeds a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the other, to the number of Mahomet's heavens. Each floor is a mansion, complete within itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, kitchen, and other conveniences. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. Each apartment has its main-door of entrance, opening upon the staircase or landing-places, and locked like a street door. Thus several families and numerous single persons live under the same roof, totally independent of each other, and may live so for years, without holding more intercourse than is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.

Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations of rank and style and importance. The premier or first floor, with its grand saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, is decidedly the aristocratical part of the establishment. The second floor is scarcely less aristocratical and magnificent; the other floors go on lessening in splendour as they gain in altitude, and end with the attics-the region of petty tailors, clerks, and sewing girls. To make the filling up of the mansion complete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a joli petit appartment à garçon (a pretty little

bachelor's apartment), that is to say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for a poor devil of a bachelor.

The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great porte-cochère, or portal, calculated for the admission of carriages. This consists of two massy folding doors, that swing heavily open upon a spacious entrance, passing under the front of the edifice into the court-yard. On one side is a grand staircase leading to the upper apartments. Immediately without the portal is the porter's lodge, a small room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the concierge, or porter, and his family. This is one of the most important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and consent. The porte-cochère in general is fastened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immediately drawn, as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the visitor pushes it open, and enters. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter's little chamber; the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a visitor is at hand. The stranger, in the meantime, ascends the great staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door, equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his friends. Beside this hangs a bell-cord, with which he rings for admittance.

When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter's door, and is told" Montez au troisième, au quatrième; sonnez à la porte à droite, ou à gauche"Ascend to the third or fourth, story; ring the bell on the right or left hand door-as the case may be.

The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the in-comers and out-goers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets and the domestic history of every member of the little territory within the porte-cochère.

The porter's lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, where all the private affairs of this interior neighbourhood are