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By Root 635 0

became volatile and unreasonable. “He gets out of bed almost every night, and runs, stark staring mad, about the room making a terrible noise, sometimes singing and dancing, at other times swearing, staring and stamping, quite out of himself,” said Stair, who had heard the account from one of Law’s footmen. “Some nights ago, his wife, who had come into the room upon the noise he made, was forced to ring the bell for people to come to her assistance. The officer of Law’s guard was the first that came, who found Law in his shirt, who had set two chairs in the middle of the room and was dancing round them, quite out of his wits.” The usually poised Katherine must have been alarmed.

The burdens on Law’s shoulders were great indeed. Pressured by the regent and debilitated by his failing stamina, his resolve faltered. He backtracked.

14

THE STORMSOF FATE

At length corruption, like a general flood,

Shall deluge all, and av’rice creeping on

(So long by watchful ministers withstood)

Spread, like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.

Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks,

Peeress and butler share alike the box;

The judge shall job, the bishops bite the town,

And mighty Dukes pack cards for half-a-crown:

See Britain sunk in Lucre’s sordid charms.

Alexander Pope,

Epistle to Lord Bathurst

AFORTNIGHT AFTER WITHDRAWING SUPPORT FOR THE shares, Law reversed the decision. He announced that the share-sales office would reopen and pegged the share price at 9,000 livres. The gesture temporarily appeased his critics but in reality made an already dire situation worse. Crowds frightened by the sudden changes in policy and sensing the precariousness of the financial situation, rushed to the bank to cash in their shares, and the printing presses went into overdrive to pay for them.

As the crush at the bank exceeded all expectation, Law reached the most radical decision of his career thus far. If the balance between paper and coins could not be redressed, he concluded, his only alternative was to abolish gold and silver coins entirely. While paper notes would remain invariable, coin made from precious metals would be gradually reduced in value against the livre, then phased out. Within two months in the case of gold, and nine months in the case of silver, they would cease to exist as currency within France. France would depend entirely upon paper.

It was a step too far. In a country noted for its financial conservatism, a monetary system based on anything other than gold and silver was inconceivable. Law was suspected of tampering with the foundations on which society was built and depended for its stability. As Saint-Simon ranted,

They tried to convince the nation that from the days when Abraham paid four hundred shekels of silver, current coin, for Sarah’s sepulchre to the present day, the wisest nations of the earth had been under the grossest error and delusion as to money and the metals of which it was made; that paper was the only profitable and necessary medium, and that we could not do a greater harm to foreign nations, jealous of our grandeur and our advantages, than to pass over all our silver and gold and precious stones to them.

Even the regent’s mother, who until now had admired Law, was averse to the move: “I think it hard lines that there is no more gold to be seen, because for forty-eight years now I have never been without some beautiful gold pieces in my pocket. . . . Monsieur Law is certainly terribly hated.”

Others interpreted a more sinister reason for Law’s apparent madness: “The silver is to be employed in such foreign trades as cannot be carried on without it, or as Mr. Law may propose to beat us and the Dutch out of it by that means. . . . Mr. Law has said he will drain us of all our silver,” mused Daniel Pulteney. Opinion was divided then, and still is, over what Law was trying to achieve. Pulteney believed he was reducing the value of gold and silver to draw it into the bank, and that he would use the gold to buy up Europe’s silver, and then would bring it back to France.