Millionaire - Janet Gleeson [71]
Four days after the murder, on March 26, 1720, at four in the afternoon, a ghoulish crowd gathered in the Place de Grève to witness the spectacle of de Horn and his accomplice being broken on the wheel as sentenced. De Horn, the first to be executed, took three-quarters of an hour to die after receiving the executioner’s blows.
Law capitalized rapidly on the publicity surrounding the crime. He had always detested the seediness, hysteria, and double dealing stirred up in the frenetic atmosphere of the rue Quincampoix. Now he had cause to eliminate it. Shortly after de Horn’s execution a ruling was issued prohibiting crowds from congregating in the rue Quincampoix and outlawing any dealing in shares or primes other than through official company offices.
Amid the ongoing financial malaise, the printing presses rolled on. By May 1720, more than 2.6 billion livres in banknotes had been issued, doubling the amount circulating since January. The country was awash with paper. Fearing that his system was on the brink of disintegration, Law made his most desperate and, many would later argue, most drastically misguided move.
On May 21, a holiday weekend, when most of his opponents were conveniently out of town, he announced that by December shares presently pegged at 9,000 livres would be worth only 5,000. The value of banknotes would also be reduced gradually until they were worth 50 percent of their present value. The moves, he argued, were for the national good, to redress the balance between paper and the coin reserves on which France relied for foreign trade. Nobody would suffer. The same share dividend would be paid, and the balance between the value of paper notes and silver would return to what it had been before the devaluations announced in March.
No one believed him. In the last five months the long-suffering public had witnessed multiple changes in the value of their currency; their coinage had been outlawed; wearing jewelry had been prohibited, even crucifixes were banned. He had left them only with paper. Throughout every vacillation, every turn and twist of financial policy, he had maintained, adamantly, its immunity to change. As far as the public was concerned, by casting aside this fundamental tenet he had revealed himself as a charlatan. Distress ripened to civil unrest as the almost unbelievable news spread. Everyone felt they were about to be robbed of half of what they had and, as Pulteney put it, Law had effected “the most notorious cheat that ever was committed, and it is very plain now that Mr. Law has as little capacity as integrity.”
The day after the announcement a disaffected mob gravitated to the bank. When they found it closed they began to pelt it with stones. For three days riots erupted in the streets of Paris. Crowds gathered each day outside the bank, throwing missiles, shattering windows, chanting their dissent, while inside officials struggled to cope with the throng of investors exchanging banknotes at the new rate.
The widespread hatred with which Law was regarded inevitably spilled over to jeopardize his family. On an outing with her daughter, with only her maid and a footman for protection, Katherine found herself in the midst of the menacing rabble and was forced to take refuge in a nearby house. The burden of realizing that his actions were gravely endangering his family’s safety can only have added to Law’s misery. From now on the children spent much time exiled to the country homes of their father’s supporters, such as the Duc de Bourbon. Katherine, who was increasingly concerned for Law’s mental resilience, remained staunchly in Paris.
At the Palais Royal, the regent tried to remain calm and wait for the storm to pass. He had failed to anticipate the fury unleashed by the edict of May 21 and now regretted his decision to agree to it. Sensing his unease, Law’s enemies grasped the chance to promote their own interests. On the following Monday an emergency session of the Parlement was called and “in one moment the nation was carried from extreme trust to extreme distrust.” Denouncing