Millionaire - Janet Gleeson [83]
Swamped by suspicion and blame, Law remained isolated and melancholy in his home, with only Katherine to alleviate his distress. Even she, however, could not distract him from the fact that now that the bank had closed and the Mississippi Company was foundering, his position was no longer tenable. He tendered his resignation and asked for permission to leave the country. The regent, playing for time, ignored him. Once again Law was a man condemned, waiting for sentence to be pronounced.
With Katherine’s help he passed his time in trying to regulate his personal financial affairs. During the past weeks these had become hopelessly entwined with those of the company. Law was still a soft touch, and whenever an investor confronted him with a hard-luck story, he invariably offered to help. Many of the financial problems that haunted him in years to come arose from the personal bills he issued at this time to impoverished investors to reimburse them for their losses.
Outwardly he could still, where necessary, summon something of his old élan. When told of his enemies’ rapprochement with the regent, he responded, “The Regent only follows this course to amuse himself, he takes pleasure from it.” Marais watched when Law ventured out to oversee the registration of shares. He arrived at the Company’s offices on November 21 amid the crowds who were depositing their shares. The front seemed convincing: “He was called a thief, a charlatan, a rascal. He carried his head as high as possible, and everyone wanted him to hang it low.” But ten days later, in early December, his spirit was crushed again. There were signs that the Parlement’s return loomed closer and that, as Law had feared, their agreement to cooperate was based on the understanding that he would be hunted down. Yielding to pressure from those who wanted to see Law punished, the regent continued to ignore his repeated, and increasingly urgent, requests to be allowed to leave the country. By December 10 it was murmured that Law had been arrested, or dismissed and banished to his estate at Effiat. Marais, keeping closer watch, knew that he had still not been given permission to leave the capital but saw the strain becoming clearly visible: “He is in a state of great despondency and dismay. A tremendous storm is brewing, and we will soon see the results. Everyone is getting ready to torture him, and even in the bank there is much scandalous talk against him and the Regent.”
With tensions escalating hourly, Law again asked for an audience with the regent, only to be told that he was too ill to see him, an excuse he read as meaning that dismissal and arrest were imminent. A day later the movement to bring down Law gathered still deadlier momentum: “There is no doubt that this time he will succumb, the party is well made,” said Marais, numbering not only the usual confection of the Parlement, financiers, and courtiers against Law, but also Madame de Parabère, the regent’s estranged mistress, who had said she would return to his bed only if Law was ousted. According to Marais, the regent, unable to resist such a challenge, was running after her “like a child.” Faced with such massed opposition, even Law’s most staunch supporter, the Duc de Bourbon, conceded