Millionaire - Janet Gleeson [87]
In Paris, meanwhile, scandalmongers worked overtime to spread rumors of “an astonishing quantity of wagons filled with gold and silver” that had also been sent across the border to Flanders. Numerous theories were suggested as to what the money was for: buying political support; part of the marriage settlement between an archduchess and the Duc de Chartres; a private fund with which the regent would retire when the king reached his majority. On one thing everyone agreed: “It is certain that Law is part of the agreement with the Regent and as his negotiator he wants for nothing.” In England similar accusations appeared in the press. The State of Europe reported, “The general opinion is still that he goes for Rome, where he has remitted part of the booty he has plundered in France, and bought a magnificent palace. He has carried his son with him and left his wife and daughter in France. Letters from Paris told us thereupon that he designed to be divorced in hopes to be made a cardinal. I don’t know whether the red cap is so easily purchased, but there are certain marriages which can be easily dissolved.”
The accusations of misappropriation of French money lingered for years and caused Law great heartache. His letters to Bourbon, Orléans, and Lassay are filled with countless explanations and protestations of innocence: “What could have given rise to this rumour were the dispatches of silver that were made by order and for the service of the state or the India Company. . . . The dispatches were registered in ledgers in Paris and at the frontier. . . . I declare to Your Royal Highness that I have never sent any carriage in secret, nor any remittance apart from those that were publicly made,” he told the Duc de Bourbon. “As far as diamonds are concerned, I had four that together were worth £4,000 and before the ban on exporting diamonds I gave them to my brother to send for sale in England with his, but he gave me one back because it was not of good quality. This was the sole and only diamond, the treasure that I took with me on leaving France.”
The furor he aroused in Brussels made Law uncomfortable, and he decided to move on as quickly as he could. The intention had always been that he would travel south and settle in Italy, in either Venice or Rome. But since his money had been confiscated at the border he spent the next two days raising two hundred pistoles, presumably either through loans or by gaming, before continuing on the journey south, with new passports quickly organized by de Prie. Crossing the Alps in the middle of winter was fraught with peril. Another intrepid traveler, George Berkeley, who made the crossing in the new year of 1714, could have warned him of the terrors: “We were carried in open chairs by men used to scale these rocks and precipices, which in this season are more slippery and dangerous than at other times, and at the best are high, craggy and steep enough to cause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him. My life often depended on a single step. No one will think that I exaggerate, who considers what it is to pass the Alps on New Year’s Day.”
Added to the hazards of appalling weather and treacherous roads were the perils of infamy and the pain of separation from Katherine. Law continued to use his false passport, but he was frequently recognized, and in several cities disaffected investors in Mississippi shares and those who had held on to French banknotes held him personally responsible for their losses, and pestered him for compensation. According to one biographer, in Cologne the Elector would not allow further horses to be supplied unless Law agreed to exchange his banknotes for coins. Law had none to give and was eventually forced to hand over a personal guarantee that they would be reimbursed.
If anything, the affection Law and Katherine felt for each other had strengthened through the months of worry, and the uncertainty of their predicament and enforced separation was painful to both. From the tenderness he expressed in a letter written en route to Italy, it seems that