Law’s importance causes him to be courted by all classes.--Socially
ostracised by nobility.--Law’s conversion to Roman
Catholicism.--The part of the Abbé Dubois and the Abbé Tencin
in the conversion.--Difficulties in its accomplishment.--Law
becomes naturalised.--Law appointed Controller-General of
Finance.--Regent celebrates appointment by a distribution
of pensions.--Law honoured with the freedom of the City of
Edinburgh.--Elected member of Academy of Sciences.--William Law
brought to France and made Postmaster-General.--Law’s private
investments.--His fiscal reforms.--His introduction of free
university education.
[Illustration]
In the midst of all this excitement, gaiety and brilliance, Law himself
stood out as the one great and prominent figure in the kingdom. Court
was paid to him by all the most influential personages in France; and
by the multitude he was regarded with feelings of awe and admiration.
His chambers were crowded day after day by those who at other times
would have been in attendance upon their sovereign. Every excuse and
artifice was employed in order to obtain an interview with the great
man. “I have seen an hundred coaches at his levee in a morning, and
dukes and peers waiting for hours together to speak with him, and could
not get within two rooms of him for the crowd.” Yet through the whole
of this period of flattery and adulation he maintained the same cool
unaffected demeanour which had always characterised him, and although
given at times to treat his importunate visitors with haughtiness and
curtness, yet he was noted for his general suavity and affability
when receiving those who were strangers to him, and who had sought
introductions without credentials merely for the purpose of obtaining
pecuniary assistance. When he passed along the streets, he was followed
by crowds by whom he was greeted with cries of “Long live Mr. Law.”
Ladies of the highest rank kissed their hands to him, and even princes
rendered him obeisance in public. In fact so important had Law become
in the eyes of everyone, that he allowed himself to indulge in conduct
of a somewhat shameless character, although it was attributed simply
to boldness by those who encouraged him in it. The latter--and they
were more often than not of the gentler sex--thought they excused their
conduct in endeavouring to give it the character of a joke, and the
nobility of the period, ready at all times to sacrifice their lives to
their honour, scrupled not to sacrifice their honour to their fortune.
The determination of many ladies to have the honour, as they considered
it, of speaking with Law, led to many amusing if not ridiculous
incidents. One lady, who had waited without success at his house for
an interview, instructed her coachman to overturn her carriage if on
any occasion when driving her he chanced to meet the great financier.
For several days she drove through the streets of Paris he was most
in the habit of frequenting, and at last her patience was rewarded.
On the approach of Law her coachman upset the carriage, and the
lady who was carried into a neighbouring house by the object of her
attentions confessed the purpose of her stratagem, and extracted a
promise from him that her application for shares would be granted. Not
so successful, however, was the ruse of another lady who had failed to
secure an invitation to the house of Madame de Simiane where Law was to
dine. Driving to the house when all were seated at dinner, she bade her
coachman and footman to shout “Fire,” at which the guests all rushed
into the street. On seeing the lady leave her carriage to meet him, Law
at once perceived the object of the false alarm and fled before she had
an opportunity of speaking to him.
At Law’s house was always to be found the most exclusive society in
Paris, and it is related that the Regent, expressing the desire on
one occasion to find a Duchess to whom he could depute the duty of
accompanying his daughter to Modena, mentioned to the Abbé Dubois
that he did not exactly know where to find one, to which the latter
remarked, “I can tell you where to find every duchess in France: you
have only to go to Mr. Law’s; you will see them every one in his
ante-chamber.”
One incident, however, serves to show that there was no desire on
the part of the nobility to admit Law to their ranks, and that their
conduct in apparently placing him on their own social level was merely
dictated by the possibility of utilising their friendship for financial
gain. The Maréchal de Villeroi had arranged a ballet in which the young
king was to appear. Such ballets had been common during the reign
of Louis XIV., and were considered part of a nobleman’s education,
which then chiefly consisted in “grace, address, exercise, respect
for bearing, graduated and delicate politeness, polished and decent
gallantry,” but had fallen entirely into disuse during the Regency.
Great difficulty was accordingly experienced by the Maréchal in
obtaining a sufficient number of dancers amongst the nobility who alone
were formerly privileged to take part in the royal entertainment. Many
were admitted who would not otherwise have been allowed to join in the
ballet, and Law requested the Regent to obtain the honour for his son
of being allowed to join the company. The Maréchal was unable to refuse
the Regent’s request, but the idea of a commoner’s son occupying a
place in a royal ballet so scandalised the feelings of social propriety
of the privileged circle that “nothing else was spoken of for some
days; tongues wagged freely, too; and a good deal of dirty water was
thrown upon other dancers in the ballet.” The success of the ballet was
thus threatened, and the whole project promised to be a total failure
when it was announced that Law’s son had fallen ill from small-pox. The
cause of all the difficulties having thus been removed, the high-born
courtiers displayed their undisguised satisfaction and proceeded with
calmer feelings to carry out the first and only Court ballet which
graced the reign of Louis XV.
While Law’s influence at this time was all-powerful in the government
of France, he was without any of the outward symbols of authority. He
held no office, and his influence accordingly could only be exercised
indirectly. He enjoyed the splendour of the position to which he had
attained, but did not possess any official mark of greatness. Two
obstacles existed to official advancement. His religion was not that
recognised by the State; and his nationality was foreign. Both of these
he was now prepared to renounce. The abjuration of his religion was a
step which required to be accomplished with the utmost caution. All the
elements of sincerity were lacking, and Law’s conversion was likely
to be regarded as a merely political move. There was danger moreover
of the public regarding the conversion of Law under royal auspices
in the light of a highly scandalous proceeding, and considering that
it might derogate from the high office to which he was destined and
for which the abjuration of his religion was a necessary preliminary.
There was a circumstance also in Law’s career which under ordinary
conditions would have militated against his admission to the Roman
Catholic communion, and therefore required delicate treatment. Law
had not been legally married to the lady whom he passed off as his
wife, and the law of the Church strictly required cessation of all
relations with her. This, naturally, was a course to which Law would
not assent since by her he had a son and a daughter, and since
her husband Senor was now dead for many years. It was accordingly
necessary to have a very indulgent converter, one who would not only
attest sincere conversion but would at the same time refrain from
interfering with Law’s connubial relations. An accommodating instrument
had therefore to be found, and Dubois was ready to supply him in the
person of a certain Abbé Tencin. “I shall give you,” said Dubois,
“neither a curé nor a habitué de paroisse: they are too much bound by
formularies, maxims, and rigid rules; you will have the Abbé Tencin,
a man of considerable talent whom I know intimately; he can convert
and receive into the Church Mr. Law and all his family.” The Abbé was
undoubtedly a man of talent, ambitious and witty, but unfortunately had
acquired a reputation for unscrupulousness, and a degree of dishonesty
inconsistent with his high professions. Regarded with suspicion,
and denied the friendship of those with whom his calling would have
brought him into contact, he devoted himself to intriguing on behalf
of politicians and others to whom a man of the ability and cunningness
of the Abbé was indispensable. To Dubois he was invaluable, but he
also had that minister under his control through his having compromised
himself with Madame de Tencin. The Abbé found in this a powerful lever,
and unfailingly turned it to his own advantage at every opportunity.
Law’s conversion was such an opportunity, and one which opened out a
prospect of enrichment he had not as yet enjoyed.
With the approval of the Regent, the Abbé was accordingly deputed to
perform the delicate task of making Law a Catholic. A short time was
allowed to elapse before the actual ceremony took place, and in the
interval it was supposed that Law, under the spiritual guidance of the
Abbé, was preparing himself for the solemn and important step he was
about to take. But by no ingenious form of deception, however mild, was
the Abbé able to give even a colour of sincerity to Law’s conversion,
and he was therefore placed under the necessity of choosing some other
place than Paris for the performance of the ceremony lest the people,
outraged in their notions of religious propriety, should resort to
forcible measures to prevent the ceremony from taking place. The Church
of the Récollets in Melun was accordingly chosen as a sufficiently safe
and retired scene for the abjuration, and on 17th September, 1719,
the necessary formalities were performed, the Abbé retiring from “his
pious task with many shares and bank-notes.” The event was made the
occasion of sarcastic verse of which a few fragments still survive.
The following fragment preserved in the “Memoris du Maréchal Duc de
Richelieu” celebrates the bestowal of the title of Primate of the
Mississippi upon the Abbé by the Colonel of the Regiment of Skull-Caps,
a burlesque association which jested on all events:--
Nous Colonel de la Calotte,
Pour empêcher par tous moyens,
Que l’erreur des Luthériens
Et que la Doctrine Huguenotte
N’infecte notre Régiment
D’un pernicieux sentiment;
Et pour mettre dans la voye,
Quiconque seroit fourvoyé,
Et seroit devenu la proye
De l’Hérétique Devoyé.
A ces causes, vu la science,
Bonnes mœurs, doctrine, éloquence
Et zele que l’Abbé Tencin
A fait paroître sur-tout autre;
Pour le salut de son prochain,
Nous lui donnons Lettre d’Apôtre,
Et de convertisseur en chef;
D’autant qu’en homme apostolique,
Il a rendu Law Catholique:
En outre par le même bref,
Voulant illustrer la soutane,
Et donner du poids aux Sermons
Dudit Abbé; nous le nommons
_Primat de la Louisiane._
De plus, quoique l’Abbé susdit,
Plein d’un évangélique esprit,
Meprise les biens de ce monde,
Et que même contre eux il fronde.
De notre libéralité
Pour soutenir sa dignité,
En conséquence du systême
Lui déléguons dîme on dixieme
Sur les brouillards dudit pays,
Qui du systême sont le prix;
Espérant qui la Cour de Rome
Donnera les Bulles gratis.
An unexpected difficulty, however, now arose. Law’s parish church
was the church of Saint-Roch, and the Curé, refusing to credit the
sincerity of the conversion, would not recognize Law as a duly
converted Catholic. This was a serious difficulty since Law had
renounced his old faith and, while having complied with all the outward
formalities necessary for reception into the new, was denied admission.
The realisation of his ambition was thus threatened, and the situation
demanded the employment of measures, extreme if necessary, but
sufficient at least to overcome the scruples of the recalcitrant Curé.
Tencin, as intermediary in the negotiations which followed, had full
and ample powers to treat with the Curé. The wily Abbé, knowing that
corruption was closed to him as an avenue of successful approach to the
Curé, adopted the useful method, but one none the less corrupt because
it does not personally benefit the recipient, of offering on behalf
of his principal to subscribe lavishly to the funds of the church,
and to give substantial assistance towards its construction. The Curé
yielded readily to the temptation, and it was thereupon arranged that
Law should communicate and make the bread offering at High Mass on
Christmas-day with all due solemnity. His donations were attributed to
a sense of religious duty, and as a thank-offering for the privilege of
being received into the Catholic communion. The ceremony was performed
before a crowded and fashionable congregation, who had flocked from
Paris to witness the interesting event, and Law was now able to take
out letters of naturalisation.
Law, however, was not permitted to escape so easily from public
reflection upon the apparent motives of his action. A heated
controversy arose between Jansenites, who, influenced only by rigid
principle, were indignant at the manner in which a sacred rite had been
in their opinion grossly abused, and the Jesuits, who, inclined to
place more weight upon outward ceremony, were convinced, or at least
declared they were convinced, of the sincerity of the conversion. Nor
were matters improved when during the controversy all the compromising
features of Law’s past life were diligently gathered and as diligently
published to a curious and interested community.
But Law chose to treat the matter in a spirit of indifference, and by
refraining from making any attempt to refute or explain the statements
of his opponents the storm subsided from mere exhaustion.
A few days after the ceremony at Saint-Roch, on 5th January, 1720, Law
was named Controller General of Finance in place of D’Argenson, whose
tenure of office was wholly at Law’s mercy. Law had merely to create
difficulties for his nominee, in order to obtain his resignation, and
D’Argenson wise enough to perceive the futility of opposing the designs
of Law readily yielded up the most important office in the national
administration. As Voltaire remarks, Law had in the space of four
years developed from a Scotsman into a Frenchman; from a Protestant
into a Catholic; from an adventurer into a lord of the fairest lands
of the kingdom; and from a banker into a minister of state. His
phenomenal rise from obscurity to the highest office, and that in a
foreign country, was an apparent witness to the truth of his theories,
and the circumstance that he did not allow himself to be overcome by
overestimation of his own importance, but maintained an unassuming and
unpretentious manner throughout the whole of this period secured for
him the personal attachment and admiration of the whole nation, and
for his opinions a greater degree of implicit faith than probably they
would otherwise have received.
The Regent was himself delighted with the preferment he was thus easily
enabled to confer upon his favourite, and marked the occasion by a
lavish distribution of grants and pensions to numerous courtiers and
relations. Of these the Duke of Saint-Simon mentions grants of 600,000
livres to La Fare, captain of the guard; 100,000 livres to Castries,
chevalier d’honneur to Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans; 200,000 to the
Prince de Courtenay; and 60,000 livres to the Comte de la Marche, the
infant son of the Prince de Conti. Saint-Simon then adds that “seeing
so much depredation, and no recovery to hope for, I asked M. la Duc
d’Orléans to attach 12,000 livres, by way of increase, to my government
of Senlis, which was worth only 1000 livres, and of which my second son
had the reversion. I obtained it at once.”
Two other honours of a different character were also conferred upon
Law during these few months of greatness. One came from his native
city, which was now anxious to do homage to the man of whom it
formerly had reason to be somewhat ashamed. This consisted of the
freedom of Edinburgh, presented to him in a gold casket of magnificent
workmanship, which had cost the municipal treasury the sum of £300. The
other consisted in his election as an honorary member of the Academy
of Sciences, an honour of the highest order and conferred only upon
Frenchmen of outstanding ability. In this latter condition was found
the excuse for purging his name from the roll on his downfall, his
election which took place on 2nd December, 1719, having preceded his
naturalisation.
The magnitude and diversity of interests to which Law’s time and
attention was now devoted were such as to cause him to enlist the
services of his brother, William Law, a man of parts but much inferior
in ability to his more brilliant brother.
William Law was first appointed representative of the Bank on the
London Exchange, and so great was the standing of the Bank in the
opinion of English commercial circles that the bulk of remittances
for France passed through his hands. His business capacity, however,
was such as to warrant Law in bringing his brother over to Paris, and
accordingly a London office was established in the Strand under the
management of one George Middleton. Before setting out for Paris,
William Law had made arrangements for the importation into France
of considerable numbers of skilled workmen, chiefly gold and silver
smiths. It had always been one of Law’s objects to develop France
into a great industrial nation, and one of the methods he adopted to
accomplish this end was to rob England of its best workmen by offering
substantial inducements. A factory was established at Versailles in
which it was intended to carry on, on a large scale, a business which
would gradually absorb certain classes of trade that had hitherto been
practically the monopoly of British manufacturers. Success however
did not come as Law had anticipated. No doubt his efforts were a
stimulating influence, but he was to discover that trade, which was not
of natural growth, seldom prospered by purely artificial means.
William Law on his arrival in Paris was received with that welcome
which his relationship with the Comptroller-General naturally secured
for him. He was introduced immediately to the Regent, and was not
only made one of the directors of the Bank, but was also appointed
to the office of Postmaster-General--a circumstance which alone
indicates the commanding influence Law exercised over the Regent and
the government of France. These two brothers lived in princely fashion
in Paris, honoured and courted by everyone from the Regent downwards.
Each accumulated enormous wealth, but directed its investment into
different channels. William purchased land and estates in his native
country, not that he foresaw the possibility of the collapse of his
brother’s schemes, but because he had no desire to permanently settle
in France. John, on the other hand, with the intention of becoming
a Frenchman so far as that was possible in spite of his origin,
acquired great estates throughout the land of his adoption, and thus
incidentally evinced his confidence in the sterling value of his
financial schemes. His nephew compiled a list of his more important
investments, aggregating almost 8,000,000 livres:--
La Marquisat d’Effiat 800,000 livres.
La Terre de la Rivière 900,000 „
La Marquisat de Toncy 160,000 „
La Terre de la Marche 120,000 „
La Terre de Roissy 650,000 „
La Terre d’Orcher 400,000 „
Terre et Bois de Brean 160,000 „
Marquisats de Charleville et Bacqueville 330,000 „
La Terre de Berville 200,000 „
La Terre de Fontaine Rome 130,000 „
La Terre de Serville 110,000 „
La Terre d’Yville 200,000 „
La Terre de Serponville 220,000 „
La Terre de Tancarville 320,000 „
La Terre de Guermande 160,000 „
Hotel Mazarin, et Emplacemens Rue Vivienne 1,200,000 „
Emplacemens Rue de Varenne 110,000 „
Emplacemens de la Place Louis le Grand 250,000 „
Partie du fief de la Grange Batelière 150,000 „
Marais on Chartiers du Fauxbourg St. Honore 160,000 „
Maisons, surtout dans Paris 700,000 „
Les Domains de Bourget 90,000 „
Quelques petites terres, comme Valançay,
St. Suplice, etc. 350,000 „
Not by any means a strikingly large list for the man who had in so few
years enabled the Regent and innumerable members of the aristocracy to
accumulate vast wealth and rehabilitate the fortunes which successive
generations had squandered in reckless extravagance.
That Law did not merely use the great power and influence he had
acquired in the government of France for the purpose of promoting his
own financial schemes and his own personal advantage is evident from
the radical reforms he accomplished in the fiscal arrangements of that
country. The principles upon which he based his fiscal policy were
of the most advanced and enlightened character. They were liberal,
and consequently had strict equality for their object. The system of
taxation which prevailed not only showed many anomalies but lent itself
to the grossest abuse. Monopolies of every description abounded.
Officials swarmed throughout the country, and by their extortionate
levies upon every branch of trade checked industrial progress in every
direction. It is said that in Paris itself the number of officials
equalled the number of people engaged in the various trades they were
supposed to supervise in the interests of the nation. Free trading
intercourse was also limited by the existence of a system of provincial
protection which sought to prevent the goods of one province from
entering, except under payment of prohibitive dues, the markets of
another province.
Law was alive to the prejudicial effects of all these factors upon
the industrial prosperity of the country, and also upon the general
well-being of the people, and endeavoured as far as possible to remove
or at least to modify them. His ideal was the adoption of a single tax
to be levied in proportion to the wealth of the individual. Too many
vested interests existed however for the accomplishment of so sweeping
a reform, and he had to satisfy himself with measures more moderate
in their sweep. It is a tribute to his fearlessness that during the
winter of 1719–20 he introduced innumerable changes in the method and
incidence of taxation, and that in spite of the overwhelming opposition
of those who were thus deprived of continuing the old extortionate
system to their own pecuniary gain. By wholesale modification of
duties and charges, he succeeded in effecting substantial reductions
in the price of such necessaries as grain, corn, coal, wood, butter,
cheese, and eggs. Inland protective duties were abolished on all
articles classed as necessaries or as raw material, and on one item of
import--English coal--the tariff was removed for the benefit of French
manufacturers, whom Law was most anxious to encourage.
But Law’s horizon was not bounded by the commercial and industrial
interests of the country. He recognised the great part which education
plays in the progress of a nation, and determined to give such
facilities as would place the highest education within the reach of
every one. He accordingly appropriated a twenty-eighth part of the
postal revenue for the endowment of free education in the University of
Paris. He thus conferred upon France a benefit of the most invaluable
character, and by this measure alone merited the reputation of an
enlightened and broad-minded statesman.