that it was he who had asked the Regent to ask me, not daring to
do so himself. Many compliments followed on both sides, and we agreed
that he should come to my house every Tuesday morning about ten o'clock,
and that my door should be closed to everybody while he remained. This
first visit was not given to business. On the following Tuesday morning
he came to keep his appointment, and punctually came until his
discomfiture. An hour-and-a-half, very often two hours, was the ordinary
time for our conversations. He always took care to inform me of the
favour his bank was obtaining in France and foreign countries, of its
products, of his views, of his conduct, of the opposition he met with
from the heads of finance and the magistracy, of his reasons, and
especially of his balance sheet, to convince me that he was more than
prepared to face all holders of notes whatever sums they had to ask for.

I soon knew that if Law had desired these regular visits at my house, it
was not because he expected to make me a skilful financier; but because,
like a man of sense--and he had a good deal--he wished to draw near a
servitor of the Regent who had the best post in his confidence, and who
long since had been in a position to speak to him of everything and of
everybody with the greatest freedom and the most complete liberty; to try
by this frequent intercourse to gain my friendship; inform himself by me
of the intrinsic qualities of those of whom he only saw the outside; and
by degrees to come to the Council, through me, to represent the
annoyances he experienced, the people with whom he had to do; and lastly,
to profit by my dislike to the Duc de Noailles, who, whilst embracing him
every day, was dying of jealousy and vexation, and raised in his path,
under-hand, all the obstacles and embarrassments possible, and would have
liked to stifle him. The bank being in action and flourishing,
I believed it my duty to sustain it. I lent myself, therefore, to the
instructions Law proposed, and soon we spoke to each other with a
confidence I never have had reason to repent. I will not enter into the
details of this bank, the other schemes which followed it, or the
operations made in consequence. This subject of finance would fill
several volumes. I will speak of it only as it affects the history of
the time, or what concerns me in particular. It is the history of my
time I have wished to write; I should have been too much turned from i