himself short of
means and wishing to meet his difficulty, he became quick and bad-
tempered, and his replies were often ill-measured. He was a man of
system, of calculation, of comparison, well and profoundly instructed in
these things, and, without ever cheating, had everywhere gained at play
by dint of understanding--which seems to me incredible--the combinations
of cards.

His bank, as I have elsewhere said, was an excellent thing for a
republic, or for a country like England, where finance is as in a
republic. His Mississippi he was the dupe of, and believed with good
faith he should make great and rich establishments in America. He
reasoned like an Englishman, and did not know how opposed to commerce and
to such establishments are the frivolity of the (French) nation, its
inexperience, its avidity to enrich itself at once, the inconvenience of
a despotic government, which meddles with everything, which has little or
no consistency, and in which what one minister does is always destroyed
by his successor.

Law's proscription of specie, then of jewels, so as to have only paper in
France, is a system I have never comprehended, nor has anybody, I fancy,
during all the ages which have elapsed since that in which Abraham, after
losing Sarah, bought, for ready-money, a sepulchre for her and for her
children. But Law was a man of system, and of system so deep, that
nobody ever could get to the bottom of it, though he spoke easily, well
and clearly, but with a good deal of English in his French.

He remained several years at Venice, upon very scanty means, and died
there a Catholic, having lived decently, but very humbly, wisely, and
modestly, and received with piety the last sacraments of the Church.

Thus terminates all I have to say of Law. But a painful truth remains.
I have to speak of the woful disorder in the finances which his system
led to, disorder which was not fully known until after his departure from
France. Then people saw, at last, where all the golden schemes that had
flooded upon popular credulity had borne us;--not to the smiling and
fertile shores of Prosperity and Confidence, as may be imagined; but to
the bleak rocks and dangerous sands of Ruin and Mistrust, where dull
clouds obscure the sky, and where there is no protection against the
storm.

CHAPTER CII

Not long after the flight of Law, that is to say, on Sunday, the 24th of
January, of the new year, 1721, a council was held at