ked to pieces in
the streets. President de Mesmes entered the Grand Chamber, singing with
quite a solemn air,--

"Sirs, sirs, great news! What is it?
It's--They've smashed Law's carriage all to bits."

The whole body jumped up, more regardful of their hatred than of their
dignity; and "Is Law torn in pieces?" was the cry. Law had taken refuge
at the Palais Royal. One day he appeared at the theatre in the Regent's
box; low murmurs recalled to the Regent's mind the necessity for
prudence; in the end he got Law away secretly in a carriage lent him by
the Duke of Bourbon.

Law had brought with him to France a considerable fortune; he had
scarcely enough to live upon when he retired to Venice, where he died
some years later (1729), convinced to the last of the utility of his
system, at the same time that he acknowledged the errors he had committed
in its application. "I do not pretend that I did not make mistakes," he
wrote from his retreat; "I know I did, and that if I had to begin again I
should do differently. I should go more slowly but more surely, and I
should not expose the state and my own person to the dangers which may
attend the derangement of a general system." "There was neither avarice
nor rascality in what he did," says St. Simon; "he was a gentle, kind,
respectful man, whom excess of credit and of fortune had not spoilt, and
whose bearing, equipage, table, and furniture could not offend anybody.
He bore with singular patience and evenness the obstructions that were
raised against his operations, until at the last, finding himself short
of means, and nevertheless seeking for them and wishing to present a
front, he became crusty, gave way to temper, and his replies were
frequently ill-considered. He was a man of system, calculation,
comparison, well informed and profound in that sort of thing, who was the
dupe of his Mississippi, and in good faith believed in forming great and
wealthy establishments in America. He reasoned Englishwise, and did not
know how opposed to those kinds of establishments are the levity of our
nation and the inconveniences of a despotic government, which has a
finger in everything, and under which what one minister does is always
destroyed or changed by his successor." The disasters caused by Law's
system have recoiled upon his memory. Forgotten are his honesty, his
charity, his interest in useful works; remembered is nothing but the
imprudence of his c