s 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 it
had I entered into the immense details respecting finance. I might add
here what Law was. I defer it to a time when this curiosity will be more
in place.

Arouet, son of a notary, who was employed by my father and me until his
death, was exiled and sent to Tulle at this time (the early part of
1716), for some verses very satirical and very impudent.

I should not amuse myself by writing down such a trifle, if this same
Arouet, having become a great poet and academician under the name of
Voltaire, had not also become--after many tragical adventures--a manner
of personage in the republic of letters, and even achieved a sort of
importance among certain people.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

I have elsewhere alluded to Alberoni, and shown what filthy baseness he
stooped to in order to curry favour with the infamous Duc de Vendome.
I have also shown that he accompanied the n