good-natured regent gave his consent, leaving
to Law's ingenuity to find the means to pay for it. The owner took
security for the payment of the sum of two millions of livres within a
stated period, receiving in the mean time the interest of five per cent
upon that amount, and being allowed, besides, all the valuable clippings
of the gem. St. Simon, in his _Memoirs_, relates with no little
complacency his share in this transaction. After describing the diamond to
be as large as a greengage, of a form nearly round, perfectly white, and
without flaw, and weighing more than five hundred grains, he concludes
with a chuckle, by telling the world "that he takes great credit to
himself for having induced the regent to make so illustrious a purchase."
In other words, he was proud that he had induced him to sacrifice his
duty, and buy a bauble for himself at an extravagant price out of the
public money.

Thus the system continued to flourish till the commencement of the year
1720. The warnings of the parliament, that too great a creation of paper
money would, sooner or later, bring the country to bankruptcy, were
disregarded. The regent, who knew nothing whatever of the philosophy of
finance, thought that a system which had produced such good effects could
never be carried to excess. If five hundred millions of paper had been of
such advantage, five hundred millions additional would be of still greater
advantage. This was the grand error of the regent, and which Law did not
attempt to dispel. The extraordinary avidity of the people kept up the
delusion; and the higher the price of Indian and Mississippi stock, the
more _billets de banque_ were issued to keep pace with it. The edifice
thus reared might not unaptly be compared to the gorgeous palace erected
by Potemkin, that princely barbarian of Russia, to surprise and please his
imperial mistress: huge blocks of ice were piled one upon another; ionic
pillars, of chastest workmanship, in ice, formed a noble portico; and a
dome, of the same material, shone in the sun, which had just strength
enough to gild, but not to melt it. It glittered afar, like a palace of
crystals and diamonds; but there came one warm breeze from the south, and
the stately building dissolved away, till none were able even to gather up
the fragments. So with Law and his paper system. No sooner did the breath
of popular mistrust blow steadily upon it, than it fell to ruins, and none
could raise it up again.