w Orleans, to
work in the gold mines alleged to abound there. They were paraded day
after day through the streets with their pikes and shovels, and then sent
off in small detachments to the out-ports to be shipped for America.
Two-thirds of them never reached their destination, but dispersed
themselves over the country, sold their tools for what they could get, and
returned to their old course of life. In less than three weeks afterwards,
one-half of them were to be found again in Paris. The manoeuvre, however,
caused a trifling advance in Mississippi stock. Many persons of
superabundant gullibility believed that operations had begun in earnest in
the new Golconda, and that gold and silver ingots would again be found in
France.

In a constitutional monarchy some surer means would have been found for
the restoration of public credit. In England, at a subsequent period, when
a similar delusion had brought on similar distress, how different were the
measures taken to repair the evil; but in France, unfortunately, the
remedy was left to the authors of the mischief. The arbitrary will of the
regent, which endeavoured to extricate the country, only plunged it deeper
into the mire. All payments were ordered to be made in paper, and between
the 1st of February and the end of May, notes were fabricated to the
amount of upwards of 1500 millions of livres, or 60,000,000l. sterling.
But the alarm once sounded, no art could make the people feel the
slightest confidence in paper which was not exchangeable into metal. M.
Lambert, the president of the parliament of Paris, told the regent to his
face that he would rather have a hundred thousand livres in gold or silver
than five millions in the notes of his bank. When such was the general
feeling, the superabundant issues of paper but increased the evil, by
rendering still more enormous the disparity between the amount of specie
and notes in circulation. Coin, which it was the object of the regent to
depreciate, rose in value on every fresh attempt to diminish it. In
February, it was judged advisable that the Royal Bank should be
incorporated with the Company of the Indies. An edict to that effect was
published and registered by the parliament. The state remained the
guarantee for the notes of the bank, and no more were to be issued without
an order in council. All the profits of the bank, since the time it had
been taken out of Law's hands and made a national institution, were given
ov