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Law himself, in a moment of despair, determined to leave
a country
where his life was no longer secure. He at first only demanded
permission to retire from Paris to one of his country-seats;
a
permission which the Regent cheerfully granted. The latter
was much
affected at the unhappy turn affairs had taken, but his
faith
continued unmoved in the truth and efficacy of Law's financial
system.
His eyes were opened to his own errors, and during the few
remaining
years of his life, he constantly longed for an opportunity
of again
establishing the system upon a securer basis. At Law's last
interview
with the Prince, he is reported to have said--"I confess
that I have
committed many faults; I committed them because I am a man,
and all
men are liable to error; but I declare to you most solemnly
that none
of them proceeded from wicked or dishonest motives, and
that nothing
of the kind will be found in the whole course of my conduct."
Two or three days after his departure the Regent sent him
a very
kind letter, permitting him to leave the kingdom whenever
he pleased,
and stating that he had ordered his passports to be made
ready. He at
the same time offered him any sum of money he might require.
Law
respectfully declined the money, and set out for Brussels
in a
postchaise belonging to Madame de Prie, the mistress of
the Duke of
Bourbon, escorted by six horse-guards. From thence he proceeded
to
Venice, where he remained for some months, the object of
the greatest
curiosity to the people, who believed him to be the possessor
of
enormous wealth. No opinion, however, could be more erroneous.
With
more generosity than could have been expected from a man
who during
the greatest part of his life had been a professed gambler,
he had
refused to enrich himself at the expense of a ruined nation.
During
the height of the popular frenzy for Mississippi stock,
he had never
doubted of the final success of his projects, in making
France the
richest and most powerful nation of Europe. He invested
all his gains
in the purchase of landed property in France - a sure proof
of his own
belief in the stability of his schemes. He had hoarded no
plate or
jewellery, and sent no money, like the dishonest jobbers,
to foreign
countries. His all, with the exception of one diamond, worth
about
five or six thousand pounds sterling, was invested in the
French soil;
and when he left that country, he left it almost a beggar.
This fact
alone ought to rescue his memory from the charge of knavery,
so often
and so unjustly brought against him.
As soon as his departure was known, all his estates and
his
valuable library were confiscated. Among the rest, an annuity
of
200,000 livres, (8000 pounds sterling,) on the lives of
his wife and
children, which had been purchased for five millions of
livres, was
forfeited, notwithstanding that a special edict, drawn up
for the
purpose in the days of his prosperity, had expressly declared
that it
should never be confiscated for any cause whatever. Great
discontent
existed among the people that Law had been suffered to escape.
The mob
and the Parliament would have been pleased to have seen
him hanged.
The few who had not suffered by the commercial revolution,
rejoiced
that the quack had left the country; but all those (and
they were by
far the most numerous class) whose fortunes were implicated,
regretted
that his intimate knowledge of the distress of the country,
and of the
causes that had led to it, had not been rendered more available
in
discovering a remedy.
