page31
At a meeting of the Council of Finance, and the general
council of
the Regency, documents were laid upon the table, from which
it
appeared that the amount of notes in circulation was 2700
millions.
The Regent was called upon to explain how it happened that
there was a
discrepancy between the dates at which these issues were
made, and
those of the edicts by which they were authorised. He might
have
safely taken the whole blame upon himself, but he preferred
that an
absent man should bear a share of it, and he therefore stated
that
Law, upon his own authority, had issued 1200 millions of
notes at
different times, and that he (the Regent) seeing that the
thing had
been irrevocably done, had screened Law, by antedating the
decrees of
the council, which authorised the augmentation. It would
have been
more to his credit if he had told the whole truth while
he was about
it, and acknowledged that it was mainly through his extravagance
and
impatience that Law had been induced to overstep the bounds
of safe
speculation. It was also ascertained that the national debt,
on the
1st of January, 1721, amounted to upwards of $100 millions
of livres,
or more than 124,000,000 pounds sterling, the interest upon
which was
3,196,000 pounds. A commission, or visa, was forthwith appointed
to
examine into all the securities of the state creditors,
who were to be
divided into five classes, the first four comprising those
who had
purchased their securities with real effects, and the latter
comprising those who could give no proofs that the transactions
they
had entered into were real and bona fide. The securities
of the latter
were ordered to be destroyed, while those of the first four
classes
were subjected to a most rigid and jealous scrutiny. The
result of the
labours of the visa was a report, in which they counselled
the
reduction of the interest upon these securities to fifty-six
millions
of livres. They justified this advice by a statement of
the various
acts of peculation and extortion which they had discovered,
and an
edict to that effect was accordingly published and duly
registered by
the parliaments of the kingdom.
Another tribunal was afterwards established, under the
title of
the Chambre de l'Arsenal, which took cognizance of all the
malversations committed in the financial departments of
the government
during the late unhappy period. A Master of Requests, named
Falhonet,
together with the Abbe Clement, and two clerks in their
employ, had
been concerned in divers acts of peculation, to the amount
of upwards
of a million of livres. The first two were sentenced to
be beheaded,
and the latter to be hanged; but their punishment was afterwards
commuted into imprisonment for life in the Bastile. Numerous
other
acts of dishonesty were discovered, and punished by fine
and
imprisonment.
D'Argenson shared with Law and the Regent the unpopularity
which
had alighted upon all those concerned in the Mississippi
madness. He
was dismissed from his post of Chancellor, to make room
for
D'Aguesseau; but he retained the title of Keeper of the
Seals, and was
allowed to attend the councils whenever he pleased. He thought
it
better, however, to withdraw from Paris, and live for a
time a life of
seclusion at his country-seat. But he was not formed for
retirement,
and becoming moody and discontented, he aggravated a disease
under
which he had long laboured, and faded in less than a twelvemonth.
The
populace of of Paris so detested him, that they carried
their hatred
even to his grave. As his funeral procession passed to the
church of
St. Nicholas du Chardonneret, the burying-place of his family,
it was
beset by a riotous mob, and his two sons, who were following
as
chief-mourners, were obliged to drive as fast as they were
able down a
by-street to escape personal violence.
