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Shortly before the death of Louis XIV, or, as some say,
in 1708,
Law proposed a scheme of finance to Desmarets, the
Comptroller. Louis
is reported to have inquired whether the projector were
a Catholic,
and, on being answered in the negative, to have declined
having
anything to do with him. [This anecdote, which is related
in the
correspondence of Madame de Baviere, Duchess of Orleans,
and mother of
the Regent, is discredited by Lord John Russell, in his "History of
the principal States of Europe, from the Peace of Utrecht;" for what
reason he does not inform us. There is no doubt that Law
proposed his
scheme to Desmarets, and that Louis refused to hear of it.
The reason
given for the refusal is quite consistent with the character
of that
bigoted and tyrannical monarch.]
It was after this repulse that he visited Italy. His mind
being
still occupied with schemes of finance, he proposed to Victor
Amadeus,
Duke of Savoy, to establish his land-bank in that
country. The Duke
replied that his dominions were too circumscribed for the
execution of
so great a project, and that he was by far too poor a potentate
to be
ruined. He advised him, however, to try the King of France
once more;
for he was sure, if he knew anything of the French character,
that the
people would be delighted with a plan, not only so new,
but so
plausible.
Louis XIV died in 1715, and the heir to the throne being
an
infant only seven years of age, the Duke of Orleans assumed
the reins
of government, as Regent, during his minority. Law now found
himself
in a more favourable position. The tide in his affairs had
come,
which, taken at the flood, was to waft him on to fortune.
The Regent
was his friend, already acquainted with his theory and pretensions,
and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any efforts to restore
the
wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth
by the extravagance
of the long reign of Louis XIV.
Hardly was that monarch laid in his grave ere the popular
hatred,
suppressed so long, burst forth against his memory. He who,
during his
life, had been flattered with an excess of adulation, to
which history
scarcely offers a parallel, was now cursed as a tyrant,
a bigot, and a
plunderer. His statues were pelted and disfigured; his effigies
torn
down, amid the execrations of the populace, and his name
rendered
synonymous with selfishness and oppression. The glory of
his arms was
forgotten, and nothing was remembered but his reverses,
his
extravagance, and his cruelty.
