The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-28

with scarcely a sou held for ultimate redemption. But the temorary success pleased the regent and Law was given full swing.
 Then he launched his Mississippi scheme. He was granted regal privi- legs over the most fertile part of the United States, and the stock in his vast enterprise went like hot cakes the printing presses couldn't turn 1t out fast enough to supply the demand
 This scheme was no sooner in good working order than Law obtained absolute control of the mint and coin age. followed soon after by the sole authority to collect the taxes. Now he was in a position to play his big card-to put the capstone on his finan- cial shaft. The national debt was 1.500 milliards of livres, tremendous sum for those days. But it was about the only profitable thing left In sight, so Law took it over under agreement to manage it on terms favorable to the State.
 Laws complicated plan was, on a gigantic scale, simply one of those bun co stock -jobbing schemes by which every -one was to make money. Law was going to pile up such an immense rake-off that he, in the kindness of his heart, would let the public in on the deal And the lambs hocked to be shorn. At each issue of shares mobs crowed the streets near the bank and literally fought for a chance to invest their money in Laws certificates. Nor was the speculation madness confined to any one class of people; men and women, lords and ladies, merchants, adventuPers and even servants crow ed and pushed and crushed one another in a mad struggle to reach the bank counter Chroniclers of that time say the sight baffled adequate description.
 The entire nation was touched by the speculative madness. It spread from Paris to the Provinces. Men sold their all and hastened to the capital to speculate until the population of the capital was nealy doubled. Every body seemed to be getting richer, and no one poorer. Trade received a tre- mendous but abnormal impulse. The shares steady climbed. until they were forty times their par value.
 And John aI.w-foreigner and fop- gambler and debauch, he who had been driven out of London for a low intrigue and expelled from Paris as a suspicious person-rode on the crest of the wave. He was for the moment the most powerful figure in Europe. He had more than regal power Kings paid court to him and the proudest aristocraCy in Europe humbled itself in dust. In addition his prodigal liberal ity made him the idol of the populace. France was ruled by a wildcatter; his word was law.
 But his success was shortlived. The Mississippi Country and it's various branches were beginning to topple. It was inevitable and the first demand for payment on the shares found an empty treasury. The tide turned. Men began to sell shares and buy land and houses Violent edicts could not stem the current, and all at once the people began to demand coin instead of paper. Public confidence was gone, and the immense bubble of imitation priaked Everywhere was distress and finan- cial ruin. Coned money fled to the realm and prices advanced enormously. Still the shares and notes fell and fell until it was almost impossible to give them away France was pauperized, and Law became an object of popular hatred His enemies seized control of the gov erment and tore out his system root and branch, and the country, in sack cloth and ashes, repented of its folly at leisure.
 Secretly, in the darkness of Dec ember night in 1720. Law. stole away from Paris. his money gene, his life in danger, to resume his old disreput- able life of wandering aud soon to be