XIV. had raised money in every conceivable way, and on all conceivable terms. He had sold annuities for one life, for two lives, for three lives, and in perpetuity. He had issued every kind of bond and promissory note which the ingenuity of his minister could devise, or the reluctance of lenders demand. There had been a very large annual deficit for fifteen successive years, which had been made up by selling offices and borrowing money. When the regent took the reins of power, he found, 1. An almost incalculable debt; 2. Eight hundred millions of francs then due; 3. An empty treasury. Almost every one in Paris, from princes to lackeys, who had any property at all, held the royal paper, then worth one-fourth its apparent value.

What was to be done? They tried the wildest expedients. The coin was adulterated; new bonds, similar to those we call "preferred," were issued; men, enriched by speculating upon the necessities of the government, were squeezed until they gave up their millions. If a man was very rich, and not a nobleman, it was enough; the Bastile, the pillory, and confiscation extracted from him the wherewith to supply the regent's drunken orgies, the extravagance of his mistresses, and the pay of his troops. Servants accused their masters of possessing a secret hoard, and were rewarded for their perfidy with one-half of it. Rich men, trying to escape from the kingdom with their property, were hunted down and brought back to prison and to ruin. Once they seized fourteen kegs of gold coin, hidden in fourteen pipes of wine, just as the wagons were crossing the line into Holland. One great capitalist escaped from the kingdom disguised as a hay-peddler, with his money hidden in his hay. The whole number of persons arrested on the charge of having more money than they wanted, was six thousand; the number condemned and fined was four thousand four hundred and ten, and the amount of money wrung from them was four hundred millions of francs.

In the midst of the consternation caused by this system of plunder, John Law, then aged forty-five years, appeared upon the scene, and soon renewed his intercourse with the regent. He told that ignorant and profligate prince that such violent measures could but aggravate the distress of the kingdom, and

still more impoverish the government. His impeturbable calm, the fluency of his discourse, the unbounded confidence he had in his own ideas, completely fascinated the Duc d'Orleans, who, at length, gave up to his management the disordered finances of France. All the violent measures were suspended; the rich men breathed freely again; the adulteration of the coin was stopped, and nothing more was heard of the scheme, advocated by many, of a formal national bankruptcy.

A bank was Law's first scheme, capital, six millions of francs, in shares of five thousand francs each; the shares to be paid for in four instalments, -one-fourth in coin, and threefourths in royal bonds at their par value! The regent sent an order throughout the kingdom requiring all tax-gatherers to receive the notes of the bank in payment of all sums due the government. To the bank was soon added a company, called the "Company of the West," designed to settle and trade with the French province of Louisiana. Shares in this company also were purchasable with the same royal bonds at their par value, with the addition of a small percentage in coin or bank notes. A "Guinea Company was also started, for trading with the coast of Africa, shares in which could be bought, in part. with the king's depreciated paper at the value named upon its face.

These schemes having been launched, the next thing was to impose upon the credulity, and inflame the avarice of, the public. A large engraving was posted about Paris, exhibiting a number of Louisiana Indians running to meet a group of Frenchmen with manifestations of joy and respect, and holding out to them pieces of gold. Underneath the picture was printed the following:

"You see in this country mountains filled with gold, silver, copper, lead, and quicksilver. As these metals are very common, and as the savages have no suspicion of their value, they barter pieces of gold and silver for European merchandise, such as knives, breast-pins, small mirrors, or even a little brandy."

Another picture appealed to pious souls. It represented a crowd of naked savages on their knees before two Jesuit missionaries, with these explanatory words:

"Indian idolaters imploring Christian baptism."

By these and other arts John Law wrought upon the ignorance and cupidity of the French people. Other companies were started,all upon the principle of taking a large part of the price of the shares in the depreciated paper of the government. That paper, as the mania increased, rose in value until it went far above par, and gold was actually at a discount! From the princes of the blood royal to the washerwomen on the quays, the entire people seemed to abandon themselves to speculating in shares and bonds. Readers remember the stock-jobbing and gold speculations in New York during the last two years of the war. Such scenes, and some far more exciting, occurred in Paris while John Law was managing the finances of France. In the Wall Street of the city, a short, narrow lane, the crowd was so dense that it was difficult to move about. Dukes and footmen, capitalists and shop-boys, ladies of the court and servantmaids, jostled one another in their eagerness to buy the favorite share of the moment. The provinces poured into Paris tens of thousands of people eager to join in the inaddening game, and the mania spread at last to all the countries of Europe. Kings and princes of distant lands bought shares in Law's delusive schemes, and in London the mania raged almost as violently as at Paris. Money was borrowed in Paris at the rate of a quarter per cent. per quarter of an hour, the lender keeping his eyes upon his watch. Desk-room was let in the vicinity of the sharemarket for fifty francs a day. Shares, bonds, and coin changed in value fifty times in a morning. So popular was the magician who had conjured up this state of things, that large sums were given for places where he could be seen in passing, and it was a distinction to be able to say, "I have seen John Law." A poor old cobbler, who had a little shop in the street thus suddenly invested with so much importance, cleared two hundred francs a day by letting chairs and desks, and selling pens and paper. Men made fortunes in a few days. People who were lackeys one week kept lackeys the next. Law's own coachman came to him one day and addressed him thus:—

"I am going to leave you, sir. Here are two young men,

both of whom, I answer for it, are excellent coachmen. Take your choice, and I will keep the other myself."

This madness raged in Europe eight months, during which people thought the age of gold had come; for, while hundreds of thousands appeared to gain, very few seemed to lose. The constant rise in price of shares and royal paper appeared to enrich everybody, and ruin nobody.

The reaction, I need not say, was terrific. When first the suspicion arose that all thesc fine fortunes were founded upon paper of fictitious value, it spread with alarming rapidity. By various adroit manœuvres Law checked the progress of distrust, but he could only check it. The rush to "realize" grew in volume and intensity from day to day, until it became a universal panic. Paper in all its varieties fell almost to nothing, and no man reckoned anything of value except gold, silver, and real estate. Probably one hundred thousand persons in Europe were totally ruined, and a million more suffered losses. The French laugh at everything. Some wag at this time posted up the following:

"Monday, I bought some shares,
Tuesday, I gained my millions,

Wednesday, I re-furnished my house,

Thursday, I set up a carriage,

Friday, I went to a ball,

And Saturday to the poor-house."

John Law himself was ruined. Of all the large fortune which he had brought into France, he saved but a few thousand francs. The public indignation drove him from the post of minister, and compelled him to leave the country. He again wandered from capital to capital, supporting himself by gambling, and died at Venice in 1729, aged fifty-eight years.

GENERAL HENRY KNOX.

manners.

A CONSPICUOUS and important character, in his day, was Henry Knox, the first secretary of war of the United States under the present constitution. Born in Boston, in 1750, of Scotch-Irish parents, we catch our first glimpse of him as a boy attending the Boston Common Schools and attracting the notice of the townsmen by his handsome countenance and agreeable John Adams speaks of him, in his Autobiography, as a youth whose pleasing demeanor and intelligent mind had won his regard several years before the revolutionary war. In those days the boys who resided at the North-End of Boston were in perpetual feud with those who lived at the SouthEnd, and many a contest occurred between them on Saturday afternoons. Young Knex was of a frame so robust and powerful, and of a spirit so undaunted and adventurous, that he became a kind of boy-generalissimo of the South-End.

As a young man, too, he was still distinguished for his physical beauty and strength. It is related of him, by an early writer, that, on one occasion, in Boston, when a heavy vehicle employed in a procession broke down, young Knox placed his shoulder under the axle and carried it for some distance through the crowd. At the usual age he was apprenticed to a bookseller, and in due time had a bookstore of his own in Boston, which grew to be one of the most extensive in the province. The winning manners of the young bookseller attracted to his shop both the professors of the neighboring university and the young ladies of the city, who have always been noted for their love of reading.

From the first hour of the differences between Massachusetts and the mother country, he took the side of his native land, and