facing riots, and thereby master of the people, he was at the same time
endowed with prodigious activity. "He was seen commencing his audiences
at three in the morning, dictating to four secretaries at once on various
subjects, and making his rounds at night whilst working in his carriage
at a desk lighted with wax candles. For the rest, without any dread of
Parliament, which had often attacked him, he was in his nature royal and
fiscal; he cut knots, he was a foe to lengthiness, to useless forms or
such as might be skipped, to neutral or wavering conditions." [Lemontey,
_Histoire de la Regence,_ t. i. p. 77.] The Regent considered that he
had secured to himself an effective instrument of his views; acceptance
of the system had been the condition _sine qua non_ of M. d'Argenson's
elevation.

He, however, like his predecessors, attempted before long to hamper the
march of the audacious foreigner; but the die had been cast, and the Duke
of Orleans outstripped Law himself in the application of his theories.
A company, formed secretly, and protected by the new keeper of the seals,
had bought up the general farmings (_fermes generales_), that is to say,
all the indirect taxes, for the sum of forty-eight million fifty-two
thousand livres; the _Compagnie des Indes_ re-purchased them for fifty-
two millions; the general receipts were likewise conceded to it, and
Law's bank was proclaimed a Royal Bank; the company's shares already
amounted to the supposed value of all the coin circulating in the
kingdom, estimated at seven or eight millions. Law thought he might risk
everything in the intoxication which had seized all France, capital and
province. He created some fifteen hundred millions of new shares,
promising his shareholders a dividend of twelve per cent. From all parts
silver and gold flowed into his hands; everywhere the paper of the Bank
was substituted for coin. The delirium had mastered all minds. The
street called Quincampoix, for a long time past devoted to the operations