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