courts found a difficulty in getting through the immense increase of
business thus occasioned. It was sufficient for an informer to say
that he suspected any person of concealing money in his house, and
immediately a search-warrant was granted. Lord Stair, the English
ambassador, said, that it was now impossible to doubt of the sincerity
of Law's conversion to the Catholic religion; he had established the
inquisition, after having given abundant evidence of his faith in
transubstantiation, by turning so much gold into paper.

Every epithet that popular hatred could suggest was showered upon
the Regent and the unhappy Law. Coin, to any amount above five hundred
livres, was an illegal tender, and nobody would take paper if he could
help it. No one knew to-day what his notes would be worth to-morrow.
"Never," says Duclos, in his Secret Memoirs of the Regency, "was seen
a more capricious government-never was a more frantic tyranny
exercised by hands less firm. It is inconceivable to those who were
witnesses of the horrors of those times, and who look back upon them
now as on a dream, that a sudden revolution did not break out--that
Law and the Regent did not perish by a tragical death. They were both
held in horror, but the people confined themselves to complaints; a
sombre and timid despair, a stupid consternation, had seized upon all,
and men's minds were too vile even to be capable of a courageous
crime." It would appear that, at one time, a movement of the people
was organised. Seditious writings were posted up against the walls,
and were sent, in hand-bills, to the houses of the most conspicuous
people. One of them, given in the "Memoires de la Regence," was to
the following effect :--" Sir and Madam,--This is to give you notice
that a St. Bartholomew's Day will be enacted again on Saturday and
Sunday, if affairs do not alter. You are desired not to stir out, nor
you, nor your servants. God preserve you from the flames! Give notice