all the ministers were present. It was then computed that the total
amount of notes in circulation was 2600 millions of livres, while the
coin in the country was not quite equal to half that amount. It was
evident to the majority of the council that some plan must be adopted
to equalise the currency. Some proposed that the notes should be
reduced to the value of the specie, while others proposed that the
nominal value of the specie should be raised till it was on an
equality with the paper. Law is said to have opposed both these
projects, but failing in suggesting any other, it was agreed that the
notes should be depreciated one-half. On the 21st of May, an edict was
accordingly issued, by which it was decreed that the shares of the
Company of the Indies, and the notes of the bank, should gradually
diminish in value, till at the end of a year they should only pass
current for one half of their nominal worth. The Parliament refused to
register the edict--the greatest outcry was excited, and the state of
the country became so alarming, that, as the only means of preserving
tranquillity, the council of the regency was obliged to stultify its
own proceedings, by publishing within seven days another edict,
restoring the notes to their original value.

On the same day (the 27th of May) the bank stopped payment in
specie. Law and D'Argenson were both dismissed from the ministry. The
weak, vacillating, and cowardly Regent threw the blame of all the
mischief upon Law, who, upon presenting himself at the Palais Royal,
was refused admitance. At nightfall, however, he was sent for, and
admitted into the palace by a secret door,[Duclos, Memoires Secrets de
la Regence.] when the Regent endeavoured to console him, and made all
manner of excuses for the severity with which in public he had been
compelled to treat him. So capricious was his conduct, that, two days
afterwards, he took him publicly to the opera, where he sat in the