In the midst of all this excitement, gaiety and brilliance, Law himself stood out as the one great and prominent figure in the kingdom. Court was paid to him by all the most influential personages in France; and by the multitude he was regarded with feelings of awe and admiration. His chambers were crowded day after day by those who at other times would have been in attendance upon their sovereign. Every excuse and artifice was employed in order to obtain an interview with the great man. “I have seen an hundred coaches at his levee in a morning, and dukes and peers waiting for hours together to speak with him, and could not get within two rooms of him for the crowd.” Yet through the whole of this period of flattery and adulation he maintained the same cool unaffected demeanour which had always characterised him, and although given at times to treat his importunate visitors with haughtiness and curtness, yet he was noted for his general suavity and affability when receiving those who were strangers to him, and who had sought introductions without credentials merely for the purpose of obtaining pecuniary assistance. When he passed along the streets, he was followed by crowds by whom he was greeted with cries of “Long live Mr. Law.” Ladies of the highest rank kissed their hands to him, and even princes rendered him obeisance in public. In fact so important had Law become in the eyes of everyone, that he allowed himself to indulge in conduct of a somewhat shameless character, although it was attributed simply to boldness by those who encouraged him in it. The latter—and they were more often than not of the gentler sex—thought they excused their conduct in endeavouring to give it the character of a joke, and the nobility of the period, ready at all times to sacrifice their lives to their honour, scrupled not to sacrifice their honour to their fortune.

The determination of many ladies to have the honour, as they considered it, of speaking with Law, led to many amusing if not ridiculous incidents. One lady, who had waited without success at his house for an interview, instructed her coachman to overturn her carriage if on any occasion when driving her he chanced to meet the great financier. For several days she drove through the streets of Paris he was most in the habit of frequenting, and at last her patience was rewarded. On the approach of Law her coachman upset the carriage, and the lady who was carried into a neighbouring house by the object of her attentions confessed the purpose of her stratagem, and extracted a promise from him that her application for shares would be granted. Not so successful, however, was the ruse of another lady who had failed to secure an invitation to the house of Madame de Simiane where Law was to dine. Driving to the house when all were seated at dinner, she bade her coachman and footman to shout “Fire,” at which the guests all rushed into the street. On seeing the lady leave her carriage to meet him, Law at once perceived the object of the false alarm and fled before she had an opportunity of speaking to him.

At Law’s house was always to be found the most exclusive society in Paris, and it is related that the Regent, expressing the desire on one occasion to find a Duchess to whom he could depute the duty of accompanying his daughter to Modena, mentioned to the AbbÉ Dubois that he did not exactly know where to find one, to which the latter remarked, “I can tell you where to find every duchess in France: you have only to go to Mr. Law’s; you will see them every one in his ante-chamber.”

One incident, however, serves to show that there was no desire on the part of the nobility to admit Law to their ranks, and that their conduct in apparently placing him on their own social level was merely dictated by the possibility of utilising their friendship for financial gain. The MarÉchal de Villeroi had arranged a ballet in which the young king was to appear. Such ballets had been common during the reign of Louis XIV., and were considered part of a nobleman’s education, which then chiefly consisted in “grace, address, exercise, respect for bearing, graduated and delicate politeness, polished and decent gallantry,” but had fallen entirely into disuse during the Regency. Great difficulty was accordingly experienced by the MarÉchal in obtaining a sufficient number of dancers amongst the nobility who alone were formerly privileged to take part in the royal entertainment. Many were admitted who would not otherwise have been allowed to join in the ballet, and Law requested the Regent to obtain the honour for his son of being allowed to join the company. The MarÉchal was unable to refuse the Regent’s request, but the idea of a commoner’s son occupying a place in a royal ballet so scandalised the feelings of social propriety of the privileged circle that “nothing else was spoken of for some days; tongues wagged freely, too; and a good deal of dirty water was thrown upon other dancers in the ballet.” The success of the ballet was thus threatened, and the whole project promised to be a total failure when it was announced that Law’s son had fallen ill from small-pox. The cause of all the difficulties having thus been removed, the high-born courtiers displayed their undisguised satisfaction and proceeded with calmer feelings to carry out the first and only Court ballet which graced the reign of Louis XV.

While Law’s influence at this time was all-powerful in the government of France, he was without any of the outward symbols of authority. He held no office, and his influence accordingly could only be exercised indirectly. He enjoyed the splendour of the position to which he had attained, but did not possess any official mark of greatness. Two obstacles existed to official advancement. His religion was not that recognised by the State; and his nationality was foreign. Both of these he was now prepared to renounce. The abjuration of his religion was a step which required to be accomplished with the utmost caution. All the elements of sincerity were lacking, and Law’s conversion was likely to be regarded as a merely political move. There was danger moreover of the public regarding the conversion of Law under royal auspices in the light of a highly scandalous proceeding, and considering that it might derogate from the high office to which he was destined and for which the abjuration of his religion was a necessary preliminary. There was a circumstance also in Law’s career which under ordinary conditions would have militated against his admission to the Roman Catholic communion, and therefore required delicate treatment. Law had not been legally married to the lady whom he passed off as his wife, and the law of the Church strictly required cessation of all relations with her. This, naturally, was a course to which Law would not assent since by her he had a son and a daughter, and since her husband Senor was now dead for many years. It was accordingly necessary to have a very indulgent converter, one who would not only attest sincere conversion but would at the same time refrain from interfering with Law’s connubial relations. An accommodating instrument had therefore to be found, and Dubois was ready to supply him in the person of a certain AbbÉ Tencin. “I shall give you,” said Dubois, “neither a curÉ nor a habituÉ de paroisse: they are too much bound by formularies, maxims, and rigid rules; you will have the AbbÉ Tencin, a man of considerable talent whom I know intimately; he can convert and receive into the Church Mr. Law and all his family.” The AbbÉ was undoubtedly a man of talent, ambitious and witty, but unfortunately had acquired a reputation for unscrupulousness, and a degree of dishonesty inconsistent with his high professions. Regarded with suspicion, and denied the friendship of those with whom his calling would have brought him into contact, he devoted himself to intriguing on behalf of politicians and others to whom a man of the ability and cunningness of the AbbÉ was indispensable. To Dubois he was invaluable, but he also had that minister under his control through his having compromised himself with Madame de Tencin. The AbbÉ found in this a powerful lever, and unfailingly turned it to his own advantage at every opportunity. Law’s conversion was such an opportunity, and one which opened out a prospect of enrichment he had not as yet enjoyed.

With the approval of the Regent, the AbbÉ was accordingly deputed to perform the delicate task of making Law a Catholic. A short time was allowed to elapse before the actual ceremony took place, and in the interval it was supposed that Law, under the spiritual guidance of the AbbÉ, was preparing himself for the solemn and important step he was about to take. But by no ingenious form of deception, however mild, was the AbbÉ able to give even a colour of sincerity to Law’s conversion, and he was therefore placed under the necessity of choosing some other place than Paris for the performance of the ceremony lest the people, outraged in their notions of religious propriety, should resort to forcible measures to prevent the ceremony from taking place. The Church of the RÉcollets in Melun was accordingly chosen as a sufficiently safe and retired scene for the abjuration, and on 17th September, 1719, the necessary formalities were performed, the AbbÉ retiring from “his pious task with many shares and bank-notes.” The event was made the occasion of sarcastic verse of which a few fragments still survive. The following fragment preserved in the “Memoris du MarÉchal Duc de Richelieu” celebrates the bestowal of the title of Primate of the Mississippi upon the AbbÉ by the Colonel of the Regiment of Skull-Caps, a burlesque association which jested on all events:—

An unexpected difficulty, however, now arose. Law’s parish church was the church of Saint-Roch, and the CurÉ, refusing to credit the sincerity of the conversion, would not recognize Law as a duly converted Catholic. This was a serious difficulty since Law had renounced his old faith and, while having complied with all the outward formalities necessary for reception into the new, was denied admission. The realisation of his ambition was thus threatened, and the situation demanded the employment of measures, extreme if necessary, but sufficient at least to overcome the scruples of the recalcitrant CurÉ. Tencin, as intermediary in the negotiations which followed, had full and ample powers to treat with the CurÉ. The wily AbbÉ, knowing that corruption was closed to him as an avenue of successful approach to the CurÉ, adopted the useful method, but one none the less corrupt because it does not personally benefit the recipient, of offering on behalf of his principal to subscribe lavishly to the funds of the church, and to give substantial assistance towards its construction. The CurÉ yielded readily to the temptation, and it was thereupon arranged that Law should communicate and make the bread offering at High Mass on Christmas-day with all due solemnity. His donations were attributed to a sense of religious duty, and as a thank-offering for the privilege of being received into the Catholic communion. The ceremony was performed before a crowded and fashionable congregation, who had flocked from Paris to witness the interesting event, and Law was now able to take out letters of naturalisation.

Law, however, was not permitted to escape so easily from public reflection upon the apparent motives of his action. A heated controversy arose between Jansenites, who, influenced only by rigid principle, were indignant at the manner in which a sacred rite had been in their opinion grossly abused, and the Jesuits, who, inclined to place more weight upon outward ceremony, were convinced, or at least declared they were convinced, of the sincerity of the conversion. Nor were matters improved when during the controversy all the compromising features of Law’s past life were diligently gathered and as diligently published to a curious and interested community.

But Law chose to treat the matter in a spirit of indifference, and by refraining from making any attempt to refute or explain the statements of his opponents the storm subsided from mere exhaustion.

A few days after the ceremony at Saint-Roch, on 5th January, 1720, Law was named Controller General of Finance in place of D’Argenson, whose tenure of office was wholly at Law’s mercy. Law had merely to create difficulties for his nominee, in order to obtain his resignation, and D’Argenson wise enough to perceive the futility of opposing the designs of Law readily yielded up the most important office in the national administration. As Voltaire remarks, Law had in the space of four years developed from a Scotsman into a Frenchman; from a Protestant into a Catholic; from an adventurer into a lord of the fairest lands of the kingdom; and from a banker into a minister of state. His phenomenal rise from obscurity to the highest office, and that in a foreign country, was an apparent witness to the truth of his theories, and the circumstance that he did not allow himself to be overcome by overestimation of his own importance, but maintained an unassuming and unpretentious manner throughout the whole of this period secured for him the personal attachment and admiration of the whole nation, and for his opinions a greater degree of implicit faith than probably they would otherwise have received.

The Regent was himself delighted with the preferment he was thus easily enabled to confer upon his favourite, and marked the occasion by a lavish distribution of grants and pensions to numerous courtiers and relations. Of these the Duke of Saint-Simon mentions grants of 600,000 livres to La Fare, captain of the guard; 100,000 livres to Castries, chevalier d’honneur to Madame la Duchesse d’OrlÉans; 200,000 to the Prince de Courtenay; and 60,000 livres to the Comte de la Marche, the infant son of the Prince de Conti. Saint-Simon then adds that “seeing so much depredation, and no recovery to hope for, I asked M. la Duc d’OrlÉans to attach 12,000 livres, by way of increase, to my government of Senlis, which was worth only 1000 livres, and of which my second son had the reversion. I obtained it at once.”

Two other honours of a different character were also conferred upon Law during these few months of greatness. One came from his native city, which was now anxious to do homage to the man of whom it formerly had reason to be somewhat ashamed. This consisted of the freedom of Edinburgh, presented to him in a gold casket of magnificent workmanship, which had cost the municipal treasury the sum of £300. The other consisted in his election as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences, an honour of the highest order and conferred only upon Frenchmen of outstanding ability. In this latter condition was found the excuse for purging his name from the roll on his downfall, his election which took place on 2nd December, 1719, having preceded his naturalisation.

The magnitude and diversity of interests to which Law’s time and attention was now devoted were such as to cause him to enlist the services of his brother, William Law, a man of parts but much inferior in ability to his more brilliant brother.

William Law was first appointed representative of the Bank on the London Exchange, and so great was the standing of the Bank in the opinion of English commercial circles that the bulk of remittances for France passed through his hands. His business capacity, however, was such as to warrant Law in bringing his brother over to Paris, and accordingly a London office was established in the Strand under the management of one George Middleton. Before setting out for Paris, William Law had made arrangements for the importation into France of considerable numbers of skilled workmen, chiefly gold and silver smiths. It had always been one of Law’s objects to develop France into a great industrial nation, and one of the methods he adopted to accomplish this end was to rob England of its best workmen by offering substantial inducements. A factory was established at Versailles in which it was intended to carry on, on a large scale, a business which would gradually absorb certain classes of trade that had hitherto been practically the monopoly of British manufacturers. Success however did not come as Law had anticipated. No doubt his efforts were a stimulating influence, but he was to discover that trade, which was not of natural growth, seldom prospered by purely artificial means.

William Law on his arrival in Paris was received with that welcome which his relationship with the Comptroller-General naturally secured for him. He was introduced immediately to the Regent, and was not only made one of the directors of the Bank, but was also appointed to the office of Postmaster-General—a circumstance which alone indicates the commanding influence Law exercised over the Regent and the government of France. These two brothers lived in princely fashion in Paris, honoured and courted by everyone from the Regent downwards. Each accumulated enormous wealth, but directed its investment into different channels. William purchased land and estates in his native country, not that he foresaw the possibility of the collapse of his brother’s schemes, but because he had no desire to permanently settle in France. John, on the other hand, with the intention of becoming a Frenchman so far as that was possible in spite of his origin, acquired great estates throughout the land of his adoption, and thus incidentally evinced his confidence in the sterling value of his financial schemes. His nephew compiled a list of his more important investments, aggregating almost 8,000,000 livres:—

Not by any means a strikingly large list for the man who had in so few years enabled the Regent and innumerable members of the aristocracy to accumulate vast wealth and rehabilitate the fortunes which successive generations had squandered in reckless extravagance.

That Law did not merely use the great power and influence he had acquired in the government of France for the purpose of promoting his own financial schemes and his own personal advantage is evident from the radical reforms he accomplished in the fiscal arrangements of that country. The principles upon which he based his fiscal policy were of the most advanced and enlightened character. They were liberal, and consequently had strict equality for their object. The system of taxation which prevailed not only showed many anomalies but lent itself to the grossest abuse. Monopolies of every description abounded. Officials swarmed throughout the country, and by their extortionate levies upon every branch of trade checked industrial progress in every direction. It is said that in Paris itself the number of officials equalled the number of people engaged in the various trades they were supposed to supervise in the interests of the nation. Free trading intercourse was also limited by the existence of a system of provincial protection which sought to prevent the goods of one province from entering, except under payment of prohibitive dues, the markets of another province.

Law was alive to the prejudicial effects of all these factors upon the industrial prosperity of the country, and also upon the general well-being of the people, and endeavoured as far as possible to remove or at least to modify them. His ideal was the adoption of a single tax to be levied in proportion to the wealth of the individual. Too many vested interests existed however for the accomplishment of so sweeping a reform, and he had to satisfy himself with measures more moderate in their sweep. It is a tribute to his fearlessness that during the winter of 1719–20 he introduced innumerable changes in the method and incidence of taxation, and that in spite of the overwhelming opposition of those who were thus deprived of continuing the old extortionate system to their own pecuniary gain. By wholesale modification of duties and charges, he succeeded in effecting substantial reductions in the price of such necessaries as grain, corn, coal, wood, butter, cheese, and eggs. Inland protective duties were abolished on all articles classed as necessaries or as raw material, and on one item of import—English coal—the tariff was removed for the benefit of French manufacturers, whom Law was most anxious to encourage.

But Law’s horizon was not bounded by the commercial and industrial interests of the country. He recognised the great part which education plays in the progress of a nation, and determined to give such facilities as would place the highest education within the reach of every one. He accordingly appropriated a twenty-eighth part of the postal revenue for the endowment of free education in the University of Paris. He thus conferred upon France a benefit of the most invaluable character, and by this measure alone merited the reputation of an enlightened and broad-minded statesman.