Chapter 2 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
THE REGENT IN COUNCIL
On a dull morning of late October of that year 1715 a gathering of nobles and some others awaited the Regent in a spacious tapestried chamber of the Palais Royal, that palace built by a cardinal to express his grandeur and ceded by him to his king, as had happened once in England to another great palace built by a prelate.
Dominant in this assembly, as was proper considering its purpose, were the members of the Council of Finance, all of whom were noble, and four of whom were dukes: the ascetically handsome, haughty Noailles, who was President of the Council and conceived himself, not without some reason, of great authority in financial matters; the rather epicene La Vrillière, who discharged the functions of secretary; the dapper little Duc de Saint-Simon, who was perhaps closest in the intimacy of the Regent, and who accounted an understanding of finance beneath the dignity of a gentleman; and the still foppish old Maréchal Duc de Villeroy, lean of shanks and with red-raddled cheeks, who was governor of the infant King and who shared some of Saint-Simon's scorn of too close an acquaintance with affairs. Of the remaining eight, the most notable, on the score of his self-assertiveness and entire devotion to Noailles, was Rouillé du Coudray, a gross untidy fellow with the flushed, veined countenance of the heavy drinker.
With these members of the Council of Finance there were this morning eight Councillors of State, including the Marquis d'Argenson, the King's Lieutenant-General of Police, who from his sinister looks was known in Paris as the Damned, and the well-favoured, portly Chancellor d'Aguesseau, a jurist of talent and of an integrity that had become proverbial and was now imperilled only by too great a loyalty to Noailles.
Whilst some of these gentlemen of quality lounged about the oval council-table and others formed groups in the embrasures of the tall windows that overlooked the vast courtyard, some thirteen other men, who had been especially summoned, held themselves modestly apart in the background, as became persons conscious of their commoner clay. They were France's leading bankers and merchants, sober in dress and demeanour if we except that financial giant Samuel Bernard, whose long, lean person was gaudily ostentatious in purple coat, gold waistcoat and elaborate periwig. He, it is true, could claim nobility; for he had been knighted by Louis XIV for valuable pecuniary services. But because there was in France a sharp discrimination between the noble and the merely ennobled, he had wisely decided that his place was among his fellow-bankers.
To the councillors this invasion of their debates by these enriched plebeians was an abominable desecration. Only the parlous state of the finances could bring them resentfully to submit to it. It was intolerable that gentlemen of birth should be constrained to debate in the presence of vulgarians, particularly remembering the acrimony in which their contentions commonly developed. It was an acrimony springing inevitably from the divergence of their views on the remedies to be applied and from the sharp rivalries by which their political ambitions moved them. Wrangle as they might, however, they had made no progress towards the solution of the problem of a national debt amounting to two and a half milliards; for when out of a revenue of one hundred and forty-five million livres they had discharged the annual expenses of government amounting to one hundred and forty-two millions, they were left with a bare three millions out of which to find the interest for that monstrous balance.
From the outset the Duke of Saint-Simon had ingenuously urged the convocation of the States-General and the declaration of a national bankruptcy, as the only way to save the country from a revolution. He took the view that a prince should not be bound by the liabilities of his predecessor, and that the edicts of a king who had been lodged in the vaults of St Denis were, like himself, so much dust. He pointed out what everybody knew, which was that commerce was languishing, industry paralysed, unemployment swelling daily, the land devastated by war, agriculture ruined and famine already stalking the countryside; and he concluded that there could be no improvement until the finances were set in order, which could be attained only by making a fresh and unencumbered start.
The old Duke of Villeroy's prescription had been a capital levy. But d'Aguesseau, the Chancellor, called in to give upon this the benefit of his renowned wisdom and experience, had demonstrated that even if they set the levy as high as one-tenth they must find the result far from commensurate with its inevitable aggravation of the miseries and injustices under which the country was already groaning. He submitted, however, an alternative. For years there had been no surveillance of the farmers of the taxes, and it was known that they had taken advantage of this immunity so as to grind the very bones of the King's subjects. Let their affairs be investigated by a special Chamber of Justice, as had been done under Sully, a hundred years ago, and let them be made to disgorge their illicit plunder. The yield should be rich.
This was a matter still under consideration together with that of an arbitrary and not very honest reduction in the interest on the State Bonds and a still less honest devaluation of the currency. This last was an old expedient. The louis d'or had changed its value a score of times in almost as many years. The latest depreciation, of one-fifth, had enriched the Treasury by no more than seventy millions, too paltry a proportion of the vast indebtedness to compensate for the further depression and disorganization of trade which had followed.
There matters stood on that October morning when a disgruntled Council of Finance was saddled with the unwelcome collaboration of a band of roturiers. And there was worse. As if it were not enough to constrain these proud fastidious gentlemen to display the sores of the body politic to that plebeian audience, their lordships knew that they were summoned for the further derogation of listening to the opinions of a foreigner of no account, a man of whom no good was known, an adventurer who once already had been expelled from France. They mistrusted mysterious men, and mysterious they regarded this fellow who for years had lived entirely by gaming, a man of obscure origin, known for a dissipated past, a tragic duel and a romantic evasion from prison.
It certainly did not mitigate his offence in their eyes that he should in the past few weeks have brought the Duke of Orléans so completely under the yoke of his spurious charms as actually to have been a guest at one of those supper-parties of the Regent's which were the scandal of Paris and to which only the most intimate were bidden.
For the rest, his very personality, his good looks and a bearing that so admirably blended pride and urbanity, were regarded as fraudulent by men who without actually possessing these attributes, regarded them as the exclusive right of persons of their station.
They were brought from their lounging attitudes and ill-humoured mutterings by the sudden opening of the tall double doors and the loud voice of an usher, announcing:
"His Royal Highness!"
The Duke of Orléans, in grey velvet, a star of diamonds on his breast, short of stature, despite his high heels, and of a plumpness that was increasing as he approached his fortieth year, came in briskly, florid and smiling, rolling a little in his gait, and smelling faintly of musk.
He was followed closely by a man who, by contrast, was of more than common height and of a singular ease of carriage.
There was a scraping of chairs and shuffle of feet as the assembly stood respectfully to receive the Prince.
The late King, who loved to savour his power, would have come in with leisured majesty, measuring his steps, hat on head; he would have considered them with the cold contemptuous eyes of a god; he would have taken his seat, leaving them standing until he had delivered himself of an address amounting to no more than a statement of his will, which none would dare to gainsay.
But the Regent had changed all this. Easy-going, affable, careless of etiquette and impatient of ceremony, he came to the head of the table, with that friendly smile on his pleasant countenance to set them at their ease, a friendly plump white hand to wave them to their chairs.
"Be seated, messieurs. Be seated."
He was bare-headed, and framed in the black periwig, to correspond with his own black hair and eyebrows, his full countenance with its shapely nose and generous, indolent mouth, was still uncommonly attractive, despite the high congested colour with which persistent excesses were stamping it.
When this congestion, combined with the shortness of his neck, had led Chirac, his physician to warn him that his hard-living might end in an apoplexy, all that he had found to answer with his careless laugh was: "And then? Do you know of a pleasanter death?"
His expression, singularly winning, gathered an increase of gentleness from the short-sightedness of his blue eyes, one of which was perceptibly larger than the other.
However much his exterior might announce the careless voluptuary, Mr Law was right in accounting exceptional his mental endowments, and if nature had but accorded him the energy to match them and the strength of will to keep his self-indulgence within reasonable bounds, his fame must have stood high. His Bavarian mother spoke truly enough when she said that the fairy godmother who attended his birth had bestowed upon him all the talents save only the talent of making use of them.
Under his insistent gesture the nobles rustled into their places, whereupon His Highness indicated the stranger on his left.
"Messieurs, I bring you my friend, Monsieur le Baron Lass."
Thus he translated the Scottish title of Laird, possibly with intent to command from these stiff-necked gentlemen the consideration due to birth, whilst "Lass"--to rhyme with "Hélas"--was the pronunciation the Scot's name obtained in France.
"I have brought him," the Regent pursued, "in the belief that the great mathematical talents which have made him famous in all Europe, and his exceptional understanding of finance may prove of assistance to us in our difficult deliberations."
Then, looking beyond the councillors, who, cold-eyed and some with curling lip, remained glumly silent, he addressed the group of professional financiers, modestly huddled in the background. "With the same object I have required the presence of you other gentlemen, who are foreign to our Council so that we may have the advantage of your expert views upon the expositions with which the Baron has consented to favour us."
He sat down, leaving Mr Law to bow stiffly to the company before taking his own seat on the Regent's immediate left, imperturbable under the scrutiny of which he was the object. These gentlemen loved him no better for his indefinable air of grandeur in harmony with the flawless elegance of all his appointments.
His full-skirted coat of heavy ribbed silk of the colour of cinnamon was fastened only at the waist by three of the small gold buttons that ran in a close-set line from neck to hem. His bulging ruffles were of the finest Malines, and an emerald of great price glowed on his Steenkirk of black satin. The lean patrician countenance between the heavy wings of his black periwig was sternly placid.
As d'Argenson was to express it later, to the deep mortification of Saint-Simon: "Our nobility is proclaimed by our clothes--this rascal's is imprinted on his skin."
The amiable Regent continued the commendatory introduction. Monsieur Lass, who had his full confidence, and who had now closely studied the details furnished him of the state of France's unhappy affairs, came to them to propound a definite system. His Highness would say no more than that he should not have troubled Monsieur Lass to appear before them if he did not regard this system as worthy of their earnest consideration.
"Monsieur Lass, the word is with you."
Mr Law, still cool under those hostile eyes, perhaps, indeed, stimulated by them, came to his feet again, and very quietly, his tone conversational, his delivery so easy and fluent that his harsh foreign inflexions were scarcely remarked, began to address them.
"His Royal Highness has done me the honour to acquaint me not only, as he has told you, with the financial difficulties of the kingdom, but also with the various proposals which have been urged by this Council for their solution. Of these proposals some, I understand, have already been put into practice and have proved sterile, or very nearly so. Before two proposals vastly more far-reaching in their effects I am informed that you hesitate, and in my view this hesitation does credit to your judgment."
The old Duke of Villeroy sniffed audibly in resentment of a commendation which he accounted an impertinence. It earned him a repressive frown from His Highness, and the utter indifference of Mr Law.
"One of these proposals is the declaration of a national bankruptcy, the other is the establishment of a Chamber of Justice by which it is hoped to bleed the tax-farmers of their illicit gains in recent years.
"The first--the repudiation of the debts of His late Majesty--must provoke the bitter resentment that ever waits upon dishonest practices in those who govern."
"Dishonest!" It was an angry interjection from Saint-Simon, who had fathered the proposal. He glared at the Scot out of a swarthy countenance suddenly congested. His black brows, naturally arched, flanking his beak of a nose, lent him the expression of an angry owl.
"That is what I said. If I am to be understood, if I am to be of service, I must call things by their proper names. Euphemisms may serve to gloze a fact; they do not alter it. I describe repudiation as dishonest because since the King never dies, the King's debts remain the King's debts. They are the debts not of the individual, but of the office."
Before Saint-Simon could utter the rejoinder his fretful air announced, the Regent had forestalled him. "Parbleu! that is the phrase that I have sought but failed to find. It gives you, messieurs, in a dozen words the complete and final argument." He waved his plump white hand. "But I interrupt you, Monsieur Lass."
"Nor," said Mr Law, "is dishonesty all that can be urged against it. Repudiation must create such confusion as to bring the affairs of the Kingdom to a chaos from which it is difficult to discern the issue. You will have witnessed the bankruptcy of an individual, and you will have seen the utter ruin and destitution--almost the obliteration--of that individual's family. But can you picture the national ruin, the terrible disruption that must attend the bankruptcy of the State. It needs imagination to perceive the full horror of the spectacle. But I will endeavour to help you to perceive it if you wish it."
"It is not necessary," said the Duke of Noailles, who had never favoured the course, whilst Saint-Simon with an ill-humoured shrug sat back in his chair.
Having received that assurance, Mr Law passed on to deal with the question of the Chamber of Justice. In equity, he admitted, there could be no objection to it, nor yet in expedience. Because of the odium in which tax-gatherers are ever held the measure would certainly be received with public jubilation.
If, however, they would look closely into what happened under King Henri IV, when Sully set up such a tribunal, they would discover that so heavy were the expenses it entailed, so considerable the army of administrators to be salaried, and so vast the corruption almost inevitable in their ranks, that most of the plunder merely passed from one set of robbers to another.
The profit to the State, he concluded, was negligible and certainly far from compensating for all the labour involved.
"By Your Highness' leave!" The interruption came from the Marquis d'Argenson. Big, swarthy, and masterful in his startling ugliness, some part of his sixty-three years dissembled by his heavy black periwig, the Marquis had developed during twenty years as Lieutenant-General of Police all the attributes of the bloodhound and in his heavy-jowled countenance something of a bloodhound's traits.
It dismayed him to hear this adventurer whom once he had turned out of France, calmly and authoritatively sweeping away the notion of prosecutions which as Lieutenant-General he instinctively cherished.
The Regent's nod, giving him leave to speak, brought him to his feet. He delivered himself shortly, in a deep booming voice that well became the forceful eloquence he could at need command, so that as an advocate he was without a rival.
"To what Monsieur le Baron says of the operations of the Chambre Ardente under King Henri IV I am prepared to testify. But his a priori contention--nay, his gratuitous assumption--that what happened then must happen now is inadmissible. His only evidence is his opinion." He sat down, conceiving that on this point at least he had checked his man.
A gentle smile quivered on Mr Law's thin lips. "Monsieur le Marquis will be acquainted with the saying that history repeats itself. His great experience of mankind will inform him, I am sure, that men do not change however circumstances may vary." The tone of his insistence was so courteous as to be innocent of offence. Without waiting for the Lieutenant-General to reply, he went straight on: "However, this, too, is an opinion of my own, to which each of you will attach the importance that seems good to him.
"Let me return for my purposes to the question of bankruptcy. The notion of its necessity held, gentlemen, by some of you, is--I do not hesitate to make the assertion--based upon a fundamental error: the belief that the nation is, in fact, in a bankrupt state."
Saint-Simon expressed his astonishment in a sour laugh. "And can you say that it is not?"
"With all the emphasis at my command," he announced, and went on to do so. They might say of a nation possessing the almost inexhaustible resources of France that it was bankrupt only by the utter misconception of what constitutes wealth. The Treasury might be empty, and the State without money to meet its needs. But money was not wealth; it was merely the vehicle for its circulation; like blood, which without being life, nevertheless, carries life and warmth to every part of the body.
The wealth of a nation lay, he asserted, in the industry and productivity of her people, in the fertility of her soil, in the freedom and volume of her trade, in the genius, inventiveness and application of those who develop her arts and crafts or direct her commerce. "When you come to agree with this, as agree you surely must, you will perceive as I do that France is rich beyond all need for concern."
He paused there as if for a reply, and the Duke of Noailles, sauve and courtly, took advantage of it to address the Regent.
"What Monsieur Lass has said is too evident for any here to wish to quarrel with it. But what he describes is potential wealth, whilst our need--our urgent need--is for actual, immediate wealth; in short, for ready money with which to meet our pressing engagements."
The Regent inclined his head in acknowledgment, and his smile invited Mr Law to answer.
"If it were not my purpose," said the Scot, "to show how wealth that is potential may be rendered actual, my presence here would be an idle impertinence. Give me your patience, messieurs."
With a seductive fluency of speech and a lucidity of phrase that cast full light into the dark corners of his theme, Mr Law expounded.
He began with the admission, which here seemed supererogative, that where currency is in short supply for purposes of trade and the hire of labour, productivity, which was the creation of wealth, must of necessity be retarded. It followed, therefore, that for a nation's prosperity, its supply of currency must always be equal to its needs.
Impatient shrugs and one or two short laughs scorned the notion of bringing an obscure foreigner to weary them with such a disclosure of the obvious. Monsieur de Noailles, as if losing interest, drew a sheet of paper forward, dipped a quill and began to sketch.
But soon came matter that was to startle him and the others out of their scornful impatience.
Mr Law invited them to cast a glance at the banking methods of Holland, methods which had built up her great prosperity. "Methods which will be familiar to you gentlemen of this Council," he unwarrantably assumed, "and even more familiar perhaps to you other gentlemen who are professedly merchants and bankers. It is in those methods that I discover authority for my own theories."
This brought him to the contention that if it was correct to hold that the present crisis in the affairs of France resulted from the lack of currency, then the first measure in order to mobilize the nation's resources was to increase it. If they regarded this as impossible, it was only because, wedded as they were to the notion of a metal currency, they did not at all perceive that gold and silver were not necessities. Paper could not only take their place, but it could do so with manifest advantages to trade, since paper is conveniently portable, easily circulated and readily replaced.
At this Villeroy exploded. "Paper the equivalent of gold and silver! God save us! That absurdity is too easily exposed. A louis d'or from which you have effaced all imprints still retains its value as a piece of gold. Can that be pretended of paper?"
"No. But if the paper is known to be convertible into gold on demand its value will be the same."
He elaborated this by the contention that in order to render paper acceptable all that was necessary was to establish credit, and so came to his proposal for the accomplishment of this. It lay in the foundation of a State Bank on the model of the famous Bank of Holland, but more perfected and of wider scope. Such a bank would possess the privilege of issuing paper money, which he would term banknotes; it would discount commercial bills, open accounts for traders, make transfers of funds from one centre to another, support trade and agriculture by loans, collect the taxes and thereby abolish the bad and wasteful system of tax-farming, provide the royal revenues, and become the depository of gold and silver specie as funds of guarantee for its paper issues.
"Thus," Mr Law ended, "a general credit may be established that will offer advantages to every party in the State."
Pausing there, he observed on almost every countenance scepticism, and on some even consternation. The proposal was too empirical, too revolutionary, as it seemed, for the stomachs of these gentlemen.
Noailles had suspended his sketching, and was favouring Mr Law with a stare of undisguised contempt. But it was left for the coarse-mouthed Rouillé du Coudray, who as Director of Finance was Noailles' chief coadjutor, to voice the general thought, and voice it brutally in a sneer.
"You have used the word credit very freely. I wonder what exactly it means to you. It should be interesting to hear."
"Credit is essentially faith," was the simple answer.
"Ah! Faith." Coudray laughed noisily. "That is the art of believing things for which there is no evidence. Do you expect French merchants to be moved by it?"
"Not if it were confined to your definition. Confidence is yet another term for faith, and I should certainly expect merchants to be moved by that. Just as we freely lend money to a person when we are confident of repayment, so we may lend money to an enterprize from faith in its future profits.
"It may be within your knowledge--it is certainly within that of those gentlemen engaged in commerce--that the capital of bankers and merchants is decupled by the trust they enjoy, which removes the need for immediate payments. What is possible to every trader would certainly be possible to the State. If the State becomes the universal banker, and centralizes all values, the public fortune will similarly be decupled, and your difficulties are solved.
"But let me widen the definition of credit still further. It is an anticipation of the future, which it sets in circulation as a value; or, in other words, it is the simple perception of a value which has not yet been evoked into activity, not yet been mobilized, but which, nevertheless, exists and in which we believe. And this belief is one that may be aroused and stimulated; for it is a fact that credit possesses this advantage over specie, that whilst specie cannot be augmented by the mere perception of value, credit may be so increased almost without measure."
Du Coudray's harsh sneering voice was uncompromising in its censure. "A gamester's reasoning."
"Just that, pardieu!" old Villeroy agreed, a grin of disgust on his faded face. "It's the least that can be said of it." And the snap of the lid of his snuff-box seemed to add viciousness to the assertion.
The Chancellor d'Aguesseau intervened, to ask a question. "Give me leave, Highness." His mellow voice was quietly deliberate. "Setting aside for the moment the question of currency, we have not yet heard to what extent and by what means it would be applied to the mobilization--as Monsieur le Baron expresses it--of those resources which he rightly discovers in the State."
"Will you tell them, Monsieur Lass?" the Regent invited.
"Without difficulty. The aim would be to form a central board to direct and control all great commercial undertakings, to provide occupation for the poor--that is to say, the workers--by the encouragement of mining, fishing, manufacture and the rest, and to effect a sensible reduction in the rates of interest."
In a voice that crackled with indignation the old Maréchal flung in the question: "Is it, then, proposed that the King should turn banker and trader? Such a thing may be possible in the country of Monsieur Lass; but in France..." A gesture concluded the sentence, words failing him in which to express his disgust.
It stung the Regent into sharpness. "Not the King, Monsieur le Maréchal. The State. Pray perceive the difference."
"His late Majesty," grumbled Villeroy, "did not perceive it. We have it upon his authority that the State is the King."
Ignoring the retort, the Regent nodded to the Chancellor, whose glance again begged leave to speak.
"The opinion, monseigneur, which I feel it my duty to express," said d'Aguesseau, "is that to found a system of finance upon the basis proposed would be to plunge the State, and consequently the entire nation, into all the risks of commercial speculation without the guarantees of that enterprise, zeal and prompt resolution which able and experienced men of affairs--and others do not survive to count--are alone able to bring to their undertakings. Shopkeeping and government are activities that call for very different qualities and very different knowledge. To combine the two is to succeed in neither."
Considering the Chancellor's great reputation for clear-sightedness and his renowned integrity, and hearing the general murmur of agreement with him, Mr Law already perceived here his defeat. Yet with unimpaired placidity he was waiting for that murmur to exhaust itself when support came from the last quarter in which he would have sought it. D'Argenson had reared his great black head, heavy eyebrows knit above bold eyes, to apply a check to the hasty scorn that was threatening to bring the meeting to an end. He drawled in sarcasm.
"Are we not in danger, monseigneur, in yielding to emotions, no doubt lofty in themselves, to overlook that we are no longer in a position to afford them?"
"I should have thought so," His Highness answered on a sigh. "Another consideration which I would have you bear in mind, whatever may be decided, is that Monsieur Lass leaves us in his debt by his readiness to come before the Council. You will remember this, if you please, gentleman. You will remember also that his views are the fruit of studies probably deeper than those of any man of our day, pursued by a mind of singular and well-known mathematical acuteness." He looked round, and d'Argenson purposefully caught his eye.
"You have something to add, Marquis?"
"The Chancellor, no doubt rightly, in his wisdom, has confined his censure to that part of the Baron's system which is concerned with commercial enterprise. And to that extent I am in agreement with him. But since he has not touched upon the banking methods expounded by Monsieur Lass, it will be that he has nothing to oppose to it. It remains, however, that to carry out that part of the system time will be needed, much time, the time between sowing and reaping, and it would still remain to discover what provision there can be for our immediate needs, which are of a distracting urgency."
"Monsieur le Marquis," said Mr Law, "has overlooked that which I imagined to be implicit in my exposition.
"All royal revenues would be paid into the State Bank by the tax-farmers, and to the extent of those payments the bank would issue to the Treasury its notes in the values most convenient for circulation. All those to whom the State is indebted would receive from the Treasury payment only in these notes, which they may at their pleasure exchange for specie at the bank, none, however, being compelled to retain them or even to accept them in the course of trade."
And now, at last, the Duc de Noailles, the President of the Council, its oracle in money matters, tossed aside his pen, and expressed himself. "In that case, Highness, I perceive no purpose in these banknotes."
"And yet," he was answered by Mr Law, "I do not hesitate to assert that once their utility is realized, with assurance that specie may be had for the paper whenever desired, men will eagerly prefer it to coin. The incomparably greater facility of handling currency in this form alone will make it preferable. And once confidence in the paper is established you will perceive that the bank, by an issue of notes equivalent to the amount of specie it holds, will double at once the capital which it may apply to financial operations. For every million in gold, which it will retain as a fund of guarantee, it may confidently, and safely issue a million in paper currency." He paused for a moment before adding: "That, I think, is all that I can profitably tell you."
With a glance that begged the Regent's leave, he resumed his seat, dabbing his lips with a fine handkerchief.
The Regent cleared his throat. His expression was not happy. "You have heard Monsieur Lass, and whatever views you may hold on his system for the alleviation of our difficulties, you will wish to felicitate him upon the clarity with which he has explained it. Before the Council pronounces upon it, I should be glad to hear the opinions of you others, of the world of trade and finance who have been good enough to attend. If you please, messieurs."
A merchant named Lenormand and one other after him pronounced at once in favour of the establishment of the proposed bank. A third, less downright, opined that it might be useful at some time other than the present. And then the opulent contractor, Samuel Bernard, perhaps because annoyed at not having been allowed to speak first, as he accounted due to his rank amongst them, and so as to put down those who had usurped that privilege, condemned the system in uncompromising terms. Using arguments similar to those of the Chancellor, he stigmatized it as dangerously speculative, and because of his renowned financial ability, he swept with him every remaining member of his class.
After the last of them had spoken, the Regent thanked them for their attendance, and gave them leave to depart.
They went out backwards, bent double and clustered ludicrously together as if for mutual support under the haughty eyes of the nobles.
When the doors had closed upon them, His Highness required the votes of the members of the Council and invited the Duke of Noailles, as its president, to lead the way.
Mr Law leaned back in his armchair, and dabbed his lips again. It was the only sign he gave of any feeling, and this was not readily to be interpreted. In his shrewdness he could have no doubt that already the dice had fallen against him. The deadly cast made by d'Aguesseau had been confirmed by Bernard, who was destined before long bitterly to regret that presumptuous condemnation. Yet one desperate attempt Mr Law made, with the Regent's leave, to amend the throw before it was too late.
"It is no more than a word of warning against permitting the views of Samuel Bernard and his kind to impress you unduly. You will not overlook, gentlemen, that a system such as mine would make an end of the enrichment of all Samuel Bernards. Their monopolies would be wrested from them to be vested in the State. His hostility to my system is the measure of his fear of its success. Do me the justice, gentlemen, to bear that in your minds. Then you will be doing yourselves justice also."
He had done, and he sat back again, to hear Monsieur de Noailles.
His Grace courteously confessed himself persuaded of the utility of the proposed bank, but he could not find that the time was suitable for its establishment, particularly in view of the opposition of the merchants, whose support must be considered essential to its success.
He urged that, instead, the Council should devote itself to economies and the suppression of all useless or avoidable expenditure. This and the perception of the attention devoted to affairs by His Highness should suffice gradually to restore the nation's confidence in the government.
The Chancellor followed with the simple assertion that he was completely in agreement with Monsieur de Noailles, and that nothing that he had heard could cause him to change the opinion he had already expressed.
Rouillé du Coudray was another who could add nothing to what he had said already, and he repeated it: "Which is that what we have heard is a gamester's proposal, as might be expected, considering the source of it. The views of Monsieur Lass are perhaps natural in a man of his nationality."
Whilst His Highness was frowning his disapproval of this offensiveness, the others who followed to damn the system, damned it at least in the more courteous terms employed by Noailles.
Monsieur de Saint-Simon was even generous in his opposition. "I account it excellent in itself and likely enough to succeed in a republic or in a strange kingdom such as the English, where the sovereign cannot levy a tax without the vote of Parliament; a country where letters of cachet are unknown, and where a certain Mr Locke is permitted impudently to set up a natural right in opposition to divine dynastic right; a country in which the finances are governed solely by those who furnish them and who furnish them to the extent and in the manner which they think proper. But I can see no success for a system of that kind in an absolute monarchy such as France."
Only the voice of d'Argenson, in all that Council, was raised in Mr Law's favour. Unintimidated by the unanimous body of contrary opinion, and at no pains to dissemble his contempt for it, the Lieutenant-General forcefully opined that the bank of Monsieur Lass' happy conception, properly regarded, would be, in fact, His Majesty's cash-box, and would permit them to sweep away the tax-farmers with immense profit to the State.
It was a conception certainly worth a trial, and, if properly conducted, the Lieutenant-General could not doubt that it would have the effect of easing their difficulties.
It was a stout defence delivered by d'Argenson with jaw out-thrust and that defiance of contradiction which made him so formidable an advocate. But his single voice, however, sonorous and forcible, could not stifle that of the main body of the Council.
The Regent sighed once more in reluctant resignation, and looked ruefully at Mr Law. It no longer needed the apologetic expression of that full, pink face to tell the Scot that his cause was lost. He could not conceive it to lie in the nature of this amiable, easy-going prince, whatever his personal convictions, to exert himself to the extent of successfully opposing the hostility confronting them.
Once only in his short career since the late King's death had His Highness roused himself from his moral indolence to do battle. That was when he had demanded of the Parliament the destruction of the will of Louis XIV with its provision that Madame de Montespan's legitimized bastard, the Duke of Maine, should share with the Duke of Orléans the Regency of France and the guardianship of the young King.
With the vigour and something of the majesty of his departed uncle he had then constrained the Parliament to exclude the Duke of Maine from those offices, leaving himself in the sole possession of the Regency.
All that, however, as Mr Law reflected, was a battle fought and a victory won for his own prerogatives, and nothing less was ever likely to rouse him again to a similar display of energy.
He sat in silence for some moments after the last member of his Council had spoken, his chin in the laces at his throat, his brow rumpled in thought.
It may be that this was one of those moments in which he cursed the political expediency which had led him to set up the various councils, of which the Council of Finance was one, instead of governing by ministers who could more easily be governed in their turn. At last he expressed himself in a weary tone.
"The Marquis d'Argenson, messieurs, has perfectly uttered my own opinion. It is an opinion, let me say, to which I have been guided by that masterly essay Money and Trade, of which Monsieur Lass is the author, and of which each of you has had the advantage of being furnished with extracts. Had it been otherwise, had I taken a less confident view of the advantages offered by his system, I should not have put Monsieur Lass to the trouble of coming before you to explain it.
"Still believing in it, as I do, it follows that I must deplore that with the single exception of Monsieur d'Argenson, you should pronounce against it. However, your unanimity leaves me no choice, profoundly though I regret it. It remains for me only to declare the project abandoned and that we must look elsewhere for the solution of our difficulties."
Abruptly, with a hint of weary ill-humour, he ended: "There is no reason why I should detain you longer today, messieurs. You have my leave to withdraw."