ment when the whole capital of
the four brothers was in the king's paper, and when the finances were
in a state of inconceivable confusion. The old king died in 1715,
leaving as heir to the throne a sickly boy five years of age. The royal
paper was so much depreciated that the king's promise to pay one hundred
francs sold in the street for twenty-five francs. Then came the Scotch
inflator, John Law, who gave France a brief delirium of paper
prosperity, ending with the most woful and widespread collapse ever
known. It was these four brothers, but especially the third brother,
Joseph Paris, known in French history as Paris-Duverney, who, by labors
almost without example, restored the finances of the country, funded the
debt at a reasonable interest, and enabled France to profit by the
twenty years of peace that lay before her.

There is nothing in the whole history of finance more remarkable than
the five years' labors of these brothers after the Law-mania of 1719;
and it is hardly possible to overstate the value of their services at a
time when the kingdom was governed by an idle and dissolute regent, and
when there was not a nobleman about the court capable of grappling with
the situation. The regent died of his debaucheries in the midst of their
work. The Duke of Bourbon succeeded him; he was governed by Madame de
Prie; and between them they concocted a nice scheme for getting the
young king married, who had then reached the mature age of fifteen. The
idea was to rule the king through a queen of their own choosing, and
who would be grateful to them for her elevation.

But it turned out quite otherwise. The king, indeed, was married, and he
was very fond of his wife, and she tried to carry out the desires of
those who had made her queen of France. But there was an obstacle in the
way; and that obstacle was the king's unbounded confidence in his tutor,
the Abbe de Fleury, a serene and extremely agreeable old gentleman past
seventy. A struggle arose between the old tutor and Madame de Prie for
the possession of the young king. The tutor won the victory. The Duke of
Bourbon was exiled to his country-seat, and Madame de Prie was sent
packing. Paris-Duverney and his first clerk were put into the Bastille,
where they were detained for two years in unusually rigorous
imprisonment, and his three brothers were exiled to their native
province.

Another intrigue of court set them free again, and the four brothers
were once more