ak
more fully, as one of the indirect causes of subsequent revolution.

In singling out and generalizing the evils and public misfortunes of the
reign of Louis XV., perhaps the derangement of the finances was the most
important in its political results. But for this misfortune the King was
not wholly responsible: a vast national debt was the legacy of Louis
XIV. This was the fruit of his miserable attempt at self-aggrandizement;
this was the residuum of his glories. Yet as a national debt, according
to some, is no calamity, but rather a blessing,--a chain of loyalty and
love to bind the people together in harmonious action and mutual
interest, and especially the middle classes, upon whom it chiefly falls,
to the support of a glorious throne,--we must not waste time by
dwelling on the existence of this debt,--a peculiarity which has
attended the highest triumphs of civilization, an invention of honored
statesmen and patriotic ministers, and perhaps their benignant boon to
future generations,--but rather we will look to the way it was sought to
be discharged.

Louis XIV. spent in wars fifteen hundred millions of livres, and in
palaces about three hundred millions more; and his various other
expenses, which could not be well defrayed by taxation, swelled the
amount due to his creditors, at his death, to nearly two thousand
millions,--a vast sum for those times. The regent, Duke of Orleans, who
succeeded him, increased this debt still more, especially by his
reckless and infamous prodigalities, under the direction of his prime
minister,--his old friend and tutor,--Cardinal Dubois. At last his
embarrassments were so great that the wheels of government were likely
to stop. His friend, the Due de Saint Simon, one of the great patricians
of the court, proposed, as a remedy, national bankruptcy,--affirming
that it would be a salutary lesson to the rich plebeian capitalists not
to lend their money. An ingenious Scotch financier, however, proposed a
more palatable scheme, which was, to make use of the credit of the
nation for a bank, the capital of which should be guaranteed by shares
in the Mississippi Company. John Law, already a wealthy and prosperous
banker, proposed to increase the paper currency, and supersede the use
of gold and silver. His offer was accepted, and his bank became a royal
one, its bills going at once into circulation. Now, as the most absurd
delusions existed as to the wealth of Louisiana, and the most boun