t
his modesty giving way. He grew tired of being a subaltern. He hankered
after greatness in the midst of this splendour; the Abbe Dubois and M. le
Duc d'Orleans desired it for him more than he; nevertheless, two
formidable obstacles were in the way: Law was a foreigner and a heretic,
and he could not be naturalised without a preliminary act of abjuration.
To perform that, somebody must be found to convert him, somebody upon
whom good reliance could be placed. The Abbe Dubois had such a person
all ready in his pocket, so to speak. The Abbe Tencin was the name of
this ecclesiastic, a fellow of debauched habits and shameless life, whom
the devil has since pushed into the most astonishing good fortune; so
true it is that he sometimes departs from his ordinary rules, in order to
recompense his servitors, and by these striking examples dazzle others,
and so secure them.

As may be imagined, Law did not feel very proud of the Abbe who had
converted him: more especially as that same Abbe was just about this time
publicly convicted of simony, of deliberate fraud, of right-down lying
(proved by his own handwriting), and was condemned by the Parliament to
pay a fine, which branded him with infamy, and which was the scandal of
the whole town. Law, however, was converted, and this was a subject
which supplied all conversation.

Soon after, he bought, for one million livres, the Hotel Mazarin for his
bank, which until then had been established in a house he hired of the
Chief-President, who had not need of it, being very magnificently lodged
in the Palace of the Parliament by virtue of his office. Law bought, at
the same time, for 550,000 livres, the house of the Comte de Tesse.

Yet it was not all sunshine with this famous foreigner, for the sky above
him was heavy with threatening clouds. In the midst of the flourishing
success of his Mississippi, it was discovered that there was a plot to
kill him. Thereupon sixteen soldiers of the regiment of the Guards were
given to him as a protection to his house, and eight to his brother, who
had come to Paris some little time before.

Law had other enemies besides those who were hidden. He could not get on
well with Argenson, who, as comptroller of the finances, was continually
thrown into connection with him. The disorder of the finances increased
in consequence every day, as well as the quarrels between Law and
Argenson, who each laid the blame upon the other. The Scotchman was the
be