ter his departure the regent sent him a very kind
letter, permitting him to leave the kingdom whenever he pleased, and
stating that he had ordered his passports to be made ready. He at the same
time offered him any sum of money he might require. Law respectfully
declined the money, and set out for Brussels in a post-chaise belonging to
Madame de Prie, the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon, escorted by six
horse-guards. From thence he proceeded to Venice, where he remained for
some months, the object of the greatest curiosity to the people, who
believed him to be the possessor of enormous wealth. No opinion, however,
could be more erroneous. With more generosity than could have been
expected from a man who during the greatest part of his life had been a
professed gambler, he had refused to enrich himself at the expense of a
ruined nation. During the height of the popular frenzy for Mississippi
stock, he had never doubted of the final success of his projects in making
France the richest and most powerful nation of Europe. He invested all his
gains in the purchase of landed property in France--a sure proof of his
own belief in the stability of his schemes. He had hoarded no plate or
jewellery, and sent no money, like the dishonest jobbers, to foreign
countries. His all, with the exception of one diamond, worth about five or
six thousand pounds sterling, was invested in the French soil; and when he
left that country, he left it almost a beggar. This fact alone ought to
rescue his memory from the charge of knavery, so often and so unjustly
brought against him.

As soon as his departure was known, all his estates and his valuable
library were confiscated. Among the rest, an annuity of 200,000 livres
(8000l. sterling) on the lives of his wife and children, which had been
purchased for five millions of livres, was forfeited, notwithstanding that
a special edict, drawn up for the purpose in the days of his prosperity,
had expressly declared that it should never be confiscated for any cause
whatever. Great discontent existed among the people that Law had been
suffered to escape. The mob and the parliament would have been pleased to
have seen him hanged. The few who had not suffered by the commercial
revolution rejoiced that the _quack_ had left the country; but all those
(and they were by far the most numerous class) whose fortunes were
implicated regretted that his intimate knowledge of the distress of the
country, and of the cause