and, in the full-blown pride of their easily-acquired wealth, made the
most ridiculous mistakes. Preserving the language and manners of their
old, with the finery of their new station, they afforded continual
subjects for the pity of the sensible, the contempt of the sober, and the
laughter of every body. But the folly and meanness of the higher ranks of
society were still more disgusting. One instance alone, related by the
Duke de St. Simon, will shew the unworthy avarice which infected the whole
of society. A man of the name of Andre, without character or education,
had, by a series of well-timed speculations in Mississippi bonds, gained
enormous wealth in an incredibly short space of time. As St. Simon
expresses it, "he had amassed mountains of gold." As he became rich, he
grew ashamed of the lowness of his birth, and anxious above all things to
be allied to nobility. He had a daughter, an infant only three years of
age, and he opened a negotiation with the aristocratic and needy family of
D'Oyse, that this child should, upon certain conditions, marry a member of
that house. The Marquis D'Oyse, to his shame, consented, and promised to
marry her himself on her attaining the age of twelve, if the father would
pay him down the sum of a hundred thousand crowns, and twenty thousand
livres every year until the celebration of the marriage. The marquis was
himself in his thirty-third year. This scandalous bargain was duly signed
and sealed, the stockjobber furthermore agreeing to settle upon his
daughter, on the marriage-day, a fortune of several millions. The Duke of
Brancas, the head of the family, was present throughout the negotiation,
and shared in all the profits. St. Simon, who treats the matter with the
levity becoming what he thought so good a joke, adds, "that people did not
spare their animadversions on this beautiful marriage," and further
informs us, "that the project fell to the ground some months afterwards by
the overthrow of Law, and the ruin of the ambitious Monsieur Andre." It
would appear, however, that the noble family never had the honesty to
return the hundred thousand crowns.

Amid events like these, which, humiliating though they be, partake largely
of the ludicrous, others occurred of a more serious nature. Robberies in
the streets were of daily occurrence, in consequence of the immense sums,
in paper, which people carried about with them. Assassinations were also
frequent. One case in particular fix