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 boundless faith was placed in Law’s financiering; and as only Law’s bills could purchase shares in the Company which was to make everybody’s fortune,—­gold and silver flowed to his bank.  The shares of the Company continued to rise in value, and bank-bills were indefinitely issued.  In a little while (1719), six hundred and forty millions of livres in these bills were in circulation, and soon after nearly half of the national debt was paid off’; in other words, people had been induced to exchange government securities, to the amount of eight hundred millions, for the Mississippi stock.