prosperously, and been of great benefit to the nation. It was an institution fitted for a free country; but unfortunately, it was subject to the control of a despotic government, that could at its pleasure alter the value of the specie within its vaults, and compel the most extravagant expansions of its paper circulation. The vital principle of a bank is security in the regularity of its operations, and the immediate convertibility of its paper into coin; and what confidence could be reposed in an institution, or its paper promises, when the sovereign could at any moment centuple those promises in the market, and seize upon all the money in the bank? The compulsory measures used, likewise, to force bank-notes into currency, against the judgment of the public, was fatal to the system; for credit must be free and uncontrolled as the common air. The Regent was the evil spirit of the system, that forced Law on to an expansion of his paper currency far beyond what he had ever dreamt of. was that in a manner compelled the unlucky projector to devise all kinds of collateral companies and monopolies, by which to raise funds to meet the constantly and enormously increasing emissions of shares and notes. Law was but like a poor conjuror in the hands of a potent spirit that he has evoked, and that obliges him. to go on, desperately, and ruinously, with his conjurations. He only thought at the outset to raise the wind, but the Regent compelled him to raise the whirlwind.

He it

The investigation of the affairs of the company by the council, resulted in nothing beneficial to the public. The princes and nobles who had enriched themselves by all kinds of juggles and extortions, escaped un

punished, and retained the greater part of their spoils. Many of the "suddenly rich," who had risen from obscurity to a giddy height of imaginary prosperity, and had indulged in all kinds of vulgar and ridiculous excesses, awoke as out of a dream, in their original poverty, now made more galling and humiliating by their transient elevation.

The weight of the evil, however, fell on more valuable classes of society honest tradesmen and artisans, who had been seduced away from the safe pursuits of industry, to the specious chances of speculation. Thousands of meritorious families, also, once opulent, had been reduced to indigence by too great a confidence in Government. There was a general derangement in the finances that long exerted a baneful influence over the national prosperity; but the most disastrous effects of the system were upon the morals and manners of the nation. The faith of engagements, the sanctity of promises in affairs of business, were at an end. Every expedient to grasp present profit, or to evade present difficulty, was tolerated. While such deplorable laxity of principle was generated in the busy classes, the chivalry of France had soiled their pennons; and honour and glory, so long the idols of the Gallic nobility, had been tumbled to the earth, and trampled in the dirt of the stock-market.

As to Law, the originator of the system, be appears eventually to have profited but little by his schemes. "He was a quack," says Voltaire, "to whom the state was given to be cured, but who poisoned it with his drugs, and who poisoned himself." The effects which he left behind in France were sold at a low price, and the proceeds dissipated. His landed estates were con

fiscated. He carried away with him barely enough to maintain himself, his wife, and daughter, with decency. The chief relic of his immense fortune was a great diamond, which he was often obliged to pawn. He was in England in 1721, and was presented to George the First. He returned shortly afterward to the Continent; shifting about from place to place, and died in Venice in 1729. His wife and daughter, accustomed to live with the prodigality of princesses, could not conform to their altered fortunes, but dissipated the scanty means left to them, and sank into abject poverty, "I saw his wife," says Voltaire, "at Bruxelles, as much humiliated as she had been haughty and triumphant at Paris." An elder brother of Law remained in France, and was protected by the Duchess of Bourbon. His descendants have acquitted themselves honourably in various public employments; and one of them is the Marquis Lauriston, some time Lieutenant-General and Peer of France.

SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825:

FROM

THE TRAVELLING NOTE-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.

THE PARISIAN HOTEL.

A GREAT hotel in Paris is a street set on end; the grand staircase is the highway, and every floor or apartment a separate habitation. The one in which I am lodged may serve as a specimen. It is a large quadrangular pile, built round a spacious paved court. The ground-floor is occupied by shops, magazines, and domestic offices. Then comes the entre-sol, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers; then succeed a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the other, to the number of Mahomet's heavens. Each floor is a mansion, complete within itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, kitchen, and other conveniences. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. apartment has its main-door of entrance, opening upon the staircase or landing-places, and locked like a street door. Thus several families and numerous single persons live under the same roof, totally independent of each other, and may live so for years, without holding more intercourse than is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.

Each

Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations of rank and style and importance. The premier or first floor, with its grand saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, is decidedly the aristocratical part of the establishment. The second floor is scarcely less aristocratical and magnificent; the other floors go on lessening in splendour as they gain in altitude, and end with the attics the region of petty tailors, clerks, and sewing girls. To make the filling up of the mansion complete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a joli petit appartement à garçon, that is to say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for a poor devil of a bachelor.

The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great porte-cochère or portal, calculated for the admission of carriages. This consists of two massy folding doors, that swing heavily open upon a spacious entrance, passing under the front of the edifice into the court-yard. On one side is a spacious staircase leading to the upper apartments. Immediately without the portal, is the porter's lodge, a small room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the concierge or porter, and his family. This is one of the most important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and consent. The porte-cochère in general is fastened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immediately drawn, as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the visitor pushes it open, and enters.