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 ɔriginal poverty, now made more galling and hu miliating 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 slow accumulations of industry, to the specious chances of speculation. Thousands of meritorious families, also, once opulent, had been reduced to indigence by a too great 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 morais 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 honor 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, he 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 whc 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 confiscated. 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 acquitted themselves honorably, in various public employments; and one of them was the Marquis Lauriston, sometime Lieutenant-General and Peer of France.

A

THE PARISIAN HOTEL.

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 antechamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, kitchen, and other conveniences. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. Each 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 inter

course than is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.

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 mag. nificent; the other floors go on lessening in splendor 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, (a pretty little bachelor's apartment,) 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 grand 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. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter's little chamber; the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a visitor is at hand. The stranger in the mean time ascends the great staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door, equivalent to a street-door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his friends. Beside this hangs a bell - cord, with which he rings for admittance.

When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter's door, and is told, “Montez au troisième, au quatrième; sonnez à la porte à droite, ou à gauche," ("Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the right or left hand door,") as the case may be.

The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the