and the shame it cast upon all.  Until this point he had been allowed to say on, but when he thought fit to add that his own hands were clean, and that he had never dabbled in shares, a voice uttered a cutting sarcasm, and all the crowd took up the word, at which the Marechal, ashamed and confounded, despite his ordinary authority, buried himself in his carriage and finished his journey across the Place Vendome at a gentle trot in the midst of a hue and cry, which followed him even beyond, and which diverted Paris at his expense for several days, nobody pitying him.

At last it was found that this stock-jobbing too much embarrassed the Place Vendome and the public way; it was transferred, therefore, to the vast garden of the Hotel de Soissons.  This was, in fact, its proper place.  Law, who had remained at the Palais Royal some time, had returned to his own house, where he received many visits.  The King several times went to see the troops that had been stationed near Paris; after this they were sent away again.  Those which had formed a little camp at Charenton, returned to Montargis to work at the canal making there.

Law, for commercial reasons, had some time ago caused Marseilles to be made a free port.  The consequence of this was that an abundance of vessels came there, especially vessels from the Levant, and from want of precautions the plague came also, lasted a long while, desolated the town, province; and the neighbouring provinces.  The care and precautions afterwards taken restrained it as much as possible, but did not hinder it from lasting a long time, or from creating frightful disorders.  These details are so well known that they can be dispensed with here.

I have a few more words to say of Law and his Mississippi.  The bubble finally burst at the end of the year (1720).  Law, who had no more resources, being obliged secretly to depart from the realm, was sacrificed to the public.  His flight was known only through the eldest son of Argenson, intendant at Mainbeuge, who had the stupidity to arrest him.  The courier he despatched with the news was immediately sent back, with a strong reprimand for not having deferred to the passport with which Law had been furnished by the Regent.  The financier was with his son, and they both went to Brussels where the Marquis de Prie, Governor of the Imperial Low Countries, received them very well, and entertained them.  Law did not stop long, gained Liege and Germany, where he offered his talents to several princes, who all thanked him; nothing more.  After having thus roamed, he passed through the Tyrol, visited several Italian courts, not one of which would have him, and at last retired to Venice.  This republic, however, did not employ him.  His wife and daughter followed him some time after.  I don’t know what became of them or of the son.