Page:History of the French in India.djvu/68

46 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. chap, hundred shares which constituted the original capital IL of the bank. These shares were paid for in cash. It 1718. will be recollected that the original shareholders had paid for each share of 5,000 francs only, the first fourth of 1,250 francs in cash, and the remainder in Govern- ment notes, then at 70 or 80 per cent, discount. The transaction then was most favourable for the share- holders. It seemed at first scarcely so for the State. So greatly indeed did the notes of the bank multiply that Law found it would be impossible to act up to the rule which had made the fortune of the General Bank, and which provided for the payment in specie, to the bearer, of the amount of the note at the current value of silver. Under his auspices, then it was decreed that thenceforth the amount represented by the note should be paid in " livres tournois of a fixed and unvarying value whatever might be the after variations of coined money ; " and that only notes under 600 francs should necessarily be paid in cash, it being optional to the banker to give change for notes above that amount in notes or cash, as he might consider most convenient. This interference with the free trade of currency, this upsetting of the ladder by which Law had made his first reputation, was undoubtedly a great mistake. The General Bank, however, had been so successful a pro- ject, that the public were slow to perceive the error, and before it could be exposed, Law had launched, in all earnestness, that commercial and financial operation, which is so intimately connected with the subject of our history. We have alluded to the formation of the Company of the West. Pending the conversion of the General into the Royal Bank, Law had left this scheme, as it were, to itself, and the shares, consequently, paid for in depreciated notes, had fallen to the value of one- half. He then suddenly conceived the idea of uniting to this new Company, the old East India Company founded by Colbert, as well as the Companies of China