THE COAIFANY RE-ORCJ ANJSEP. 55 These contrivances did not prevent the downfall of CI ^ P - the entire scheme. The prohibitory clauses brought ^ indeed great stores of specie into the bank from the 1720. untitled classes, but they were pow r erless against the higher nobility, who, in those days, were above the law.* But though they brought in money, they abso- lutely destroyed confidence, and the depreciation con- tinued. Law, after other minor experiments, which proved inoperative, endeavoured to stop the deprecia- tion by the issue of a decree on May 21, by which the value of the shares was to be gradually decreased to 5,000 francs each, at the same time that the bank-notes were reduced to one-half their actual value. The measure, in consequence of the debasement of the coinage, would, had confidence existed, have been bene- ficial to the shareholders. But in the actual state of affairs they regarded it simply as a depreciation of nearly one-half of their property. The panic, therefore, increased so greatly in intensity that Law was forced, on May 27, to issue another edict withdrawing that of the 21st. But this wavering on his part only increased the want of confidence. Shares fell to a mere nominal value ; tumults took place in the streets ; capital dis- appeared ; the misery of the populace for want of a purchasing medium increased daily ; the Royal Bank was crowded with poor wretches anxious to exchange their small notes for silver ; a guard was placed over Law, nominally to prevent his escape, really for his pro- tection. Everything foreboded a catastrophe. At this crisis the Company of the Indies came forward, and offered to take up all the depreciated notes of the Royal Bank and to extinguish them at the rate of fifty millions a month for a year, provided its commercial privileges
- As soon as the decree was issued law. In the house of one shop-
the Prince of Conti drew from the keeper, fifty thousand marks in bank three carts full of crown pieces. pold and silver were seized by the The Duke of Bourbon withdrew State, on account of his non-com- twenty-five millions. Others, of lower pliance with the^ edict. — Law, son rank, were unable thus to defy the Systeme et son Epoque
