Such was the unprincipled and profligate man employed to launch the Mississippi Scheme. He began his career in Paris by establishing a bank, which aided in restoring the drooping commerce of France to some measure of activity. Success in one enterprise[*11] prepared the way for another, and Law devised the scheme which has given such bad notoriety to his name, and was the occasion of a ruin so wide-spread that only Omniscience knows it. A French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi occupied lands which were supposed to teem with gold; and, on that supposition, men who knew of no better riches than those of earth, rushed into a wild and visionary scheme. The Regent sanctioned the undertaking, and notes were issued to the amount of one thousand millions of livres.[25] One hundred and twenty /per cent./ of profit were promised upon all investments; and the baseless proposal so captivated men who were willingly fascinated, that at least three hundred thousand applications were made for fifty thousand shares. The titled, from the right hand of royalty downward, engaged in the scramble; and their equipages blocked up the streets from day to day, as they waited in feverish anxiety to know the result of their application for a chance of sharing in the fabulous wealth.--It is known that when one maniac has committed suicide in any particular way--for example, by precipitation from the summit of a tower--others morbidly follow his example; and one is irresistibly reminded of that development of mania while tracing the history of the Mississippi Scheme. THE POWER OF PASSION. But, after all, it was still only in its infancy. The Regent created three hundred thousand additional shares;[26] and so grasping were even the coroneted gamblers of Paris, that three times that number would have been purchased had the scheme been extended so far. The pressure for shares became so great, that a number of persons were crushed to death in the crowd. Property suddenly rose in value, till it was worth twelve or fifteen times as much as it had been a brief period before; and so unwearied were these devotees of Mammon, that the streets had to be cleared at night by the soldiery. For a time, even the gaieties of Paris were suspended; and all the energies, the earnestness, and ardour of its people, were turned into one absorbing channel--the passion for gold lying buried, they believed, in the lands around the mouth of the Mississippi! CORONETED GAMBLERS.