But alas! the superstructure, then, became so far beyond the proportion of the foundation, that the whole fabric fell to ruin, and involved a nation, just emerging from bankruptcy and inanition, into new calamities, almost equal to the former. As long as the credit of this bank subsisted, it appeared to the French to be perfectly solid. The bubble no sooner burst, than the whole nation was thrown into astonishment and consternation. No body could conceive from whence the credit had sprung; what had created such mountains of wealth in so short a time; and by what witchcraft and fascination it had been made to disappear in an instant, in the short period of one day. Volumes have been since writ in France, by men of speculation, in order to prove, that it was a want of confidence in the public, and not the want of a proper security for the paper, which occasioned this downfal. This, if we judge by what has been writ, has been the general opinion of that nation to this day: and since it was found impossible, in France, to create confidence in circulating paper, which had no security for its value, many people there, and some even among ourselves, conclude, that a great part of the wealth of Great Britain, which consists in paper, well secured, is false and fictitious. I shall now proceed to set before my reader the great lines of the royal Mississippi bank of France, from the 1st of January 1719, to the total overthrow of all credit, upon the fatal 21st day of May 1720. This was a golden dream, in which the French nation, and a great part of Europe was plunged, for the short space of 506 days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. XXVI. _Account of the Royal Mississippi Bank of France, established on Public Credit._ In order to unravel the chaos of this affair in a proper manner, it will not be amiss to begin by giving the reader an idea of the plan which naturally might suggest itself to the Regent of France, from the hint of Mr. Law’s bank. By the help of this clue, he will be the better able to conduct himself through the operations of this _system_, as the French call it.