In view of all these substantial advantages, the success of Law’s scheme came in a measure as a matter of course. Business of the most profitable nature flowed into the Bank. By enabling commercial men to trade upon their securities at a low rate of interest, not only did he usurp the functions of the usurer, functions which the bad policy of the Government had placed in his hands, but the ramifications of the Bank spread throughout the whole country, and made its beneficent influences felt in a striking degree. Law himself very shortly became the supreme protector of industrial prosperity. His statesmanlike instincts led him to revive many branches of trade which had degenerated, and to induce the establishment of others for which he saw the resources of France were eminently suited. In order to facilitate the business of the Bank he opened in the principal centres branch establishments which acted both as feeders and as outlets for the central institution. No one was more surprised than the Regent himself at the extraordinary measure of success which had attended Law’s scheme. Law accordingly occupied more than ever a high position in the Regent’s estimation. He was regarded as the financial saviour of France, a heaven-sent legislator before whom the hereditary advisers of the Crown were small and paltry. Law was sufficiently astute to press the advantage he had gained, and judging from the conduct of the Duc D’Orleans at this time, he evidently had the latter under his control. Saint-Simon tells us of the forced interviews he was compelled by the Regent to grant to Law in order that he might be tutored into approval, if not appreciation, of the new state of affairs. The wily courtier was impervious, however, to the blandishments of his tutor. He only deferred to the wish of the Regent, and merely gave a courteous acquiescence to the arguments and statements that were showered upon him. The object of these interviews obviously was to capture the confidence of Saint-Simon who had been sufficiently courageous on previous occasions to thwart Law’s designs in face of the Regent’s wishes, and who might prove an awkward element in accomplishing the development of his plans for the future. There was, however, a subsidiary purpose, and Saint-Simon was not slow to recognise it. “I soon knew,” says Saint-Simon, “that if Law had desired these regular visits at my house, it was not because he expected to make me a skilful financier, but because, like a man of sense--and he had a good deal--he wished to draw near a servitor of the Regent who had the best post in his confidence, and who long since had been in a position to speak to him of everything and of everybody with the greatest freedom and the most complete liberty, to try by this frequent intercourse to gain my friendship, inform himself by me of the intrinsic qualities of those of whom he only saw the outside, and by degrees to come to the Council;