the flattery of the great, and had become imbued with a sense of his own importance. To assume a position of inactivity, and to be deprived of all authority, were conditions much too humiliating to the self important Chancellor, and he endeavoured to surround his new office with an air of fictitious responsibility. While Lieutenant of Police he had been accustomed to give audiences at all times of the night and day, and this furnished him with an idea as to the possibility of impressing the people with the false notion that he was more than ever immersed in public business. He made appointments at the most inconvenient hours, mostly after midnight or in the early morning, and those who were favoured with admittance carried away an exaggerated idea of the tremendous load of responsibility upon the shoulders of the new Chancellor, from a pre-arranged theatrical display of work in which he might be seen dictating to innumerable secretaries in the midst of a veritable ocean of papers and documents requiring attention. So far, indeed, did he carry this ludicrous performance, that he is said to have driven through the streets in the evenings with a lighted carriage in order to maintain the appearance of requiring to employ every moment of the day for overtaking the stupendous volume of work. Behind all this mummery, however, there was a determination in the mind of D’Argenson to counteract the influence of Law, if not to supersede him altogether. With this object in view he conceived a bold plan for outbidding Law in his financial proposals. This was no less than the extinction of the floating national debt, and the means for its accomplishment was depreciation of the coinage. Law had provided for the absorption of 100 million livres in his Western Company, so that D’Argenson had set himself the task of taking up the balance of the State notes, amounting to 150 millions. His proposal was not only of the crudest, but it displayed an utter disregard for the industrial interests of France, and even he could not fail to have been impressed with the highly injurious effects upon trade of arbitrarily tampering with the currency. He secured, however, the adoption of his proposal, and on 10th May, 1718, a decree was issued debasing the coinage to the extent of 50 per cent. upon the depreciation which took place in December, 1715. The silver marc was now raised from 40 to 60 livres, and the crown piece of 3 livres 10 sous, which weighed one ounce in 1715, now weighed less than half an ounce. In anticipation of his scheme, D’Argenson had purchased very cheaply a large quantity of silver for coinage purposes, and the Mint now issued 60 livres, weighing 8 ounces, in exchange for 48 livres of the old coinage and 12 livres in _billets d’état_. In order, therefore, to absorb all the floating paper, D’Argenson required to issue 750,000,000 livres, upon which the State realised a profit of 250,000,000, so that after the