CHAPTER VIII. 111 Law’s importance causes him to be courted by all classes.--Socially ostracised by nobility.--Law’s conversion to Roman Catholicism.--The part of the Abbé Dubois and the Abbé Tencin in the conversion.-- Difficulties in its accomplishment.--Law becomes naturalised.--Law appointed Controller-General of Finance.--Regent celebrates appointment by a distribution of pensions.--Law honoured with the freedom of the City of Edinburgh.--Elected member of Academy of Sciences.--William Law brought to France and made Postmaster-General.--Law’s private investments.--His fiscal reforms.--His introduction of free university education. CHAPTER IX. 128 Law’s designs against England’s political and industrial position.--Earl of Stair’s correspondence with Mr. Secretary Craggs.--Stair accused by Law of threatening the safety of the Bank.--Stair’s recall intimated.-- Lord Stanhope sent to conciliate Law.--Threatened rupture between England and France over question of evacuation of Gibraltar.--Stair endeavours to justify his hostile attitude towards Law.--His apprehensions as to Law’s purpose in acquiring South Sea stock.--The humiliating nature of Stair’s dismissal. CHAPTER X. 154 The beginning of Law’s difficulties.--The Bank’s reserve of specie begins to be depleted.--Law attempts a remedy by altering the standard of the coinage, and restricting the currency of specie.--Temporary success of remedy.-- Domiciliary visits resorted to for detection of hoarded specie.--Bank and Company United.--Discharge of National Debt.--Use of the Rue Quincampoix prohibited as a stock market.--The assassination of a stock-jobber by the Comte des Horn, and the latter’s execution. CHAPTER XI. 171 New measures prove ineffectual.--New edict issued fixing price of shares and depreciating value of notes.--Authorship of edict.--People hostile to edict.--Parliament refuses to register it, and a revocation is issued.--Law deposed from office of Controller-General.--D’Aguessau reinstated in his former office.--New schemes for absorption of bank-notes.-- Widespread distress produced amongst community.--Law’s person in danger.--Stock-jobbers establish themselves in the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons.--Parliament exiled to Pontoise, and Bank closed for an indefinite period.