CHAPTER VIII 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. [Illustration] In the midst of all this excitement, gaiety and brilliance, Law himself stood out as the one great and prominent figure in the kingdom. Court was paid to him by all the most influential personages in France; and by the multitude he was regarded with feelings of awe and admiration. His chambers were crowded day after day by those who at other times would have been in attendance upon their sovereign. Every excuse and artifice was employed in order to obtain an interview with the great man. “I have seen an hundred coaches at his levee in a morning, and dukes and peers waiting for hours together to speak with him, and could not get within two rooms of him for the crowd.” Yet through the whole of this period of flattery and adulation he maintained the same cool unaffected demeanour which had always characterised him, and although given at times to treat his importunate visitors with haughtiness and curtness, yet he was noted for his general suavity and affability when receiving those who were strangers to him, and who had sought introductions without credentials merely for the purpose of obtaining pecuniary assistance. When he passed along the streets, he was followed by crowds by whom he was greeted with cries of “Long live Mr. Law.” Ladies of the highest rank kissed their hands to him, and even princes rendered him obeisance in public. In fact so important had Law become in the eyes of everyone, that he allowed himself to indulge in conduct of a somewhat shameless character, although it was attributed simply to boldness by those who encouraged him in it. The latter--and they were more often than not of the gentler sex--thought they excused their conduct in endeavouring to give it the character of a joke, and the nobility of the period, ready at all times to sacrifice their lives to their honour, scrupled not to sacrifice their honour to their fortune.