Law’s bank having proved a pronounced success, the Regent was converted to his scheme, the shareholders of the General Bank were reimbursed, and it was converted into the Royal Bank. All limit upon the power to issue bills was by this step practically removed. The character of the coin in which the bills were to be redeemed was no longer limited to the livre of the weight and standard of the date of the note, but was changed to the livre of Tours. The very restraints which had operated to give that confidence which Law had pronounced essential for a paper-money circulation were thus removed. In quick succession the companies of Senegal, of the East Indies, of China, and of Africa were absorbed by the cormorant Company of the West. Its title was changed to “the Company of the Indies.” The profits of the mint and the general farms were purchased, and by a series of edicts the management of nearly all the financial affairs of the kingdom were lodged in the Company. Meantime France had been deluged with a flood of notes[48] from the Royal Bank. The great abundance of money had lowered interest and revived business. To meet the various payments which the Company had assumed for the privileges which it had purchased, as well as to satisfy the increasing demand for shares, the capital was increased by a series of edicts in the fall of 1719 to 600,000 shares.[49] Outstanding debts of the Government to the extent of 1,500,000,000 livres were ordered to be redeemed, and in place thereof new _rentes_ were to be issued to the Company at 3 per cent. After the first subscription, payment for stock had been stipulated in coin or bank-notes, in place of _billets d’état_. The various privileges acquired by the Company had been granted one by one, and their accumulation had been slow enough to enable the public to appreciate their value and to comprehend the favor in which the Company was held by the Regent. Subscribers for new shares were therefore found with increasing ease after each new grant. The demand for the stock enabled the Company to place each new issue on the market at premiums. The later issues were at ten times the par value. [Illustration: BILL OF THE BANQUE ROYALE OF LAW (1720). Reduced from a cut in La Croix’s _Dix-huitième siècle_.]