The royal bank, which the regent himself hastened to foster when he saw the profits of the first private bank of circulation and discount France had ever known, issued notes against which Law entered immediately his firm protest. He saw that their tenor spelled ruin for the whole system of finance which, at such labor, he had erected. These notes promised to pay, for instance, fifty livres "in silver coin," not "in coin of the weight and standard of this day," as had the honester notes of Law's bank. That is to say, the notes meant nothing sure and nothing definite. They might be money for a time, but not forever; and this the director-general was too shrewd a man not to know. "But under this issue you shall have all France," said the regent to him one day, as they renewed their discussion yet again upon this scheme. "You shall have the farming of the taxes. I will give you all the foreign trade as monopoly, if you like--will give you the mint--will give you, in effect, as I have said, all France. But, Monsieur my director-general, I must have money. It is for that purpose that I appoint you director-general--because I find you the most remarkable man in all the world." "Your Grace," said Law, "print your notes thus, and print them to such extent as you wish, and France is again worse than bankrupt! Then, indeed, you have worse than repudiated the debts of France." "Ah bah! _mon drôle_! You are ill to-day. You have a _migraine_, perhaps? What folly for you to speak thus. France hath swiftly grown so strong that she can never again be ruined. What ails my magician, my Prince of Golconda, this morning? France bankrupt! Even were it so, does that relieve me of this begging of De Prie, of Parabère, and all the others? My God, Monsieur L'as, they are like leeches! They think me made of money." "And your Grace thinks France made of money." "Nay; I only think my director-general is made of money, or can make it as he likes." And this was ever the end of Law's reproaches and his expostulations. This, then, was to be the end of his glorious enterprises, thought he, as he sat one morning, staring out of the window when left alone. This sordid love for money for its own sake--this was to be the limit of an ambition which dealt in theories, in men, in nations, and not in livres and louis d'or! Law smiled bitterly. For an instant he was not the confident man of action and of affairs, not the man claiming with assurance the perpetual protection of good fortune. He sat there, alone, feeling nothing but the great human craving for sympathy and trust. A line of carriages swept back across the street at his window, and streams of nobles besought entrance at his door. And the man who had called out all these, the man for whose friendship all Europe clamored--that man sat with aching heart, longing, craving, begging now of fortune only the one thing--a friend! At last he arose, his face showing lean and haggard. He passed into another room.