There is in the French character to-day a certain credulity as concerns “get-rich-quick” schemes which renders the people astonishingly responsive to the efforts of swindlers like Madame Humbert, notorious a few years ago. It is a quality in curious contrast to the shrewdness which makes them the readiest financiers of modern Europe, yet in a way it supplements the thrift which some students look upon as a result of the bitter days of the “Old Régîme,” the pinching period that resulted in the Revolution. It would seem that this characteristic is not a modern phenomenon, for at the beginning of Louis XV’s reign a Scotsman named Law proposed a paper money scheme that was seized upon with eagerness by all classes of an impoverished society. Nor was it a phenomenon peculiar to France, for at about the same time the South Sea Bubble was exciting England to a frenzy of acquisitiveness. Whatever the psychology, all France and especially all Paris went wild over Law’s propositions. He issued small notes which he redeemed in specie until he won the confidence of the public and the government endorsed his bank and permitted the use of his paper in payment of taxes. The Mississippi valley was supposed at that time to abound in gold and silver and Law’s office in the rue Quincampoix, near the Halles and the church of Saint Leu, was fairly besieged by courtiers and clergy, by tradesmen and ladies of the nobility eager to buy stock in a mining company which Law organized. West of the Halles, near the Hôtel de Soissons, was a Bourse des Valeurs established entirely for the conduct of business connected with Law’s schemes. It is probable that Law was self-deceived. At any rate, when the bubble burst he was as hard hit financially as any of his victims, and, in addition, barely escaped with his life from their wrath, when they besieged his bank in the Place Vendôme and rushed, howling with rage, to the Palais Royal where they thought he had taken refuge. The government repudiated its debts, but private individuals could not do that and the ruin was general. A rhyme of the day says: On Monday I bought share on share; On Tuesday I was a millionaire; On Wednesday I took a grand abode; On Thursday in my carriage rode; On Friday drove to the Opera-ball; On Saturday came to the paupers’ hall.