Memoir of the life of John Law of Lauriston

232 APPENDIX.
advanced the nominal value of the specie,, and re-
established that of the notes, but all his measures
were useless. The depreciation of the notes was
such, that the holders accepted from the Govern-
ment such proportion of state funds as they were
pleased to offer for them, at the rate of a 50th and
even a 100th part of their nominal value. The ruin
of the bank crushed in its fall all the individuals
whose interests were connected with it : besides,
this bankruptcy lost to the public creditors upwards
of 44,000,000 of annual interest, and a capital of
more then 844 millions and a half.
If the credit of the bank notes could not be main-
tained, it is evident that that of the shares of the
Company's stock must have sunk still more. Their
value had not only not been declared legally fixed,
nor had the King guaranteed them as he had done
the bank notes ; but their dividends, uncertain in
their very nature, depended on the success of a tot-
tering company, which had embarked in operations
too vast and too dangerous to realise great or solid
profits; thus the fall of the Company's stock was still
greater and more rapid than that of its notes.
What pen can describe the confusion and ruin
of France on the retreat of Law ? gold and silver
had been hidden or exported to foreign countries ;
Dutot himself acknowledges that 500 millions, at
65 livres the mark, had been carried out of the
country; but when the fall of the notes, as of the