About book Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, And Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance (2001)
John Law has to be one of the most fascinating men of the 18th century. The son of self-made goldsmith in Scotland, he rose to be one of the richest people in Europe, then the most powerful man in France, and finally a hated bankrupt chased across the continent for the remainder of his life.The hidden secret of Law's success, as this book shows, is that after some early gambling losses, he took to studying the new science of probability created by Pascal and others. During this era of obsessive gambling (there was little else to do in all those aristocratic salons), this skill, along with his tall stature, charm, and radiant good looks, gave him access to the finest homes in Europe, and, along with his insistence on playing the "bank" or house in most of these games, made him an immense fortune, all without any work, which he insisted he despised.Yet his studies of probabilities also made him curious about finance, and led him to propose a variety of disinterested schemes to fund the British Treasury, such as his early idea for a bank based on landed property. Yet after his libertine lifestyle led to a fatal duel, and time Newgate prison, he made a supposedly daring escape to France where he insinuated himself with the new regent, the Duc D'Orleans, who took his new plan for a national bank and ran with it. The new Banque Francais made some of the earliest large issues of paper money in Europe, and it made both Law and the French state fabulously wealthy. Law became the obsession of all Paris. The regent's mother griped that "If Law wanted it, the French ladies would kiss his backside," and with disgust told stories about how French ladies insisted he urinate in front of them so they could see his penis, but even she was charmed. The country after all was recovering from Louis XIV's wars, and they loved the prosperity this Brit brought. The word millionaire was coined to describe the new breed of wealthy stock traders created out of the boom.Then, of course, it all went wrong. Law's Banque Francais got tied up in his Mississippi Company, which, with the notable exception of the founding of New Orleans, made little progress in colonizing the New World. Despite passing new laws dragooning prisoners and semi-prisoners into ships for this colony, the company was near bust. The Bank too was overemitting currency, and this led to rampant inflation and a stampede away from the now-distrusted paper money. Soon gold and silver coins were banned to force people to use the paper, at which people began eagerly using diamonds and gems to trade, until the sale of these was also forbidden. Then dishes, plates and tureens made of precious metal were traded, until all these was restricted with the modest exception for religious paraphernalia. Quickly the prices of crosses and chalices rose. When the whole system collapsed Law, still convinced of his own righteousness, had to flee the country in disguise, and France refused to deal with paper money for almost another hundred years, seriously hampering its economic future.The author, Janet Gleeson, makes a good case that Law was acting disinterestedly in forming the Banque Francais, and he did sincerely believe in his schemes, but she makes a less convincing case that it was on the cusp of working. Also, the book tends to provide little background and character for this obviously cultural and popular history, and yet somehow misses out on much analysis. This is a subject and a character that Gleeson maybe just scratched the surface of, and the reader leaves wanting to know much more.
This is completely the type of biography I wouldn't normally pick up. I bought it on a whim from Amazon, and was REALLY glad I did. Not only is Jon Law incredibly interesting in himself, but the people surrounding him were just as fascinating. The author does a superb job of telling the story without flourish, but keeping it constantly interesting. I absolutely abhor history/biography books that are 50% or more conjecture. It means that you never once can actually believe the author, and so you truly have no idea how much you actually learned about the subject of the book. Then you hate using even a bit of the information when discussing things with others because you don't know if the thing you think you know is a fact or something the author recreated in their own mind. This book has none of that junk.Absolute bonus points for this book because the author obviously knows her Voltaire. She intersperses quotes and references from Voltaire's own work throughout, and I could tell she leaned heavily on him when creating this biography.
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This book is all there is to know about John Law, a Scotsman who came to rule French finances for a brief period under the regency during Louis XV’s minority. And boy did he fuck it up. He takes France through a great financial boom (the first, the author asserts but this can’t be true) and then the rapidly following spectacular, and for Law, fatal, bust. The author leaves detailed explanations aside and sticks with the historical record and some sweeping assertions. There’s quite a bit about Law’s life but not much about what it all meant. Yes, his is a colourful story but the life gets sucked out of it by the author’s sunday magazine style.
—Bluenose
