One incident, however, serves to show that there was no desire on the part of the nobility to admit Law to their ranks, and that their conduct in apparently placing him on their own social level was merely dictated by the possibility of utilising their friendship for financial gain. The Maréchal de Villeroi had arranged a ballet in which the young king was to appear. Such ballets had been common during the reign of Louis XIV., and were considered part of a nobleman’s education, which then chiefly consisted in “grace, address, exercise, respect for bearing, graduated and delicate politeness, polished and decent gallantry,” but had fallen entirely into disuse during the Regency. Great difficulty was accordingly experienced by the Maréchal in obtaining a sufficient number of dancers amongst the nobility who alone were formerly privileged to take part in the royal entertainment. Many were admitted who would not otherwise have been allowed to join in the ballet, and Law requested the Regent to obtain the honour for his son of being allowed to join the company. The Maréchal was unable to refuse the Regent’s request, but the idea of a commoner’s son occupying a place in a royal ballet so scandalised the feelings of social propriety of the privileged circle that “nothing else was spoken of for some days; tongues wagged freely, too; and a good deal of dirty water was thrown upon other dancers in the ballet.” The success of the ballet was thus threatened, and the whole project promised to be a total failure when it was announced that Law’s son had fallen ill from small-pox. The cause of all the difficulties having thus been removed, the high-born courtiers displayed their undisguised satisfaction and proceeded with calmer feelings to carry out the first and only Court ballet which graced the reign of Louis XV.
While Law’s influence at this time was all-powerful in the government of France, he was without any of the outward symbols of authority. He held no office, and his influence accordingly could only be exercised indirectly. He enjoyed the splendour of the position to which he had attained, but did not possess any official mark of greatness. Two obstacles existed to official advancement. His religion was not that recognised by the State; and his nationality was foreign. Both of these he was now prepared to renounce. The abjuration of his religion was a step which required to be accomplished with the utmost caution. All the elements of sincerity were lacking, and Law’s conversion was likely to be regarded as a merely political move. There was danger moreover of the public regarding the conversion of Law under royal auspices in the light of a highly scandalous proceeding, and considering that it might derogate from the high office to which he was destined and for which the abjuration of his religion was a necessary preliminary. There was a circumstance also in Law’s career which under ordinary conditions would have militated against his admission to the Roman Catholic communion, and therefore required delicate treatment. Law had not been legally married to the lady whom he passed off as his wife, and the law of the Church strictly required cessation of all relations with her. This, naturally, was a course to which Law would not assent since by her he had a son and a daughter, and since her husband Senor was now dead for many years. It was accordingly necessary to have a very indulgent converter, one who would not only attest sincere conversion but would at the same time refrain from interfering with Law’s connubial relations. An accommodating instrument had therefore to be found, and Dubois was ready to supply him in the person of a certain Abbé Tencin. “I shall give you,” said Dubois, “neither a curé nor a habitué de paroisse: they are too much bound by formularies, maxims, and rigid rules; you will have the Abbé Tencin, a man of considerable talent whom I know intimately; he can convert and receive into the Church Mr. Law and all his family.” The Abbé was undoubtedly a man of talent, ambitious and witty, but unfortunately had acquired a reputation for unscrupulousness, and a degree of dishonesty inconsistent with his high professions. Regarded with suspicion, and denied the friendship of those with whom his calling would have brought him into contact, he devoted himself to intriguing on behalf of politicians and others to whom a man of the ability and cunningness of the Abbé was indispensable. To Dubois he was invaluable, but he also had that minister under his control through his having compromised himself with Madame de Tencin. The Abbé found in this a powerful lever, and unfailingly turned it to his own advantage at every opportunity. Law’s conversion was such an opportunity, and one which opened out a prospect of enrichment he had not as yet enjoyed.
With the approval of the Regent, the Abbé was accordingly deputed to perform the delicate task of making Law a Catholic. A short time was allowed to elapse before the actual ceremony took place, and in the interval it was supposed that Law, under the spiritual guidance of the Abbé, was preparing himself for the solemn and important step he was about to take. But by no ingenious form of deception, however mild, was the Abbé able to give even a colour of sincerity to Law’s conversion, and he was therefore placed under the necessity of choosing some other place than Paris for the performance of the ceremony lest the people, outraged in their notions of religious propriety, should resort to forcible measures to prevent the ceremony from taking place. The Church of the Récollets in Melun was accordingly chosen as a sufficiently safe and retired scene for the abjuration, and on 17th September, 1719, the necessary formalities were performed, the Abbé retiring from “his pious task with many shares and bank-notes.” The event was made the occasion of sarcastic verse of which a few fragments still survive. The following fragment preserved in the “Memoris du Maréchal Duc de Richelieu” celebrates the bestowal of the title of Primate of the Mississippi upon the Abbé by the Colonel of the Regiment of Skull-Caps, a burlesque association which jested on all events:—
Nous Colonel de la Calotte,
Pour empêcher par tous moyens,
Que l’erreur des Luthériens
Et que la Doctrine Huguenotte
N’infecte notre Régiment
D’un pernicieux sentiment;
Et pour mettre dans la voye,