Law, however, was not permitted to escape so easily from public reflection upon the apparent motives of his action. A heated controversy arose between Jansenites, who, influenced only by rigid principle, were indignant at the manner in which a sacred rite had been in their opinion grossly abused, and the Jesuits, who, inclined to place more weight upon outward ceremony, were convinced, or at least declared they were convinced, of the sincerity of the conversion. Nor were matters improved when during the controversy all the compromising features of Law’s past life were diligently gathered and as diligently published to a curious and interested community.
But Law chose to treat the matter in a spirit of indifference, and by refraining from making any attempt to refute or explain the statements of his opponents the storm subsided from mere exhaustion.
A few days after the ceremony at Saint-Roch, on 5th January, 1720, Law was named Controller General of Finance in place of D’Argenson, whose tenure of office was wholly at Law’s mercy. Law had merely to create difficulties for his nominee, in order to obtain his resignation, and D’Argenson wise enough to perceive the futility of opposing the designs of Law readily yielded up the most important office in the national administration. As Voltaire remarks, Law had in the space of four years developed from a Scotsman into a Frenchman; from a Protestant into a Catholic; from an adventurer into a lord of the fairest lands of the kingdom; and from a banker into a minister of state. His phenomenal rise from obscurity to the highest office, and that in a foreign country, was an apparent witness to the truth of his theories, and the circumstance that he did not allow himself to be overcome by overestimation of his own importance, but maintained an unassuming and unpretentious manner throughout the whole of this period secured for him the personal attachment and admiration of the whole nation, and for his opinions a greater degree of implicit faith than probably they would otherwise have received.
The Regent was himself delighted with the preferment he was thus easily enabled to confer upon his favourite, and marked the occasion by a lavish distribution of grants and pensions to numerous courtiers and relations. Of these the Duke of Saint-Simon mentions grants of 600,000 livres to La Fare, captain of the guard; 100,000 livres to Castries, chevalier d’honneur to Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans; 200,000 to the Prince de Courtenay; and 60,000 livres to the Comte de la Marche, the infant son of the Prince de Conti. Saint-Simon then adds that “seeing so much depredation, and no recovery to hope for, I asked M. la Duc d’Orléans to attach 12,000 livres, by way of increase, to my government of Senlis, which was worth only 1000 livres, and of which my second son had the reversion. I obtained it at once.”
Two other honours of a different character were also conferred upon Law during these few months of greatness. One came from his native city, which was now anxious to do homage to the man of whom it formerly had reason to be somewhat ashamed. This consisted of the freedom of Edinburgh, presented to him in a gold casket of magnificent workmanship, which had cost the municipal treasury the sum of £300. The other consisted in his election as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences, an honour of the highest order and conferred only upon Frenchmen of outstanding ability. In this latter condition was found the excuse for purging his name from the roll on his downfall, his election which took place on 2nd December, 1719, having preceded his naturalisation.
The magnitude and diversity of interests to which Law’s time and attention was now devoted were such as to cause him to enlist the services of his brother, William Law, a man of parts but much inferior in ability to his more brilliant brother.
William Law was first appointed representative of the Bank on the London Exchange, and so great was the standing of the Bank in the opinion of English commercial circles that the bulk of remittances for France passed through his hands. His business capacity, however, was such as to warrant Law in bringing his brother over to Paris, and accordingly a London office was established in the Strand under the management of one George Middleton. Before setting out for Paris, William Law had made arrangements for the importation into France of considerable numbers of skilled workmen, chiefly gold and silver smiths. It had always been one of Law’s objects to develop France into a great industrial nation, and one of the methods he adopted to accomplish this end was to rob England of its best workmen by offering substantial inducements. A factory was established at Versailles in which it was intended to carry on, on a large scale, a business which would gradually absorb certain classes of trade that had hitherto been practically the monopoly of British manufacturers. Success however did not come as Law had anticipated. No doubt his efforts were a stimulating influence, but he was to discover that trade, which was not of natural growth, seldom prospered by purely artificial means.
William Law on his arrival in Paris was received with that welcome which his relationship with the Comptroller-General naturally secured for him. He was introduced immediately to the Regent, and was not only made one of the directors of the Bank, but was also appointed to the office of Postmaster-General—a circumstance which alone indicates the commanding influence Law exercised over the Regent and the government of France. These two brothers lived in princely fashion in Paris, honoured and courted by everyone from the Regent downwards. Each accumulated enormous wealth, but directed its investment into different channels. William purchased land and estates in his native country, not that he foresaw the possibility of the collapse of his brother’s schemes, but because he had no desire to permanently settle in France. John, on the other hand, with the intention of becoming a Frenchman so far as that was possible in spite of his origin, acquired great estates throughout the land of his adoption, and thus incidentally evinced his confidence in the sterling value of his financial schemes. His nephew compiled a list of his more important investments, aggregating almost 8,000,000 livres:—
| La Marquisat d’Effiat | 800,000 | livres. |
| La Terre de la Rivière | 900,000 | „ |
| La Marquisat de Toncy | 160,000 | „ |
| La Terre de la Marche | 120,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Roissy | 650,000 | „ |
| La Terre d’Orcher | 400,000 | „ |
| Terre et Bois de Brean | 160,000 | „ |
| Marquisats de Charleville et Bacqueville | 330,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Berville | 200,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Fontaine Rome | 130,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Serville | 110,000 | „ |
| La Terre d’Yville | 200,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Serponville | 220,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Tancarville | 320,000 | „ |
| La Terre de Guermande | 160,000 | „ |
| Hotel Mazarin, et Emplacemens Rue Vivienne | 1,200,000 | „ |
| Emplacemens Rue de Varenne | 110,000 | „ |
| Emplacemens de la Place Louis le Grand | 250,000 | „ |
| Partie du fief de la Grange Batelière | 150,000 | „ |
| Marais on Chartiers du Fauxbourg St. Honore | 160,000 | „ |
| Maisons, surtout dans Paris | 700,000 | „ |
| Les Domains de Bourget | 90,000 | „ |
| Quelques petites terres, comme Valançay, St. Suplice, etc. | 350,000 | „ |
Not by any means a strikingly large list for the man who had in so few years enabled the Regent and innumerable members of the aristocracy to accumulate vast wealth and rehabilitate the fortunes which successive generations had squandered in reckless extravagance.