A radically false system, fated to plunge the state, and consequently the whole nation, into the risks of speculation and trading, without the guarantee of that activity, zeal, and prompt resolution which able men of business can import into their private enterprises.

The system was not as yet applied; the discreet routine of the French financiers was scared at such risky chances, the pride of the great lords sitting in the council was shocked at the idea of seeing the state turning banker, perhaps even trader.

St.Simon maintained that what was well enough for a free state, could not take place under an absolute government.

Law went on, however; to his bank he had just added a great company.

The king ceded to him Louisiana, which was said to be rich in gold and silver mines, superior to those of Mexico and Peru.
People vaunted the fertility of the soil, the facility offered for trade by the extensive and rapid stream of the Mississippi; it was by the name of that river that the new company was called at first, though it soon took the title of _Compagnie d' Occident,_ when it had obtained the privilege of trading in Senegal and in Guinea; it became the _Compagnie des Indes,_ on forming a fusion with the old enterprises which worked the trade of the East.