Read Online Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance by Janet Gleeson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Janet Gleeson
Tags: Trade and Finance
Ads: Link
preoccupied Law throughout his years of exile.
Gaming, “a perpetual diversion here, if not one of the debauches of the town,” claimed his interest, and even more so than in London offered the easiest way to meet high society. As one visitor put it, “It is a great misfortune for a stranger not to be able to play, but yet a greater to love it. Without gaming one can’t enter into that sort of company that usurps the name of
Beau Monde,
and no other qualification but that and money are requisite to recommend to the first company in France.” Predictably, much of Law’s time was spent in stylish salons mingling with the elite, gaining their confidence with his insinuating charm and impeccable manners before fleecing them at faro and basset, two of the most fashionable and high-rolling games of the day, at which he excelled. The odds in both games are stacked heavily in favor of the banker—a role Law adopted whenever he could, possibly paying his hostess for the privilege. One acquaintance remembered that Law “never carried less than two bags filled with gold coins worth around 100,000 livres” and that the stakes were so high that his hands “were unable to contain the coins he wished to stake” and he had his own tokens minted, each worth eighteen louis d’or.
Travel, and the unfortunate affair with Mrs. Lawrence, had done nothing to blunt Law’s enthusiasm for romance. Perhaps it was after a particularly successful evening at the tables that he was introduced to Madame Katherine Seigneur, née Knowles, an expatriate outsider in the court of St. Germain who had married a Frenchman. Katherine was of noble birth, a descendant of Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn and the sister of the Earl of Banbury. Law had probably met her brother, and if not had certainly heard of him while in the King’s Bench prison in London: he, too, had been involved in a fatal duel. There are no surviving original portraits of her, although she sat at least once for her friend, the famous Italian pastelist Rosalba Carriera, but a Dutch engraving, possibly made after one of the portraits, shows an immaculately dressed woman with dainty features, a generous bosom, and a minuscule waist. Judging by descriptions of her she was not, however, an obvious target for Law’s attentions. The Duc de Saint-Simon recalled candidly that she was “rather handsome,” but that her beauty was flawed by a birthmark like a wine stain “covering one eye and the upper part of her cheek.” Katherine had another crucial distinction: among the overpowdered, overrouged, coquettish ladies of fashionable Paris, Saint-Simon noticed, “she was proud, overbearing and very impertinent in her talk and manners, seldom returning any of the polite attentions offered to her.” Although in England overtly intelligent women were not generally esteemed—most men would have tended to agree with Samuel Johnson’s later quip that “a man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner on his table than when his wife talks Greek”—in France it was different. Amid Parisian society, women enjoyed a greater level of independence. “It is observable,” wrote one visitor, “that the French allow their women all imaginable freedoms, and are seldom troubled by jealousy; nay, a Frenchman will almost suffer you to court his wife before his face, and is even angry if you do not admire her person.” Perhaps Law, having learned to respect his mother’s formidable business acumen, had an unusual regard for clever, outspoken females, and this daunting, difficult, striking woman reminded him of his awe-inspiring mother Jean—or, accustomed as he was to easy conquests, he simply found her hauteur challenging. In any event, he pursued Katherine with determination, and she, evidently dissatisfied by her marriage, must have responded. Yet even had she not been married, such a relationship would have caused consternation: Katherine was of noble birth, while Law was a
Gaming, “a perpetual diversion here, if not one of the debauches of the town,” claimed his interest, and even more so than in London offered the easiest way to meet high society. As one visitor put it, “It is a great misfortune for a stranger not to be able to play, but yet a greater to love it. Without gaming one can’t enter into that sort of company that usurps the name of
Beau Monde,
and no other qualification but that and money are requisite to recommend to the first company in France.” Predictably, much of Law’s time was spent in stylish salons mingling with the elite, gaining their confidence with his insinuating charm and impeccable manners before fleecing them at faro and basset, two of the most fashionable and high-rolling games of the day, at which he excelled. The odds in both games are stacked heavily in favor of the banker—a role Law adopted whenever he could, possibly paying his hostess for the privilege. One acquaintance remembered that Law “never carried less than two bags filled with gold coins worth around 100,000 livres” and that the stakes were so high that his hands “were unable to contain the coins he wished to stake” and he had his own tokens minted, each worth eighteen louis d’or.
Travel, and the unfortunate affair with Mrs. Lawrence, had done nothing to blunt Law’s enthusiasm for romance. Perhaps it was after a particularly successful evening at the tables that he was introduced to Madame Katherine Seigneur, née Knowles, an expatriate outsider in the court of St. Germain who had married a Frenchman. Katherine was of noble birth, a descendant of Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn and the sister of the Earl of Banbury. Law had probably met her brother, and if not had certainly heard of him while in the King’s Bench prison in London: he, too, had been involved in a fatal duel. There are no surviving original portraits of her, although she sat at least once for her friend, the famous Italian pastelist Rosalba Carriera, but a Dutch engraving, possibly made after one of the portraits, shows an immaculately dressed woman with dainty features, a generous bosom, and a minuscule waist. Judging by descriptions of her she was not, however, an obvious target for Law’s attentions. The Duc de Saint-Simon recalled candidly that she was “rather handsome,” but that her beauty was flawed by a birthmark like a wine stain “covering one eye and the upper part of her cheek.” Katherine had another crucial distinction: among the overpowdered, overrouged, coquettish ladies of fashionable Paris, Saint-Simon noticed, “she was proud, overbearing and very impertinent in her talk and manners, seldom returning any of the polite attentions offered to her.” Although in England overtly intelligent women were not generally esteemed—most men would have tended to agree with Samuel Johnson’s later quip that “a man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner on his table than when his wife talks Greek”—in France it was different. Amid Parisian society, women enjoyed a greater level of independence. “It is observable,” wrote one visitor, “that the French allow their women all imaginable freedoms, and are seldom troubled by jealousy; nay, a Frenchman will almost suffer you to court his wife before his face, and is even angry if you do not admire her person.” Perhaps Law, having learned to respect his mother’s formidable business acumen, had an unusual regard for clever, outspoken females, and this daunting, difficult, striking woman reminded him of his awe-inspiring mother Jean—or, accustomed as he was to easy conquests, he simply found her hauteur challenging. In any event, he pursued Katherine with determination, and she, evidently dissatisfied by her marriage, must have responded. Yet even had she not been married, such a relationship would have caused consternation: Katherine was of noble birth, while Law was a
Similar Books
