Once upon a time, in pre-revolutionary Paris, French prisoners were set free under the condition that they married prostitutes and emigrated with them to Louisiana. The newlyweds were chained together, escorted to the port and sent to the land of the free. This bizarre and little-known anecdote of history comes from the story of one of the earliest examples of an economic bubble that gave birth to the term, “millionaire“, first coined in 18th century France.....MUCH MORE, including some dandy pics.
Ever heard of the Mississippi Company or the Mississippi bubble? Maybe you glossed over it in high school history class. The Compagnie du Mississippi was a corporate monopoly founded in France to profit from trade in the French colonies within North America and the West Indies. At the start of the 18th century, France found itself bankrupt no thanks to Louis XIV and his long drawn-out wars, excessive spending and general f*ckery. But the country still owned the Louisiana Territory, which promised to be a “Garden of Eden”, rich in gold, fur and rubies…
Enter John Law, a passionate economist and mathematician with a gambling problem. Yeah – one of those. So this guy pitches up in Paris and starts hobnobbing with nobility at high stakes gambling parties and becomes chummy with powerful people like the Duke of Orléans, who has just become Regent for the country’s new five year-old king. With Law’s influence and charm, soon enough he convinces French authorities to support a complex plan to create the country’s first central bank with a monopoly on national finance – and the Mississippi Company … to do its dirty work. In order to sell shares in that company, he then sets about convincing the French people that Louisiana is going to make them all rich. And they buy it, quite literally.
Everyone wants a piece in the Mississippi Company, and share prices skyrocket. Meanwhile John Law has the government printing more paper money than there is gold and silver to back it. When shares quickly sell out, the public starts buying shares from each other with paper money. And more of the green stuff gets printed....
Previously from Nessy:
For Sale: "An Abandoned Overgrown Estate is the Last of its Kind in the Heart of Paris"
"The Louvre’s Secret Apartments"
Huh, Apparently The Barbie Doll Began Life As a High-end German Call Girl Named Lilli
Picasso Pics For Sale, Cheap (chateau included)
Art Institute of Chicago Recreates Van Gogh's Bedroom, Puts it On Airbnb
Now It Can Be Told: Mohammed bin Salman Was the Mystery Buyer of the $300 Million French Château
There's Realism, There's Hyperrealism, There's Photo-Realism and Then There's This
The Man Who Sold The Eiffel Tower, Twice and A (bath) Room With A View
...Behind the frosted sliding doors of a cozy bedroom inside a 5th floor Parisian apartment, draw the bath after dark and wait for the show to start…
Messy Nessy Chic homepage
And on John Law and the Mississippi Company:
France and the Mississippi Bubble
The fact that this bubble was contemporaneous with the English South Sea Bubble and the lesser-known Dutch Wind bubble is just amazing.
France and the Mississippi Bubble: "Money for nothing: A history of mania in John Law's Mississippi Company stock"
New York Fed: "The Mississippi Bubble of 1720 and the European Debt Crisis"
Pathology: Lottery Mania and Market Bubbles
Lessons From the Mississippi Bubble--Edward Chancellor
And that Dutch bubble?
So You Are Well Versed In South Sea Bubble Lore, Know Law and the Mississippi Madness But Do You Recall....
...The Dutch 'Wind-trade', which also popped and dropped during those memorable months of 1719 - 1720?
From Professor (Erasmus U., Rotterdam) David Smant's personal website:
DUTCH MIRROR OF FOLLY, Windhandel 1720
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