He subsequently neglected the firm in favour of extravagant pursuits and travelled to London, where he lost large sums by gambling.

[10] On 9 April 1694, John Law fought a duel with another British dandy, Edward "Beau" Wilson, in Bloomsbury Square, London.

[11] He appeared before the infamously sadistic "hanging judge" Salathiel Lovell and was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

[10] Law urged the establishment of a national bank to create and increase instruments of credit and the issue of banknotes backed by land, gold, or silver.

[14][15]: 136  Law's propositions of creating a national bank in Scotland were ultimately rejected, and he left to pursue his ambitions abroad.

The council called to consider Law's proposal, including financiers such as Samuel Bernard, rejected the proposition on 24 October 1715.

Gaining the attention of such notable people as the Duke of Orleans, Law quickly found himself a regular in high-stakes gambling parties attended by only the most affluent of Paris.

His tall stature and elegant dress allowed Law to charm his way across Europe's financial hubs, from Amsterdam to Venice.

Since, following the devastating War of the Spanish Succession, France's economy was stagnant and her national debt was crippling, Law proposed to stimulate industry by replacing gold with paper credit and then increasing the supply of credit, and to reduce the national debt by replacing it with shares in economic ventures.

The second key feature of the proposal centred on the premise that this private bank was able to issue its own currency backed by Louis d'or.

[19]: 277 In May 1716 Law set up the Banque Générale Privée ("General Private Bank") in the rue Quincampoix in Paris, which developed the use of paper money.

[20] It was one of only six such banks to have issued paper money in Europe, joining Sweden, Scotland[21] England, Holland, Venice, and Genoa.

The rapid ascension of this new global monopoly led to massive speculation and stock prices ballooned to over sixty times their original value.

He tried to break up large land-holdings to benefit the peasants; he abolished internal road and canal tolls; he encouraged the building of new roads, the starting of new industries (even importing artisans but mostly by offering low-interest loans), and the revival of overseas commerce — and indeed industry increased by 60 per cent in two years, and the number of French ships engaged in export went from 16 to 300.

[4][24]: 919 Between May and December 1719 the market price of a share rose from 500 to 10,000 livres[19]: 277  and continued rising into early 1720, supported by Law's 4 per cent dividend promise.

[15]: 147 [24]: 920 [25] As the public rushed to convert banknotes to coin, Law was forced to close the Banque Générale for ten days, then limit the transaction size once the bank reopened.

[30] The company's shares were ultimately rendered worthless, and initially inflated speculation about their worth led to widespread financial stress, which saw Law dismissed at the end of 1720 from his sinecure as Controller General[4] and his post as Chief Director of the Banque Générale.

Law's theories live on 300 years later and "captured many key conceptual points which are very much a part of modern monetary theorizing.