Financier · 1671–1729

John Law

Regency France fused his note-issuing bank with Mississippi Company shares. Both broke in 1720.

Portrait of John Law in a grey wig, holding a sealed letter.
John Law, after Alexis Simon Belle (19th-century copy, Château de Versailles).Public domain.

John Law persuaded the Regency of Philippe d’Orléans to charter a bank whose notes and a colonial share company rose together. In 1720 the paper and the shares came down together.

That is one regency’s paper-and-shares collapse — notes and Mississippi equity breaking in the same year.

John Law and the Mississippi Bubble →