Hello and welcome. You are listening to Patrick Boyle on Finance, a podcast exploring ideas from quantitative finance, examining events occurring in markets right now and financial history to see what lessons can be taken away, including interviews with some of the most interesting people in the world of finance. To learn more about the podcast, visit onfinance.org.

There's not a lot in John Law's family history to suggest the professional gambler, murderer,

adventurer, financier, international celebrity and spy that he would one day become.

He was born into a family in Scotland that had for generations followed careers in the church.

Those not involved in the church had been goldsmith since the early 16th century.

Law was one of 12 children born to a prosperous goldsmith, only four of whom survived

childhood. In the late 17th century, goldsmiths enjoyed an elevated status above many other craftsmen.

They not only made jewelry, but like Law's father, many had developed an even more lucrative

sideline business as money dealers.

John, coming from a reasonably prosperous family, was raised and educated as a gentleman.

By the time he was 12 years old, his father bought Lauriston Castle just outside of Edinburgh and the land around

it, but then tragedy struck. His father travelled to Paris to have a bladder stone removed

and died on the operating table. Law's mother continued to run the family business and sent the

children to boarding school.

Law was a rebellious student at school and instead of continuing on to university as would have been expected of him,

he travelled to London, to womanise and to gamble with his inheritance.

Law was not off to a good start.

There were no signs at this point in his life that he would

bring together the economic ideas that would create an economy and monetary system in France

that looks much like the one that we have today. By his 21st birthday, Law's inheritance was squandered

and he was deep in dead. In order to avoid being sent

to debtor's prison, he wrote to his mother requesting that she sold a family castle to bail him

...