[John Law and The Mississippi Bubble]
Quote:During a long reign of 72 years, Louis XIV had elevated France to the foremost position in Europe, and in the process had reduced his subjects to poverty and the state to bankruptcy. At the end of the reign of Louis XIV, in 1715, the consolidated debt of the government totaled around two billion livres, and the floating debt an additional billion. The interest on this debt was around 86 million livres, against state revenues of 165 million livres, leaving less than 70 million livres to meet a state budget of 150 million livres. The debt had increased twenty-fold in less than 30 years.
https://mises.org/library/great-paper-money-experiment
