French Literature Reviews - 2026
Arnaud Orain, La politique du merveilleux. Une autre histoire du Système de Law (1695-1795)
History, Politics and Society
Review published in the critical dossier of Acta Fabula "Inventing the Economy" (October 2022, Vol. 23, no. 8): "The Tales of Political Economy in the 18th Century" by Slaven Waelti.
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Arnaud Orain, La Politique du merveilleux. Une autre histoire du Système de Law (1695-1795), Paris, Fayard, 2018, 394 p.
Drawing on a neglected body of sources, Arnaud Orain sheds new light on the fairy tale crafted by the State to enforce Law's System and secure total control over the nation's economic activity. Contrary to conventional belief, the "system" established in France during the regency of the Duke of Orleans was not merely an accident engineered by a solitary genius, the Scot John Law. Nor can it be reduced to a financial experiment that ultimately collapsed into banknote failure and speculative excess.
Offering a thorough reassessment of this famous episode, Arnaud Orain reveals the extraordinary ambition of a "system" designed to exert total state control over the economic apparatus. Situated at the crossroads of utopian visions and colonial dreams forged since the late 17th century—and propelled by intense propaganda that framed the "system" as a wondrous fairytale—this grand Leviathan was intended to completely overhaul the kingdom's social fabric and counter the alarming rise of liberalism. Its echoes would resonate throughout the Enlightenment and all the way to the great storm of 1789.
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Arnaud Orain is a professor at the Institute for European Studies at Paris 8 University. His research focuses on the cultural history of political economy.
The historical period surrounding the Regency of the Duke of Orleans remains a defining moment in the emergence of modern financial structures and statecraft in France. Scholarly investigations into this era frequently engage with the complex interplay between emerging monetary theories, colonial expansion, and the shifting boundaries of royal authority.
Readers interested in the cultural history of political economy and the ideological dimensions of early eighteenth-century financial experiments may find this volume relevant. Arnaud Orain's La Politique du merveilleux. Une autre histoire du Système de Law (1695-1795) draws on a neglected body of sources to shed light on the fairy tale crafted by the State to enforce Law's System and secure total control over the nation's economic activity.