Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous M... by Michael S. Kimmel

The stories of these bursting bubbles and the plague bring together a cast of characters that Hollywood would envy. Perhaps the Queen might have been well advised recently to incorporate such a fast into her television address to the British nation.īy the end of 1720 the bubbles had burst and left in their wake a destroyed financial system in France, a near broken financial structure in London and one hundred thousand dead from plague in Marseille and Provence. Such was the fear of it that a Royal Proclamation was issued for a ‘Public Fast’ in England and Wales on December 16, 1720, along with prayers composed by the Archbishops and Bishops of England.

The plague, which accentuated the bursting of the Mississippi System bubble, also had an adverse effect on the South Sea Bubble as, through the Autumn of 1720, the fear grew in London that it would spread into England. The plague was that which devastated the population of Marseille and its surrounding areas in the second half of 1720. The bubbles were those of the Mississippi System in France and the South Sea Bubble in Great Britain. This year is the ter-centenary of a somewhat similar scenario which may be categorised as two bubbles and a plague. Today we are witnesses to a global pandemic that has caused a near asphyxiation of economic activity, killed many thousands and made financial markets highly volatile. The adage goes that history repeats itself.

Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous M... by Michael S. Kimmel