speculation gave way to panic as people flooded the market with future shares trading as high as fifteen thousand livres per share, while the shares themselves maintained at ten thousand livres each. by may 1720, prices fell to 4,000 livres per share, a 73% decrease within a year. the rush to convert paper money to coins led to sporadic bank hours and riots. squatters now occupied the square of palace louis-le-grand and openly attacked the financiers that inhabited the area. it was under these circumstances and the cover of night that john law left paris some seven months later, leaving all of his substantial property assets in france, including the place vendôme and at least twenty-one chateaux which he had purchased over his years in paris, for the repayment of creditors.