Abstract
When Philip V ascended to the Spanish throne in November 1700 the French government needed to move swiftly to ensure it could remit funds to support French forces that were, within a few months, deploying across the Spanish Monarchy’s lands. This was not going to be a matter of spasmodic, ad hoc transfers of money abroad, as it had been in the Nine Years’ War, although nobody at first was sure of the volume of remittances that would be needed. By spring 1702 it was, however, abundantly clear that huge sums were required and Louis XIV and his ministers would need to work very closely, year on year, with the strongest bankers, securing their services in a planned manner to ensure that his strategic goals — largely defensive ones — would be achieved. Part II of this book will therefore consider how the king and his ministers interacted with the leading bankers, what means the bankers used to support their operations, and how the pressures placed upon the banking system both by the king’s demands and by the manipulations of the bankers brought the French state’s entire remittance edifice crashing down in 1709.
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Notes
SHD A11519, no. 41: Berthelot de Duchy to Chamillart, 1 Mar. 1701; no. 187: Aubert to Chamillart, 12 July 1701; A11525, no. 182: Scareil to Chamillart, 30 Nov. 1701; AN G71121: ‘Memoire a observer sur la Conduitte qu’on tenûs ou tiennent ceux qui ont esté & sont chargé en France de faire remettre les fonds necessaires aux armées de France dans les pays estrangers’ [1709–10]; Sven Stelling-Michaud (1936), ‘Deux aspects du rôle financier de Genève pendant la guerre de Succession d’Espagne’, Bulletin de la société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève 6(2), 151.
Thierry Sarmant, Hervé Lemoine and Marc Boulanger (2000), Guerre, pouvoir et finance dans l’Alsace du Roi-Soleil. La famille Dietrich de 1681 à 1715 (Vincennes), pp. 80–8.
SHD A11613, no. 193: De Meuves to Chamillart, 1 Aug. 1702; A11699, no. 259: Berthelot de Pleneuf to Chamillart, 15 Jan. 1703; no. 260: Hogguer to Chamillart, 16 Jan. 1703; AN G71123: ‘Memoire pour le Sr. Boudart’ [1703]; ‘Memoire des frères Hogguer’ [late 1705 or early 1706]; Daniel Dessert (1984), Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand Siècle (Paris), pp. 196, 741–2; Lüthy I, pp. 172–4.
As people were often cavalier with the collateral they would pledge for loans, it is perhaps not surprising that lenders dealing with huge volumes of money and threatened by depreciating instruments would increasingly insist on additional items of guarantee. On the shaky collateral pledged by small borrowers, see Laurence Fontaine (2001), ‘Antonio and Shylock: Credit and Trust in France, c 1680-c. 1780’, Economic History Review 54, 44.
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AN G71122: Desmaretz to Le Rebours, 12 June 1712 (quotation); G71124–6: ‘Memoire a Monseigneur’ by Clapeyron, 22 Jan. 1713; [Clapeyron to Le Rebours?] [Jan. 1713]; Clapeyron to Desmaretz, 1 Feb. 1713; Henri Lévy-Brahl (1933), Histoire de la lettre de change en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris), p. 31; Lüthy I, pp. 186, 238–42.
Mathieu Marais, Journal et mémoires de Mathieu Marais, avocat au Parlement de Paris, sur la régence et le règne de Louis XV (1715–1737), éd. by Adolphe de Lescure (Paris, 1863), I, p. 376.
Jacques Saint-Germain (1960), Samuel Bernard, le banquier des rois (Paris), p. 83; Dangeau, VI, p. 198.
Victor de Swarte (1893), Un banquier du Trésor Royal au XVIIIesiècle. Samuel Bernard. Sa vie — sa correspondance (1651–1739) (Paris/Nancy), p. 18;
Georges Scelle (1906), La traite négrière aux Indes de Castille, contrats et traités d’Assiento; étude de droit public et d’histoire diplomatique puisée aux sources originales et accompagnée deplusieurs documents inédits (Paris), II, pp. 416–17; SHD A11594, no. 231: Bouchu to Chamillart, 25 May 1702.
AN G71120: Bernard to Chamillart, 12 Oct. 1707 (quotation); Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret (1970), Les Financiers de Languedoc au XVIIIesiècle (Paris), pp. 30, 44–5.
Thierry Claeys (2009), Dictionnaire biographique des financiers en France au XVIIIesiècle (Paris), II, p. 622. See also Chapter 2 on Amsterdam bankers.
Sieur Bouthillier de Chavigny Le Banquier François, ou la pratique des Lettres de Change, à l’usage de Messieurs les Negocians (Lyon, 1731), p. 62;
AN G71776, no. 236: Montargis to Chamillart, 13 Sep. 1704; G71120: Bernard to Chamillart, 11 May 1707; note entitled ‘Diminution d’especes aux 1ers mars, avril, et juin 1708’, 10 June 1708; La Clef du Cabinet des princes de l’Europe … Janvier 1712 [vol. XVI] (n.p., 1712), p. 42.
Jacob M. Price (1973), France and the Chesapeake. A History of the French Fobacco Monopoly, 1674–1791, and Its Relationship to the British and American Fobacco Frades (Ann Arbor), I, pp. 66–7.
Swarte, Un banquier, pp. 24–5; AN G71120: Bernard to Chamillart, 4 June 1703; mémoire by Bernard [Dec. 1703]; Michel de Gouberville (1994), ‘Armes et argent: les Berthelot, munitionnaires du Roi Soleil’, Annales de généalogie et d’héraldique 53, 11.
AN G71120: Bernard to Chamillart, 24 June and 6 Aug. 1704; Philippe Sagnac (1908), ‘Le crédit de l’État et les banquiers à la fin du XVIIe et au commencement du XVIIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 10, 263; CCG, II, p. 512: ‘Mémoire de M. Samuel Bernard’, 30 Jan. 1706.
[Charles Carrière] (1976), ‘Bilan. Réflexions imprudentes’, in Carrière et al. (eds), Banque et capitalisme commercial. La lettre de change au XVIIIesiècle (Marseille), p. 161; Lévy-Bruhl, Lettre de change, p. 36.
Jacques Savary Le Parfait Negociant … (Paris, 1679), II, p. 74.
AN G7544, dossier 10: to Chamillart, 11 Dec. 1704, cited in André-E. Sayous (1937), ‘Le financier Jean-Henri Huguetan à Amsterdam et à Genève’, Bulletin de la société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève 6(3), 262.
Lüthy I, p. 151; Sayous, ‘Le financier’, 258–60, 274; Alice Carter (1952–58), ‘The Huguenot Contribution to the Early Years of the Funded Debt, 1694–1714’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London 19(3), 40;
Ernest Labrousse, Pierre Léon et al. (1970), Histoire économique et sociale de la France. Tome II: Des derniers temps de l’âge seigneurial aux préludes de l’âge industriel (1660–1789) (Paris), pp. 273–4; BL Add. Ms. 70193, fos 3r and 4r: Drammond to Harley, 23 Oct. and 25 Nov. 1704 OS; AN G71119: Huguetan to Chamillart, 13 Aug. 1704.
G.N. Clark (1928), ‘War Trade and Trade War, 1701–1713’, The Economic History Review 1, 271; Calendar of Freasury Books (London, 1952), XX(ii), p. 39 (quotation).
Edouard Rott (1935), Histoire de la représentation diplomatique de la France auprès des Cantons suisses, de leurs alliés, et de leurs confédérés (Paris/Berne), X, p. 365 (quotation from William Aglionby to Nottingham, 1703, from the UK National Archives State Papers 96/10).
AN G71120: Bernard to Chamillart, 1 Dec. 1705 and 26 Dec. 1703; P.G.M. Dickson and J. Sperling (1970), ‘War Finance, 1689–1714’ (ch.9), in J.S. Bromley (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. VI: The Rise of Great Britain and Russia 1688–1715/25 (Cambridge), p. 303.
BL Add. Ms. 70193, fos 3r, 19r: Drammond to Harley 23 Oct. 1704 OS and 27 Jan. 1705 OS; SHD A11872, no. 86: La Closure to Chamillart, 21 Jan. 1705; Sayous, ‘Le financier’, 263; Lüthy, I, pp. 155–7; Claude-Frédéric Lévy (1969), Capitalistes et pouvoir au siècle des Lumières (Paris), I, p. 209;
Bernard to [Jean Tourton?], 13 July 1705, cited in Memorie instructyf, met de bylagen, in de zake van de weduwe Jean Tourton, in zyn leven koopman tot Amsterdam, tegens Jean Henry Huguetan … (1711), fo. 22,
reproduced in LH. van Eeghen (1982), ‘Europese “libraires”: de gebroeders Huguetan in Amsterdam (1686–1705)’, in Documentatieblad werkgroep Achttiende eeuw 53/54, 3.
See the magisterial work by Niall Ferguson (1998): The House of Rothschild. Volume I: Money’s Prophets, 1798–1848 (London).
Herbert H. Kaplan (2006), Nathan Meyer Rothschild and the Creation of a Dynasty. The Critical Years 1806–1816 (Stanford), has some useful figures.
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Rowlands, G. (2015). The Gathering Storm: The Development of a Remittance System, 1700–06. In: Dangerous and Dishonest Men: The International Bankers of Louis XIV’s France. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137381798_5
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