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46-421: In the 17th and 18th centuries the fermiers généraux became immensely rich and figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage, as supporters of French music, major collectors of paintings and sculpture, patrons of the marchands-merciers and consumers of the luxury arts in the vanguard of Parisian fashions. In his 1833 novel Ferragus , writer Honoré de Balzac attributes the sad air that hangs about

92-517: A shop sign had premises, following an old tradition, in a house on the Pont Notre-Dame . There, he advertised in 1740, he "Sells all sorts of new and tasteful hardware ( Clainquaillerie ), trinkets, mirrors, cabinet pictures, pagods , lacquer and porcelain from Japan, shellwork and other specimens of natural history, stones, agates, and generally all curious and exotic merchandise". A newcomer, Granchet, opened premises Au petit Dunkerque , in

138-428: A merchant of merchandise, but in the 18th century took the connotation of a merchant of objets d'art . Earliest references to this Corps de la Ville de Paris can be found at the close of the 16th century, but in the 18th century marchands-merciers were shopkeepers but they also played an important role in the decoration of Paris homes. In fact, they served as general contractors, designing and commissioning pieces of

184-425: A symbol of an unequal society. The Ferme générale , and the great wealth of its proprietors, was seen as encapsulating all the perversions of the political and social system. People blamed the injustices and annoyances – which actually arose from the complexity of the tax system – on the company itself, including the brutality of tax collecting troops and the brutal repression of smuggling. The gabelle (tax on salt)

230-405: A time, and the apprenticeships were duly enregistered at the corporation's offices in rue du Petit-Lion (rue Quincampoix). A sum changed hands, estimated by Guillaume Glorieux as averaging about 1720 500 or 600 livres , and a larger sum was owed to the corporation when the individual was received master ( maîtris ), some 1700 livres . There were two exceptions to this rule, made for purveyors to

276-572: A title he transmitted to his eldest son Louis-François. He became a financial counselor to Louis XIV . He invested in the Guinea Company and the Asiento Company, two lucrative overseas franchises involved in the slave trade. The king eventually offered him a 15‑year trade monopoly in Louisiana. Crozat's term running and influencing Louisiana was quite unpopular with the settlers, and Crozat ceded

322-515: Is considered the noblest and most excellent of all the Corporations of Merchants, all the more because those who compose it do not labour at all and make no handiwork, if it were not to beautify those things that are already made and manufactured" Though they were confined by law to no narrow specialisation, the Parisian marchands-merciers followed narrow fields— Savary distinguished twenty— following

368-474: The marchands-mercier , a type of merchants who dealt with decorative art objects. As consumers of luxurious art the farmers-general were at the vanguard of Parisian fashion, like Ange Laurent Lalive de Jully , a patron of arts who embraced the early form of neoclassicist style in decorative arts called the goût grec (lit. "Greek taste"). Others merely made themselves notorious for their squander, like Ange Laurent's brother Denis Joseph de La Live d'Épinay,

414-633: The Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic coast, considered to be one of the great engineering feats of the 17th century. The process was further developed under the aegis of Jean-Baptiste Colbert , Minister of Finance to King Louis XIV . To reduce the number of these farmers and to increase the share of the collection transferred to the Royal Treasury, Colbert sought to gather a great number of rights together in fermes générales (general farms). The first fermes générales

460-487: The Ferme générale system led the government to introduce new regulations in 1769, which turned the collection of taxes and the administration of the service to which taxation was entrusted to public organisations, with their managers receiving a fixed remuneration. The public career of the reforming economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot began with his appointment in 1761 as intendant of the généralité of Limoges . In 1780, at

506-462: The Ferme générale was regulated by six-year contracts between the King and an individual who acted as a figurehead for the company. The Ferme générale held guarantee for the contractor. The number of partners was fixed at 40, after having reached nearly 90 earlier. The contractor committed himself to paying the Royal Treasury the amount of the lease and received in return any surplus. In 1780 an upper limit

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552-429: The Ferme générale were not royal civil servants but they acted in the name of the king, and therefore benefited from particular privileges and the protection of the law. In addition, members of the guards' brigades had the right to bear weapons. The managing of the company was handled collectively by the Ferme générale . They met as committees of experts and had control of the company's external services. The day before

598-577: The French Revolution in 1789, almost all the rights of indirect drafts and rights (like the gabelle , the tax on tobacco, and a number of local taxes) were awarded. On the other hand, the Royal Treasury's income from the Ferme générale represented more than half of the total public revenue. The company had also built the 24-kilometre Wall of the Farmers-General between 1784 and 1791 in Paris to ensure

644-603: The French Revolution in 1789, the public revenue was based largely on the following taxes: The Ferme générale developed at a time when the monarchy suffered from chronic financial difficulties. The Affermage (leasing, outsourcing ) of the collection of the traite (customs duties and taxes) had the advantage of guaranteeing the Treasury foreseeable and regular receipts, while reducing the perception of its role in tax-collection. The rights were initially contracted separately to various tax farmers, who were named traitants (who had

690-544: The cabinetmaker 's furniture with Japanese lacquer or Sèvres porcelain plaques, and supply furniture with opulent gilt-bronze (or ormolu ) mounts. The general lines permitted to their métier were set out under Charles IX, in 1570, as: "Wholesale merchants, drapers and jewelers, in such way that under this status of wholesaler ( estat de grossier ) have been included at all times the merchants of cloth of gold , of silver, of silk... tapestries , jewellery, spiced goods, textiles, hammered copper, silk thread, hardware and

736-671: The causes of the French Revolution . The farmers-general of the Ancien Régime figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage in France. The enlightened farmer-general Le Normant de Tournehem was the legal guardian of Madame de Pompadour , responsible for her education - in turn, thanks to her influence, he was made director-general of the Bâtiments du Roi in December 1745, and held

782-518: The total output of Sèvres in 1757, representing a total of 165,876 livres . Certain forms in the Sèvres archives carry the names of well-known marchands-merciers in their designations. Membership in the corps was carefully controlled. A new member, born in France, had to undergo an apprenticeship of three years, followed by another three as a compagnon , during which time he was bound to remain unmarried. His master could take on but one apprentice at

828-485: The Île Saint-Louis in central Paris to the many houses there owned by fermiers généraux. Their sons or grandsons purchased patents of nobility and their daughters often married into the aristocracy. Especially members of impoverished aristocratic families were eager to marry daughters of the fermiers généraux in order to restore the wealth they had prior to their ruin. This was called in popular French redorer son blason (literally "to re-gild one's coat of arms"). Before

874-455: The 1770s. In 1770, hundreds of watchmakers fled the political ructions in Geneva and went to make a new life at Ferney. Voltaire helped them to set up a new watchmaking business. He negotiated a tax exemption for the watchmakers with the duc de Choiseul , Prime Minister of France. But by 1774, the business was prospering and the tax farmers started to take an interest. Three-way negotiations between

920-578: The 17th century, France was divided for tax purposes into three principal zones: Not all fermiers-généraux constrained their viewpoint to their own enrichment: Pierre-Paul Riquet , appointed collector in Languedoc-Roussillon in 1630, used his fortune to build the Canal du Midi that links the Mediterranean coast of France to Toulouse and then on to the system of canals and rivers that ran across to

966-447: The Court— marchands privilégié suivant le cour — by decree of the king, and for those who married the daughter of one of the accredited merchants. The Parisian marchands-merciers congregated in rue Saint-Honoré , marking their establishments with catchy and amusing signs; there could be found the premises of Hébert , Simon-Philippe Poirier — and later at the same premises at the sign of

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1012-570: The Golden Crown his partner Dominique Daguerre and Martin-Eloi Lignereux— Mme Dulac, Julliot, Lebrun at the King of the Indies and Tuard au château de Bellevue . Nearby, in rue de la Monnaie, the street where the manufacture royale of Sèvres eventually chose to open its porcelain shop, were Darnault, father and son, at the sign of the King of Spain , and Lazare Duvaux . Edme-François Gersaint, for whom Watteau painted L'Enseigne de Gersaint as

1058-700: The Left Bank, Quai Conti at the far end of the Pont Neuf . Among these entrepreneurial dealers and interior decorators at the apex of their profession, towards the middle of the century Hébert achieved the greatest celebrity, appearing in the popular novel Thémidore (1745) and marrying his daughter to the son of the Dauphine 's first femme de chambre in 1751, in a contract signed at Versailles. Antoine Crozat Antoine Crozat, 1st Marquis of Châtel (c. 1655 – 7 June 1738), French founder of an immense fortune,

1104-510: The collection of duties in an attempt to harmonize procedures. He also attempted to constitute the whole of France into a single customs area, but was without success, as the provinces "considered foreign" (i.e. which became part of France after the foundation of the Kingdom; especially the south and Brittany) refused to merge with the zone covered by the Cinq Grosses Fermes . By the middle of

1150-485: The complex curves of Louis XV surfaces, and perhaps completed with French imitations, or entirely japanned in Vernis Martin , which might imitate Chinese blue and white porcelain decors, such as the blue-on-white ensemble of furniture Thomas-Joachim Hébert delivered in 1743 for Mme de Mailly The influence of the marchands-merciers on French porcelain is also considerable. Lazare Duvaux alone bought three-fifths of

1196-465: The estranged husband of the writer and saloniste Louise d'Épinay . The gourmand Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière was the son of the farmer-general Laurent Grimod de La Reynière . Sons or grandsons of farmer-generals often purchased patents of nobility, with their daughters marrying into aristocracy. In his Voltaire, A Life (pp. 427–31), Ian Davidson describes events on Voltaire's estate at Ferney , north of Geneva, in

1242-513: The initiative of Jacques Necker , finance minister to Louis XVI , indirect taxes were distributed between three tax farm companies: the Ferme générale (for customs duties), the Ligue générale (for taxes on alcohol) and the Administration générale des domaines et des droits domaniaux (for land taxes and fees for land registration). By the end of the 18th century, the Ferme générale system became

1288-476: The like, of which it is not permitted to have any manufacture whatsoever, but only to sell, buy, display, bedeck and beautify all kinds of merchandise" Thus the marchands-merciers were characterised in the Encyclopédie as "sellers of everything, makers of nothing"". Jacques Savary des Bruslons elaborated this lapidary remark and revealed the disdain of his generation towards handcrafts: "This Corporation

1334-554: The monopoly only 5 years into the 15-year term. As Crozat left, he claimed that tobacco could be grown in Louisiana. The monopoly was transferred to the Scottish economist and businessman John Law in 1717 under a group called the Company of the West ( Compagnie d'Occident ). In 1690 Antoine Crozat married Marguerite Legendre (1670–1742). They had four children. In 1708 Antoine Crozat built

1380-486: The most fashionable furniture, and often, in addition, worked outside of their shops as interior decorators , responsible for many aspects of a room's decor. In Paris, the guild system, in place since the late Middle Ages, prohibited craftsmen from working with any material with which they had not undergone a formal apprenticeship . Only a marchand-mercier who worked outside of the guild system, therefore, could mount Chinese porcelains with gilt-bronze handles and stands, fit

1426-697: The ornament of lodgings." These entrepreneurs helped guide and even create fashions, such as that for Chinese porcelains, mounted in purely French gilt bronze , transforming a vase into a ewer with rococo lip and handle, or reversing one bowl over another, with an open-work gilt-bronze rim, to function as a perfume-burner. Only a marchand-mercier could marshal the resources required to create such objects. Marchands-merciers bought Japanese lacquer screens and boxes, had them dismantled and their wooden backing shaved down, then commissioned ébénistes like Bernard II Vanrisamberg or Joseph Baumhauer to produce furniture veneered with exotic lacquer panels shaped to fit

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1472-550: The payment of taxes on goods entering the city. The Ferme générale was one of the most hated components of the Ancien Régime because of the profits it took at the expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. Criticism of the Ferme générale also include: Therefore, at the end of the 18th century, the French state had become involved in considerable debt, which factored among

1518-457: The post, overseeing royal building works at the King's residences in and around Paris, until his death in 1751. As American architect Fiske Kimball observed, “Without artistic prejudices, he was a man of ability, honesty and simplicity, who devoted himself to efficient administration". Farmers-general also figured among prominent supporters of French music and collectors of paintings and sculpture, such as Pierre Grimod du Fort , and as patrons of

1564-425: The price at the scaffold: 28 former members of the consortium were guillotined on 8 May 1794. Among them was Antoine Lavoisier , the father of modern chemistry , whose laboratory had been supported by income from his administration of the Ferme générale . His wife, the chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze , who escaped the guillotine, was herself the daughter of another farmer-general, Jacques Paulze. The lease of

1610-470: The right to collect the traite ) or partisans (who had a share ( partie ) in the collection of the traite ). They were obliged to pay to the Royal Treasury the sum stipulated in their lease, and they received a share of the income and a share of any "unexpected" surplus. Each right was leased separately, which caused great administrative complexity: the taking of goods out of bond could involve several tax farms. Prior to 1598, this system had developed so that

1656-499: The tax farmers, Voltaire and Turgot ensued. In December 1775, Turgot confirmed the watchmakers' exemption from the salt tax ( gabelle ) and from road maintenance duties ( corvée ) and a figure was agreed to compensate the tax farmers for loss of revenue. Voltaire addressed a public meeting on 12 December and the watchmakers accepted the settlement. Two days later, Voltaire wrote to his friend Mme de Saint-Julien: ... while we were gently passing our time in thanking M. Turgot, and while

1702-537: The tax farms were allocated among five pays (parts of France). In 1598 the Superintendent of Finances , the Duke of Sully , entrusted tax collection to one farm instead of five separate ones, and subjected the collection of duties raised in the provinces to the rights of the King. The single tax farm was called the Cinq Grosses Fermes (five large farms). In 1607, he issued new rules ( Règlement Général sur les Traites ) on

1748-503: The tocsin against them in all the villages, and why they were not exterminated. It is very strange that the ferme générale , with only another fortnight left for them to keep their troops here in winter quarters, should have permitted or even encouraged them in such criminal excesses. The decent people were very wise and held back the ordinary folk, who wanted to throw themselves on these brigands, as if on mad wolves. According to Davidson, good sense prevailed despite this violence, Voltaire

1794-741: The usages of their training and their connections, in highly competitive fields dominated by fashion. Among them a small group of marchands-merciers specialised in works of art, catering to an elite circle of connoisseurs and collectors towards the middle of the 18th century, when a vogue for exoticism expressed itself in chinoiserie . Savary's Dictionnaire detailed the wares of: "those who sell pictures, prints, candelabras, wall-lights, girandoles of gilded brass and [patinated] bronze, crystal chandeliers, figures of bronze, marble, wood and other material; cabinets, coffers, armoires, table, little tables, and candlestands put together of wood and gilded, marble tables and other merchandise and curiosities proper for

1840-414: The whole province was busy drinking, the gendarmes of the tax farmers, whose time runs out on 1 January, had orders to sabotage us. They marched about in groups of fifty, stopped all the vehicles, searched all the pockets, forced their way into all the houses and made every kind of damage there in the name of the king, and made the peasants buy them off with money. I cannot conceive why the people did not ring

1886-444: Was appointed a tax commissioner, profits peaked in 1776 and the watchmaking business survived the revolution and continued "well into the nineteenth century". Marchand-mercier A marchand-mercier is a French term for a type of entrepreneur working outside the guild system of craftsmen but carefully constrained by the regulations of a corporation under rules codified in 1613. The reduplicative term literally means

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1932-458: Was inspired by financier Paul Poisson de Bourvallais . In 1726, all the existing farms were gathered in a single lease. The forty farmers-general, who held guarantees as contractors of the lease, became powerful and fabulously rich. Examples of the first generation of these tax farmers include Antoine Crozat , the first private owner of French Louisiana , the four Pâris brothers, and Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière . Increased criticism of

1978-459: Was instituted in 1680 to collect gabelles , aides , taille and douane . Although sometimes of obscure origin, the financiers which took these rights often quickly accumulated immense fortunes which enabled them to play a significant political and social role. Their greed and excesses shocked the public and were often turned into objects of ridicule in literature, for example by playwright Alain-René Lesage in his 1709 comedy Turcaret , which

2024-509: Was set for this remuneration. The Ferme générale had its headquarters in Paris. In its central offices it employed nearly 700 people, including two chaplains . Its local operations included up to 42 provincial offices and nearly 25,000 agents distributed in two branches of activity; that of the offices which checked, liquidated and charged the fees and that of the guards' brigades which sought and suppressed smuggling with very severe punishments (such as hard labour or hanging). The employees of

2070-502: Was the first proprietary owner of French Louisiana , from 1712 to 1717. Antoine Crozat and his brother Pierre Crozat were born in Toulouse , France, the sons of a wealthy banking family. They moved to Paris around 1700 and rose from obscurity to become two of the wealthiest financiers of France . By way of lending money to the government, Antoine was ennobled as the Marquis du Châtel,

2116-489: Was the most unpopular of all the taxes. The Ferme générale was thus one of the institutions of the Ancien Régime which was most criticised during the 1789 French Revolution . It was depicted as a group of predatory tyrants; the Girondist politician Antoine Français de Nantes , made an early reputation for himself attacking this prominent target. The Ferme générale was then suppressed in 1790, with farmers-general paying

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