French Finances 1770–1795: From Business to Bureaucracy

by J. F. Bosher

• ISBN13: 9780521089081
• ISBN10: 0521089085
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The monarchy of Louis XVI suffered revolution and then destruction after failing to settle its financial difficulties. What precisely were those difficulties? In this book, Professor Bosher shows that the monarchy was financed by a chaotic system of private enterprise which proved increasingly unmanageable and wasteful. Hundreds of profit-seeking accountants - 'capitalists', in the language of the time - stood in the way of reform and even of clear accounting until governments of the French Revolution eventually nationalized the financial system and changed it 'from capitalism into a bureaucracy'. From his close study of the administrative changes Professor Bosher concludes that the National Assembly planned to guard the public finances by bureaucratic organization. 'With a vision of mechanical efficiency and articulation', he writes, 'systems of clock-like checks and balances such as eighteenth-century Frenchmen found everywhere, even in nature itself, the revolutionary planners hoped to prevent corruption, putting their faith in the virtues of organization to offset the vices of the individual men.'

Table of Contents

The Central Administration of Finance and How it Worked

Introduction

King and Council

The Minister and his Department

The Accountants and their Caisses

Private Enterprise in Public Finance

The Chamber of Accounts

The Bureaucratic Revolution

Thoughts of reform

A Decade of Reform (1771-1781)

Six years of Reaction (1781-1787)

The Financial Crisis of 1787

The Founding of the Modern Treasury

Struggles for Control of the Treasury

Towards a Single Caisse

Nationalizing the Debt

Towards Public Administration

Conclusion

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