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- Title
An Aspect of the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: The Collapse of the Financial Administration of the French Monarchy (1653-61).
- Authors
Dent, Julian
- Abstract
This article focuses on the collapse of the financial administration of the French monarchy during 1653-61. The story of that collapse is highly instructive, for it enlarges the understanding of the significance of King of France, Louis XIV's assertion of his authority in 1661. In the financial field, the last years of Jules Mazarin, a cardinal, had been a disaster. While the young king owed much to his mentor in terms of political education, the cardinal's legacy to him included a financial system whose basic principle seemed to be the maintenance of royal bankruptcy by bands of disreputable speculators and contractors. The vulnerability of the central financial system to the attacks of such men is not immediately apparent. When the complexity and confusion of local institutions under the Ancien Regime is considered, the structure of the bodies at the center of financial administration seems simple and efficient, reflecting the success of the long centralizing revolution, which had been going on since the fifteenth century.
- Subjects
FRANCE; PUBLIC finance; PUBLIC administration; LOUIS XIV, King of France, 1638-1715; INVESTORS; FRENCH monarchy; BANKRUPTCY
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1967, Vol 20, Issue 2, p241
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2592155