De Dijon à Paris : réseaux d'argent et finance bourguignonne dans les emprunts du roi (1778-1783)

This article is based on the study of a remarkable Record of capital invested in Dijon and Paris between March 1778 and January 1783 in public loans issued by the State of Bourgogne on the King's behalf. It records 1676 contracts (almost 1100 individuals and hundreds of institutions) amounting to 19,4 million pounds. It might be objected that this amount is not significant (3,9 %) compared to State loans launched by ministers Necker and Joly de Fleury over the same period (for a total of 500 million pounds). However the analysis of over a thousand lenders gives a clear picture (90 %) of the «well-off bourgeois » living in Paris and Dijon. Even if all the categories of the Ancien Régime society are represented in this study it is focused on outlining the patterns of preferential networks of capital funding. Alongside the obvious Protestant Banks, Higher Office and Middle Office holders are actively involved in this particular system of exchange with the Public Administration. An unrecognized albeit active provincial network surfaces. In Dijon as well as in Paris the financial establishment of Bourgogne contributed to public loans issued by various states. The leverage effect induced by provincial contributers to public financing was essentially due to familiy ties woven between the Courts of Justice of Dijon and Paris. The Aristocratic Nobility and Military Nobility did not develop similar family strategies but instead they favoured « individual» investments often in favour of spouses or children. It is also noticeable that the biggest contributors had diversified their investment portfolios, holding contracts with the States of Bretagne or Languedoc, and that the composition of the provincial states did not seem to be a critical investment factor. Hence the investment decision seemed to have been less motivated by attachment to a given provincial state than by each social group 's own financial strategy. In the end of the Ancien Régime Provinces were no longer financial entities separated from the Kingdom.