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The French Financial System in the Eighteenth Century and the Birth of the Elite of Finance

  • Korean Review of French History
  • Abbr : KRFH
  • 2005, (13), pp.41~70
  • Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Yoon Eun Joo 1

1서울대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

In the eighteenth century the financial activities formed a system of the practices and, therefore, became a kind of financial administration: the system of the ‘results’. The aim of this system was to ensure the kings the regular entrance of revenues from direct taxes. It was based on the rescriptions, bills drawn on taxes to collect in the future. Instead of the taxation which was always time-consuming and uncertain despite preventive measures, the rescriptions issued every month by receivers general financed the kings’ expenses and supported the ministerial activities. From the eighteenth century onwards the taxation worked only to raise the funds for the reimbursement of the rescriptions. With this system of the ‘results’, the kings could obtain the regularity of the financial operations and the flexibility of the politics. This system of the «results» altered the nature of the services of the general receivers of finances. They were no longer the officer- accountants whose ordinary function was to transfer the products of the direct taxation to the Royal Treasury and to supervise the receivers of tailles. However, as manipulator of the rescriptions, the general receivers of finances took the responsibilities for the payment of the rescriptions. They became the guarantors of the royal credits and the funding sources. This new function was encouraged by the government which was always eager to obtain the advances, the rescriptions on the revenues to come. Therefore, the eighteenth century saw the birth of the bankers of royal affairs, i.e. «financiers».

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