Everyone is talking bankruptcy: someone has even dared to utter this word in the National Assembly: it has reverberated in public squares, in cafés, and in the clubs.
CHARLES-JOSEPH PANCKOUCKE, MONITEUR UNIVERSEL, ARPIL 7, 1790
In the spring of 1790, Panckoucke was worried about bankruptcy. Indeed, the frightening possibility of a declaration of default by the French state was on many people's minds during this first uncertain year of National Assembly rule. The royal government's suspension of payments to the Caisse d'Escompte in 1788 precipitated a financial crisis that reverberated through the French commercial world from Marseille to Le Havre.[156] Far from exempt from this crisis, Parisian merchants found themselves at its epicenter.[157] And the realities of bankruptcy were even closer to home for Parisian publishers like Panckoucke. Between 1789 and 1793 at least twenty-one Paris publishers, booksellers, and printers—seventeen of whom were members of the Paris Book Guild—declared themselves in default, with more than half the total bankruptcies occurring in 1790 alone. For the Paris Book Guild, clearly, 1790 was a year of financial reckoning. Significantly, as these figures reveal, pub-
[156] For a general overview of credit, risk, and business failure in the eighteenth century, see Julian Hoppit, Risk and Failure in English Business, 1700–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). For the difficulties of the Caisse d'Escompte and the ensuing credit shortage in the early years of the Revolution, see Robert Bigo, La Caisse d'escompte (1776–1793) et les origines de la Banque de France (Paris: PUF, 1927), 117–148. For the consequences of this crisis in the commercial world, see Pierre Dardel, Commerce, industrie et navigation à Rouen et au Havre au XVIIIe siècle (Rouen: Société Libre d'Emulation de Seine-Maritime, 1966), esp. 394–395; Charles Carrière, Négociants marseillais au XVIIIe siècle (Marseille: Institut Historique de Provence, 1973), esp. 427–464; and, for Paris, Tom Luckett, "Credit and Society in Eighteenth-Century France" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, forthcoming). Dardel, Carrière, and Luckett find an upsurge in bankruptcies in Rouen, Le Havre, Marseille, and Paris in 1788–1789. I am grateful to Tom Luckett for drawing my attention to these studies, and for sharing his yet unpublished findings on bankruptcies with me.
[157] Luckett, "Credit and Society."
lishers declared nearly as many bankruptcies between 1789 and 1793 as in the preceding twenty-year period, 1770–1789 (see figure 5 and appendix 2). The total liabilities on the twenty-one bankruptcies from 1789 to 1793 ran over 4,000,000 livres .[158] Bankruptcy was not simply a looming possibility within the Paris publishing world: it was a frightening reality (figure 5).
As Clément Martin has observed, the causes and the economic significance of declarations of bankruptcy are not at all self-evident.[159] Broadly speaking, in a given industry they are as often an index of economic growth—albeit unstable—as of decline. Nonetheless, in revolutionary France, businessmen, unless they were engaged in fraud, generally sought to avoid declaring default; and when they were forced to do so, it was because they found themselves overextended and hence unable to make their payments. Furthermore, as Martin points out, however general a crisis appears, its causes are most frequently best understood through analysis of the particular situation of each industry rather than of broader price or credit trends. The accounts of the bankruptcies of Parisian publishers between 1789 and 1793 confirm the value of this localist approach: financial interdependence and illiquidity set off a domino reaction in the publishing world, transforming a series of discrete crises into collective catastrophe.
On January 21, 1789, the publisher Siméon-Prosper Hardy entered the following information in his journal:
Jean Lagrange , book dealer . . . on the rue Honoré near the place Palais Royal, where he seemed to conduct a thriving business and to have extensive dealings . . . in modern speculations, has just closed up shop, abandoned his establishment, . . . supposedly to go to London, leaving in commercial circulation a considerable number of notes all covered with fictional and false endorsements, having had the temerity to allow himself to forge the signatures of four businessmen . . ., of whom three are his
[158] This estimate is based on a computation of the individual declarations of bankruptcy extant in the Archives de Paris. Louis Radiguer estimates the total passif of Paris printers and publishers in 1790 at 30,000,000 livres but does not indicate how he arrived at that figure (I assume that he is quoting the figure given by the publisher Jean-Augustin Grangé in his Mémoire présenté à l'Assemblée Nationale, 11). Grangé's estimate suggests that my own is probably extremely conservative. See Radiguer, Maîtres imprimeurs et ouvriers typographes, 143.
[159] For the most penetrating assessment of the problems involved in the historical interpretation of bankruptcies, see Clément Martin, "Le Commerçant, la faillite et l'historien," Annales E.S.C. 35, no. 6 (November-December 1980): 1251–1268.
Figure 5.
Bankruptcies Declared by Paris Publishers, 1770–1806
Source: AP, Fond Faillite, ser. D4B6 and D11U3.
partners: namely MM. Debure-d'Houry, printer-publisher, Durand neveu , and Cuchet , publishers.[160]
Ironically, this "speculator" in Enlightenment works helped to trigger a crisis in the publishing world of the Old Regime, not by conquering markets or reading publics, but by abusing his credit and credibility within the old corporate structure. The irony went further: Mlle Louise de Kéralio, a member of the aristocratic literati and Lagrange's invisible partner, was forced to file bankruptcy papers for the business after he fled.[161]
Within a year, two of the victims of Lagrange's forgery, Durand neveu and Debure-d'Houry, filed for bankruptcy as well.[162] As figure 5 illustrates, bankruptcies led to more bankruptcies. Debure-d'Houry, for example, appeared in the accounts of nine of the seventeen declarants of bankruptcy in the guild between 1789 and 1793, while Durand figured in six (see appendixes I and 2). And the consequences reverberated far beyond the fates of those forced to formal declarations. Debure l'aîné lost 8,000 livres in the Durand bankruptcy;[163] Panckoucke stood to lose 30,000 livres in three other bankruptcies (those of Debure, Poinçot, and Savoye).[164] Over half of the guild families (90 of 163) figured in accounts of the seventeen declarants, who alone owed at least 800,000 livres to members of the book guild.[165] There are indications, moreover, that the crisis of 1790 threatened to spread from Paris to the provinces.[166] The publishing world of the Old Regime was on the verge of collapse.
Matters would have been even worse had it not been for the intervention of the Crown. In its proceedings for June 8, 1790, the royal
[160] Hardy, "Mes loisirs," BN, mss. fr. 6687, 8:207 (entry for January 21, 1789).
[161] AP, Fond Faillite, ser. D4B6, carton 105, doss. 7454, March 30, 1789.
[162] For the Debure-d'Houry bankruptcy, see ibid., carton 110, doss. 7844, July 26, 1790. The papers of the Durand bankruptcy are no longer extant, but evidence of its occurrence can be found in BN, mss. fr. 21896, "Registre des déclarations pour la contribution patriotique," entry no. 34, December 24, 1789.
[163] BN, mss. fr. 21896, "Registre des déclarations," entry no. 34, December 24, 1789.
[164] AP, Fond Faillite, ser. D4B6, carton 110, doss. 7844; carton 109, doss. 7399: and carton 111, doss. 7944.
[165] This estimate is based on the declared debts of members of the Paris Book Guild in the accounts of the bankruptcies found in the Archives de Paris, Fond Faillite. See appendix 2 for detailed references.
[166] AN, ser. DIV, carton 30, doss. 728, Committee on the Constitution, "Liberté de la presse, commerce de la librairie, réhabilitation des faillites. Fiévrier 1790-janvier 1791 (7 pièces)," especially the letters from Toulouse decrying the collapse of the book trade and an increase in bankruptcies. See also BN, mss. fr. 11708, "Procès-verbal des délibérations du bureau de Paris," June 8, 1790.
Plate 3.
Declaration of bankruptcy by Sieur Debure-d'Houry, one of the wealthiest
members of the Paris Book Guild, July 26, 1790. Archives de Paris.
Administration of the City of Paris registered receipt of a memorandum presented by MM. Nyon l'aîné , Didot le jeune , Moutard, Cuchet, Guillot, and Huguet, publishers, printers, engravers, type and paper manufacturers in Paris, containing an exposé on the dangers with which they were threatened by the default of funds in circulation and by the personal bankruptcy of M. Debure-d'Houry, who was the principal creditor for the activities of their business. The city administrators summarized their response to the associates in the following manner:
Considering that the ruin of the six partners would entail that of several thousands of persons, in the capital as well as in the provinces, and that the reaction to this disastrous event could have unheard-of consequences, even for the public weal . . .; that the shareholders enjoy the most unimpeachable reputations and constitute one of the most important sectors of the book trade, . . . [the administration] has resolved to send its good officers to procure the access they desire to the National Assembly and the government, in order to obtain an open line of credit for 1,200,000 livres in bills of exchange . . . endorsed by the six partners. . . . MM. de Joly and de Juissieu have, moreover, been authorized to present themselves to the minister of finance and to do in this manner all that they deem necessary to insure its success.[167]
A series of negotiations ensued over the summer of 1790 between the city administration, the associated members of the Paris guild, Minister of Finance Necker, and the king himself.[168] A cache of letters and doc-
[167] BN, mss. fr. 11708, "Procès-verbal des délibérations du bureau de Paris," June 8, 1790.
[168] The documents of these negotiations were removed from the king's armoire de fer in 1793 by the Committee on Domains and have since been lost. However, at the time of their removal the following inventory of their contents was prepared by the committee and is still extant in AN, ser. C, carton 183, portfolio 107, nos. 384–393, "Inventaire des papiers saisis aux Tuilleries: armoire de fer." It reads as follows: "no. 384, chemise d'une liasse de papiers titrés de la main du roi; affaires des libraires de Paris [n.d.]; no. 385, lettre des libraires sociétaires de Paris, dans laquelle ils demandent au roi un provisoire de cent-cinquante mille livres [n.d.]; no. 386, écrit de la main du roi par lequel il announce qu'il a cautionné sur les fonds de la liste civile, les libraires associés pour une somme de 1,050,000 livres [n.d.]; no. 387, lettre de M. Necker au roi, relative au cautionnement accordé aux libraires associés. La date est de la main du roi, 29 juillet 1790; no. 388, lenre du roi à Necker dans laquelle il announce son intention de faire une avance de 150,000 livres aux libraires associés, et de les cautionner sur la liste civile du surplus de la somme dont ils ont besoin pour remplir leurs engagements, St Cloud, le 27 juillet; no. 389, lettre des libraires dans laquelle ils se plaignent au roi des lenteurs du ministre des finances à remplir les voeux du roi à leur égard [n.d.]; no. 390, écrit de la main du roi, par lequel il prend les mêmes engagements que dans la lettre no. 388 [n.d.]; no. 391, arrêt du Bureau de la Ville de Paris portant témoignage honorable en faveur des libraires associés [n.d.]; no. 392, mémoire de la société des libraires qui demande au roi de venir à son secours; cette société sollicite une avance à divers époques d'une somme de 1,200,000 livres [n.d.]; no. 393, actes notaires relatifs au cautionnement accordé par le roi à la société des libraires de Paris, 16 août, 11 et 28 septembre, 1790."
uments discovered by the revolutionary government after August 10, 1792, in the king's secret armoire de fer revealed that by July 1790 the king had decided to subsidize the guild and had made them a personal advance of 150,000 livres .[169] By August the full subsidy of 1,200,000 livres received notarial authorization.[170] The king thus succeeded in averting an immediate and total collapse of the old elites of the Paris Book Guild. The monarchy, after all, needed their presses and markets. Retaining cultural power was crucial to the fate of the regime. Over the rocky course of 1789, for example, it was the head of this partnership, Nyon l'aîné, who faithfully propagated works affirming monarchical authority, such as the Tableau des droits réels et respectifs du monarque et de ses sujets .[171]
The Révolutions de Paris was quick to elucidate the broader implications of this royal act of cultural patronage:
On August 4, the king stood security for the funds on the civil list for the associated booksellers in the amount of 1,200,000 livres . This act of benevolence is founded on the concern inspired in the king for the fate of these booksellers and the numerous artisans whom they employ, and who would find themselves without work. . . . The benevolence of his majesty makes a striking contrast with the unjust pursuits of the civil and military leaders of Paris against the press. It is well known that the associated booksellers do not employ a tenth part of the workers who are supported by the enterprises that the freedom of the press has allowed to blossom.[172]
The journal was right. The forces of cultural production were shifting elsewhere, and the Crown, in a desperate effort to maintain control over public opinion and cultural life, was bailing out a dying literary civilization.
Four months after the Crown's subsidy was enacted, the Paris publishing world was still in crisis. In a meeting of December 24, 1790, the
[169] Ibid., nos. 386, 387.
[170] Ibid., no. 393.
[171] For the royal approbation of Nyon's timely publication of the Tableau des droits réels et respectifs du monarque et de ses sujets, depuis la fondation de la monarchie jusqu'à nos jours, ou théorie des lois politiques de la monarchie française, see AN, ser. V1, carton 552, Letter from Nyon to the Administration of the Book Trade, and response, September 25, 1789. This edition ultimately received a royal subsidy.
[172] Révolutions de Paris, no. 56, August 4, 1790, 172.
Committees on Agriculture and Commerce of the National Assembly heard a report concerning "a petition from the publishers of Paris, presented by the municipality, in which they make public how their businesses continue to suffer."[173] The committees responded in much the same fashion as the Crown. On the same day they decreed:
There shall be entrusted to the municipality of Paris assignats in an amount up to 1,500,000 livres against the sale of national lands, to be distributed under the direction of the municipal government in various loans to different publishing houses in Paris that demonstrate that, as a consequence of public circumstances, they find themselves unable to meet the terms of their former obligations.[174]
Thus during the fall of 1790 at least 2,700,000 livres poured from royal and municipal coffers to the aid of the foundering cultural elites of the Old Regime. But the National Assembly had thrown good money after bad.
The Révolutions de Paris had correctly linked the crisis in the Paris Book Guild to the declaration of the freedom of the press and the revolutionary mandate to "spread enlightenment." The guild crisis was not, in origin, a fiscal crisis. The source of the problem lay in the allegiance of many prominent guild members to a system of cultural production and a literary civilization that were both rapidly becoming obsolete. The economic crisis in the guild was, in that sense, a symptom of cultural revolution.
The publishers of Paris lamented in their petition to the Committees on Agriculture and Commerce that "the Revolution completely obliterated the value of the major books that they stocked in their shops, of the costliest articles, and of those whose sale formerly was most assured."[175] Within a few years, the Revolution had swept their way of life and the culture it produced into the past. The stock of the most prominent publishers of Paris—spiritual, legal, pedagogical, and historical—lost its commercial value as nouveautés and lumières flooded the capital. Thus Debure l'aîné declared in December 1789: "I am losing considerable
[173] AN, ser. AFI, "Procès-verbal des Comités d'Agriculture et de Commerce," 179th session, December 24, 1790.
[174] Ibid.
[175] Ibid.
sums on works of jurisprudence."[176] So, too, Antoine Maugard listed in his declaration of bankruptcy on June 26, 1790, "works whose sale has been suspended by circumstances: Code de la noblesse, Remarques sur la noblesse, Lettres sur les dangers des abrégés des lois ."[177] Petit and Despilly, publishers of liturgies, wrote to the National Assembly in January 1791 to protest the ruin of six hundred families which would result from the division of France into departments, the consequent suppression of sixty-two bishoprics, and the proposal to standardize the liturgy of those remaining. They stood to see their privileges on the extant liturgies evaporate into thin air: "Twelve to fifteen million in commercial value . . . will be lost."[178] Nyon le jeune protested as well:
Citizen legislators, from 1789 until this day my business has been completely wiped out by the suppression of the religious houses charged with education, by the inactivity of the colleges; elementary books for classes and for religious use that composed almost the whole of my stock are a total loss. . . . I can estimate the nonvalue of my classical books at 60,000 livres . . . as they are no longer in use.[179]
The classical, legal, and religious culture of the Old Regime ceased to reproduce itself.
The elites of Old Regime cultural commerce were driven under along with the culture they produced. Between 1789 and 1793 eighteen members of the guild were forced to bankruptcy. Another twenty-two gave evidence of being on the verge of default. These were not establishments on the margins of Old Regime publishing but those at its very heart: the Debures, Nyons, Moutards, and Méquignons. The king's printer Philippe-Denis Pierres sold his printing shop in 1792 and was to die an employee of the postal service in Dijon in 1808.[180] His former rival, the director of the Imprimerie Royale, Jacques Anisson-Duperron, saw his
[176] BN, mss. fr. 21896, "Registre des déclarations pour la contribution patriotique," entry no. 34, December 24, 1789.
[177] AP, Fond Faillite, ser. D4B6, carton 110, doss. 7829.
[178] AN, ser. DIX, carton 81, no. 623, "Adresse à l'Assemblée Nationale au nom et par les chargés du pouvoir des libraires et imprimeurs propriétaires des privilèges des différents liturgies de France," January 10, 1791. See also Mémoire présenté à l'Assemblée Nationale au nom des imprimeurs-libraires, propriétaires des privilèges des divers liturgies de France (Paris: N.-H. Nyon, 1790), AN, ser. ADVIII, carton 20.
[179] AN, ser. F17, carton 1008a, doss. 1347, Letter from Nyon le jeune, 8 frimaire, an II (November 29, 1793).
[180] BN, nouv. acq. fr. 12684, feuilles 2–12, 23–24, Letters from Pierres to the minister of justice and bibliographic note [1803].
monopoly on royal publications eclipsed by the new printer of the National Assembly, François-Jean Baudouin.[181] Anisson-Duperron was to fall under the blade of the guillotine in 1793.[182] By the year III (1794–1795) Debure l'aîné was working as an employee of the Temporary Commission on the Arts, cataloguing the libraries confiscated from émigrés.[183] Knapen fils , the son of the last syndic of the Paris Book Guild, left the publishing business and went to work as a functionary of the Ministry of the Interior.[184] Those who held out would be faced with the task of remaking themselves and their enterprises as the Revolution remade the literary world.
[181] AN, ser. V1, carton 552, Letter from Anisson-Duperron to the Administration of the Book Trade, and response, concerning the purview of Baudouin's printing shop.
[182] AN, ser. BB16, carton 703, doss. 17, May-August 1793; and Pétition des créanciers-fournisseurs d'Anisson-Duperron (N.p., [1793]), AN, ser. ADVIII, carton 20.
[183] AN, ser. F17, carton 1199, doss. 1, Temporary Commission on the Arts, 20 germinal, an III (April 9, 1795).
[184] Ibid., carton 1204, doss. 7, Memorandum from Knapen fils, employee in the fourth division of the Ministry of the Interior, to the Committee on Public Instruction [1800?].