L’argent du sel

Daniel Dessert begins this book with an account of Thomas Bonneau’s testimony to the exceptional court (chambre de justice) set up by Colbert to try the infamous surintendant des finances, Nicolas Fouquet, who had offended the rising Sun-King, and the many financiers involved in the funding of France’s military efforts in the Thirty Years War and in the long struggle against Habsburg Spain. Bonneau was one of the most powerful financiers of the time, and he was a central figure in the cartel of farmers-general who oversaw the collection of the gabelle or salt tax. He argued in his defence that the process against him had the potential to ruin many others. Putting names and faces to these others or the individuals who invested their money in, and profited from, the ferme générale des gabelles de France under the ministry of Richelieu and Mazarin, is the challenge that Dessert has set for himself. The sociology of these intéressés offers an opportunity for him to revisit his important contributions to the debates about the structures of power in seventeenth-century France and to survey the implications of forty years of research

Art · Cartel · Christian ministry · Economic history · Economic Justice · Economics · Humanities · Market economy · Political science · Power (physics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law