the world of private banking
the world of private banking
the world of private banking
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236<br />
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING<br />
appearance. It was obviously that <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>n usual payments between <strong>the</strong> existing<br />
dominant economic centres <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Catholic <strong>world</strong>. About twenty years later, both<br />
systems, <strong>the</strong> Catholic and <strong>the</strong> Protestant, were on <strong>the</strong> way to integration. <br />
Consolidation and Domination <strong>of</strong> Protestant Banking in France in <strong>the</strong><br />
Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries<br />
To repeat: at <strong>the</strong> beginning <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> seventeenth century <strong>the</strong> French monarchy owed<br />
to <strong>the</strong> Swiss Republics, <strong>the</strong> <strong>private</strong> financiers, bankers and mercenary entrepreneurs<br />
a sum <strong>of</strong> around 11 million écus or 36 million livres tournois. This was <strong>the</strong> result<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> growing credit given by <strong>the</strong> Swiss, ra<strong>the</strong>r earlier than generally related in<br />
<strong>the</strong> dominant literature on finance and bank history. In fact, <strong>the</strong> growth <strong>of</strong> Swiss<br />
financial power in France began in <strong>the</strong> early sixteenth century and grew from about<br />
<strong>the</strong> late sixties, when one observes <strong>the</strong> diminishing activities <strong>of</strong> rivals at Genoa<br />
and in Catholic Sou<strong>the</strong>rn Germany, manifestly turning its capital flow toward <strong>the</strong><br />
German and Spanish Empire. 10<br />
Already in <strong>the</strong> sixteenth century, <strong>the</strong> French Crown became interested in<br />
Protestant Swiss financiers as counsellors. Just after <strong>the</strong> great loans at <strong>the</strong> time <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
Grand Parti <strong>of</strong> Lyons and <strong>the</strong> insolvency <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Crown in 1559, <strong>the</strong> Catholic Caspar<br />
Pfyffer from Lucerne and <strong>the</strong> Protestant Benedikt Stokar from Schaffhausen acted<br />
as intermediaries for <strong>the</strong> representatives <strong>of</strong> King Charles IX and <strong>the</strong> Swiss lender<br />
consortium. 11 However, in 1562 <strong>the</strong> French ambassador in Switzerland, Pomponne<br />
de Bellièvre, chose two Protestants as his special counsellors for financial affairs<br />
between France and Switzerland. Of <strong>the</strong> two mentioned, he kept Stokar and added <strong>the</strong><br />
new Hans-Heinrich Lochmann from Zurich. 12 The preference for <strong>the</strong> Protestant Swiss<br />
Republics can also be shown after 1602, when King Henry IV solemnly renewed <strong>the</strong><br />
military alliance <strong>of</strong> 1521 with <strong>the</strong> Swiss Republics and confirmed <strong>the</strong> old privileges<br />
for all Swiss merchants in <strong>the</strong> Kingdom <strong>of</strong> France. Henry engaged himself to pay <strong>the</strong><br />
accumulated interest on capital, part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> principal owed and especially <strong>the</strong> subsidies<br />
<br />
See M.A. Denzel, ‘La Practica della Cambiatura’: Europäischer Zahlungsverkehr<br />
vom 14. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1994), p. 529. For <strong>the</strong> quotations <strong>of</strong> bills <strong>of</strong><br />
exchange in 1575–80, see M.A. Denzel (ed.), Währungen der Welt, vol. IX: Europäische<br />
Wechselkurse von 1383 bis 1620 (Stuttgart, 1995), p. 32, map 2. For more examples, see<br />
M.A. Denzel, ‘Die Integration Deutschlands in das internationale Zahlungsverkehrssystem<br />
im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in E. Schremmer (ed.), Wirtschaftliche und soziale Integration<br />
in historischer Sicht, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. 128<br />
(Stuttgart, 1996).<br />
<br />
For <strong>the</strong> quotations <strong>of</strong> bills <strong>of</strong> exchange in 1595–1600, see Denzel, Währungen,<br />
p. 106, map 3.<br />
10<br />
Körner, Solidarités, pp. 416–30.<br />
11<br />
Ibid., p. 421.<br />
12<br />
Ibid., p. 422.