1 Introduction
On 31 January 1691, Thomas Coxe, British envoy to the Swiss cantons, had occasion to complain to the secretary of state at Whitehall, the Earl of Nottingham, of the relative poverty he was compelled to endure as the diplomatic representative of their Majesties King William and Queen Mary.1 Coxe informed Nottingham of the fact that his French counterpart, Michel-Jean Amelot, Marquis de Gournay, had distributed âabove 140 thousand crownsâ to the canton of Bern, and some 200,000 to Zurich and the lesser Protestant cantons.2 Coxe lamented that âan abler man than I will never make bricks without straw in this Egyptâ. He further claimed that even had he been trusted with no more than 30,000 pounds sterling, he too might have been able to achieve greater success for the Grand Alliance (grouping together the enemies of France) among a people (the Swiss) almost universally condemned for their avarice.3 Part of Coxeâs difficulty lay in the transmitting of money from London to Switzerland: Bills of exchange drawn on Frankfurt were the most frequently employed, but British diplomats to the cantons, both then and later, often complained of the plodding pace at which money arrived.
The timidity of the Catholic cantons prevents them from declaring their support for the alliance with the governor of Milan. I have no doubt that if Count Casati [Philip Vâs ambassador to the Swiss federal Diet and the Catholic cantons] had had the promised pensions and the necessary orders for even a mediocre levy, he would have received complete satisfaction from this assembly; but ⦠the more one delays in satisfying these people, the more difficult and demanding they become.4
Throughout the War of the League of Augsburg (1688â97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701â14), Switzerland assumed an almost unprecedented importance in the eyes of European statesmen and diplomats.5 Its reputation as a source of top-class soldiers ensured that competition for the levying of regiments was fierce. For example, when the Grand Alliance began negotiations early in 1703 for the recruiting of two regiments of 6,000 men from the Protestant cantons, the British envoy of the time, Dr William Aglionby, emphasised the need to sabotage the French âsystemâ in the cantons, which yielded recruits on a regular basis for the armies of Louis XIV.6 This competition for soldiers was inevitable, at a time when monarchs were in desperate need of men for armies campaigning in as many as five different theatres of war at once.7 Money talked in early 18th-century Switzerland: Louis XIVâs willingness to spend lavishly in pensions and other sweeteners to leading families of
Besides their manufactures, they have several bankers of note, who have dealings in most of the trading towns of Europe; and during the last war, negotiated great sums of money, both for France and the Allies. Some of them suffered indeed considerably by their loans to France; but others, that had the good luck to get themselves repaid, made prodigious gains by the great interest they received for their money. To these advantages, if you add that of their situation, which makes them a convenient mart for merchandizes to be interchanged between France and Italy, it will not appear strange, if that city thrive by trade.10
2 Trade and Finance
In geopolitical terms, the Republicâs right to exist was recognised, with its independent status respected. The tiny state was not a member of the Swiss Confederacy and was not included in the Swiss federal Dietâs declarations of neutrality. Nonetheless its treaties with Bern and Zurich offered it a degree of security, largely because neither France or Savoy wished to anger these two powerful Protestant cantons, or indeed the Confederacy as a whole.14 At no point before the 1790s was there any serious possibility that Geneva would be
The transnational element of warfare in this period has traditionally been sidelined by historians, who have tended to concentrate upon how states channelled their own resources (financial and logistical) for the waging of war.17 More recently, the importance of networks which spanned frontiers has been emphasised, as certain European cities became renowned for the facilities they offered to belligerent states. Insofar as Genevaâs capabilities in this regard were comparable to those of London, Amsterdam, Danzig, Genoa or Vienna, the sheer quantity of financial transactions conducted through the medium of Genevan bankers suggests that the city was indispensable to the war effort of the French monarchy between 1690 and 1709.18 Contemporaries opposed to France wrote of the necessity to âlance the source of evilâ by ruining the international credit of the foremost Genevan bankers and sequestering their possessions in allied states.19 Such threats and suggestions were intended to prevent the Genevans from continuing to supply, for instance, the French army in northern Italy in the early years of the War of the Spanish Succession.20
As the crucial work of Lüthy demonstrated, these bankers constituted what has been termed a âHuguenot internationalâ: a vast network of Protestant families, many linked by marriage or other blood ties, and with branches in numerous European centres of commerce and finance.24 More recently, Aaron Graham has underlined the importance of these âpersonal linkagesâ in fostering commercial connections, insofar as they were necessary to ensure trust
Paradoxically, Geneva had endured something of an economic decline from the late 15th century to the 1640s.28 Prior to the reign of Louis XI in neighbouring France, Geneva had been one of the most important centres in Europe for the clearing of bills of exchange: Raymond de Roover described it as âhaving played a cardinal role as a redistribution center of gold and silverâ in the late medieval period.29 In March 1463, Louis XI (who was keen to retain specie in France after the economic catastrophe of the Hundred Years War) issued a royal charter which established four fairs in Lyon â a city which, in de Rooverâs words, had waged a âcold warâ with Geneva for years in matters of commerce.30 From this point on, Lyon began to assume Genevaâs previous significance as the economic and financial powerhouse of the region, especially since its fairs were generally held on the same dates as those of Geneva.31
Genevaâs importance as an entrepôt of trade is especially noticeable with regard to the distribution of grain throughout central Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Shipments of Mediterranean grain which were landed at Marseille were transported north across the French provinces of Languedoc and the Dauphiné, entering Switzerland via âla porte des Alpesâ at Geneva.36 From here, the grain made its way to markets in the Low Countries, Germany,
Genevaâs own dependence upon external sources of grain has been analysed in impressive detail by Hermann Blanc and more recently Anne-Marie Piuz and Liliane Mottu-Weber.39 In wartime, the city frequently requested permission to move grain from its stockpiles in France or Savoy to its depots in the city itself.40 This dependence had political undertones: The councils complained when intendants in neighbouring provinces (such as the Franche-Comté) forbade the exportation of grain from the Pays de Gex.41 This application of economic pressure was a frequent tactic deployed both by Louis XIV and Leopold I, in order to intimidate and coerce the republic into cooperating with their aims.
Goods of a more luxurious and cosmopolitan nature â such as silk, tapestries, and spices â were also traded by Genevan entrepreneurs, many of whom benefitted from close connections to Marseille and Lyon, and who could therefore take advantage of the benevolent situation as regards royal taxation on luxury items.42 Genevaâs location on a north-south axis gave it an exalted importance as a depot or entrepot for the buying and selling of luxury goods, and Genevan merchants frequented all the major trading fairs of Europe.
Geneva had always had a strong trade in precious metals and was also a renowned centre for the manufacture of timepieces. The ruling councils of Geneva carefully monitored the economic activity of the Swiss cantons and were particularly jealous of any efforts from their neighbours (especially the Republic of Bern) to aggregate industries for which Geneva itself was renowned. For example, the syndic Isaac Pictet exhorted the Small Council to examine ways to circumvent the potential consequences of the establishment of a draperie in Bern, which he claimed would result in âa true interruption of commerceâ between the two states.46
3 Remittances and False Coining
Geneva was not as vibrant a trading centre as, for instance, Lyon.47 But there was a disproportionate concentration of Protestant bankers in this tiny state,
The first significant instances of Genevan involvement in remitting money on behalf of Louis XIV date from the 1690s, when the wealthy merchant François Fatio transmitted cash to the Marquis de Crenan, French commander of the fortress of Casale, in Monferrato, via a correspondent at Turin, Theophile Thellusson. Fatio, a resourceful and opportunistic man, was also involved in consortia to supply gunpowder to the French army in the War of the League of Augsburg, and money to French commanders in Savoy.50 Iberville, and his successor as resident Pierre Cadiot de La Closure (in post from 1698 to 1739) served as interlocutors and observers, apprising the French government of Genevan interest in loans to the Sun King. Genevaâs importance to France escalated when it proved a valuable base for the emerging banker Samuel Bernard in the 1690s. Bernard entered into various partnerships with Genevan and Lyonnais merchants to buy up stocks of coin and have them smuggled to Geneva to be reformed. Among the various Genevan merchant-banking families who were lured into this profitable trade were the Lullin, who were among the wealthiest in Europe in the late 1690s and early 1700s, having built a fortune
These merchants have trading houses open in Lyon, in Turin and here. They also do business for Messrs. Bernard and de Meuve to do with payments from Italy. They are now doing it too for the same reason for the duke of Savoy in Switzerland. It is banking business in the manner permitted in all free towns, which is impossible to prevent.55
The last point is crucial: Genevaâs independence and neutrality â which the Small Council emphasised constantly in its correspondence with other states â meant that banking operations could be carried on by Genevans for the benefit of the great powers in spite of efforts to undermine their execution. Moreover,
In the context of Genevaâs role in the War of the Spanish Succession, the cityâs merchant-bankers â most prominently Lullin â found themselves in an ambiguous situation. The Duke of Savoy had broken with France in the autumn of 1703 in order to join the Grand Alliance. Victor Amadeus II was recruiting men and purchasing horses in Switzerland with a degree of urgency, using Genevan bankers such as the opportunistic Lullin for the purposes of moving the necessary funds by bill of exchange.57 Using his own network of informants, La Closure was attuned to the clandestine efforts of Piedmontese military officers to liaise with the merchants and bankers so essential to Franceâs own campaigns in the Italian peninsula. While keeping the French court informed of Savoyard activity, in 1703 La Closure also had to persuade the Genevan authorities to allow one of Franceâs own principal bankers and remitters, Jean-Henri Huguetan, to remain in the city.58 This was so that Huguetan could continue his remitting operations, despite pressure from the British and imperial diplomats in the Swiss Confederacy for him to be evicted from Geneva. Huguetan had settled in Geneva in order to continue his banking activities for Louis XIV, given that the emperor had already complained about his remitting on behalf of the French (in order to pay their troops in Flanders) when Huguetan was based in the United Provinces earlier in the war.59
Huguetan was also implicated in contraband between Geneva and France, along with various of his associates, such as the Saladin family (originally from
⦠the French will make their remittances by Antwerp, Geneva, Genoa and Venice, and consequently divert the Exchange trade from Holland to these places, and if the Dutch cannot make use of their money at home they will remit it to the abovesaid towns to lay out at the best interest, there being many rich and substantial merchants in all these places who will always have credit for large sums, and the interest of money in Italy especially at Genoa is as cheap and rather cheaper than in Holland ⦠the credit of Amsterdam may be of use of the French king in the paying
of his armies viz. the Paris banquier draws at 2 months on Amsterdam, the Amsterdamer at the 2 months end draws on London, the Londoner on Italy, and the Italian on Geneva, and the Geneva banquier back upon Paris, this trade is not impossible but at the same time by the difference of exchanges will cost a very dear interest, and may be done indirectly by way of Geneva, though the correspondence directly to Holland from Paris were stopped.63
I am well persuaded that Mons. de Chamillard does give 12 per cent for all the money which he sends to Italy, for which he gives assignments to the bankers of Lyons, Genoa, Milan, or Geneva, upon which assignments he allows one per cent interest per month until they are paid. Besides this, the King loses 20 per cent upon all his expenses made in Italy, because he pays the louis dâor there on the foot of 12 livres, which goes in France for 15.65
4 Supplies and Manpower
As Geneva was obviously not a major port, unlike London, Amsterdam, Danzig, or Genoa, it could not offer the facilities of a port to military commanders wishing to move troops quickly by sea, or to embark grain, horses, and other essential army supplies for transport to the theatres in which these commodities might be required. Nor was Geneva particularly important for the recruitment of troops from its hinterland for the service of foreign powers, although â as Sebastien Dupuis points out â many members of the Genevan elite received commissions as officers in foreign armies, particularly France and the United Provinces. There were plenty of isolated incidences of Genevans taking service in France. At the AEG, the catalogue of the archives privées of the de Bon family mention that one of its members served as a captain in the gardes suisses, while a Benjamin de Bons was ranked ensign in the Diesbach regiment in 1736.66 By the terms of its combourgeoisie and other agreements with Bern and Zurich, the city authorities sent forces to its allies in times of need, particularly during the first and second Wars of Villmergen.67 Reciprocally, troops were also sent to Geneva when the Protestant cantons believed the city to be in danger, such as during the autumn of 1690, when French soldiers
Genevaâs isolation from the Swiss Confederacy meant that it did not habitually partake in the various Franco-Swiss capitulations which governed the recruiting of troupes étrangères in Switzerland, although it did agree separate treaties with France (such as the treaty of guarantee of 1584). These agreements gave Genevans in France the same rights as those of the Swiss, particularly in matters of commerce: Nonetheless, when Louis XIV and the Swiss Confederacy renewed their alliance in spectacular fashion in 1663, Geneva sent deputies to the federal Diet to agitate for the cityâs inclusion in the alliance.71
In times of war, recruiting agents from several belligerents frequently converged upon the region. France was not the only customer for the small pool of Genevan military talent: In 1701, La Closure complained bitterly at the presence of Dutch recruiters in the lands of Saint-Victor et Chapitre, and the Conseil des Soixante recorded its opposition to foreign recruiting as a result.72 The Genevan authorities themselves complained of the Duke of Savoyâs recruiting in these same lands, possession of which they disputed with the House of Savoy. Louis XIV was unwilling to support Genevaâs contentions against the military needs of his then-ally, Victor Amadeus II, who needed troops urgently.73 But in late 1703 â when Victor Amadeus II had turned his coat and joined Franceâs enemies â La Closure complained in his turn of how the Small Council was
In this regard, La Closure was merely continuing the work of his predecessor as resident, Charles François de La Bonde dâIberville (in post from 1688 to 1698). In July 1690, dâIberville wrote to Versailles, reassuring Louis XIV that âI forget nothing to ensure that the enemies of the king do not take from this city any succour that they may find there: that is to say that they neither levy recruits nor buy arms in Geneva.â76 DâIbervilleâs correspondence from Geneva for the years 1689 and 1690 are filled with references to the Vaudois efforts to return to their valleys, and he frequently reported on their contacts with the cityâs populace. This was in the context of the Grand Allianceâs efforts to assist and arm the Vaudois refugees who were returning to Piedmont via the Val dâAosta â large numbers of whom were camped at Thonon, on Lake Geneva.77 The Genevan merchant Jean-Louis Calandrini (originally of Geneva, now at Amsterdam) was approached to supply 30,000 écus to the Vaudois, but refused: less because of potential difficulties of the operation, but because of his unwillingness to involve himself âin such affairs in any wayâ.78
Moreover, Geneva and its hinterland often saw military activity, as detachments of troops manoeuvred in the Pays de Gex and Savoy, or â depending on geopolitical affairs in a broader context â levies from the Swiss cantons marched south to Italy during wartime, if alternate routes were blocked or
Another example concerning war matériel comes from August 1709. The sieur de Lozilière, French chargé dâaffaires in Geneva in lieu of his absent uncle, La Closure, informed the conseil ordinaire of a letter he had received from Marshal Berwick, the French commander in the Dauphiné. According to Berwick, the Allies were planning to requisition grain and munitions from the city (as well as other parts of Switzerland) and transmit them to the imperial force under Marshal Daun which had recently invaded Savoy.81 After debating Lozilièreâs request to refuse cooperation with the Allies, the Genevan councillors stated emphatically (and tellingly) that âwe know our own interests.â82 That said, although the city authorities could plead devotion to Louis XIV and a determination to act solely in his best interest, networks of Genevans beyond
5 Information and Espionage
But in many other ways Geneva functioned as a hub, especially since â as already mentioned â it was a porte into Switzerland from the south-eastern French provinces.83 Information was exchanged: diplomats and other étrangers assiduously employed their contacts among the political élites in order to gauge the progress of a particular conflict, and merchants eager to protect their loans and investments circulated rumours which were often taken as fact. It is also clear that both the French and the Allies had networks of secret agents â not just in Geneva but throughout the Swiss Confederation, and extending into the Dauphiné, Languedoc, Savoy-Piedmont, the Milanese, and southern Germany. Geneva served as a collecting-point of news from Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and successive residents sent every newspaper and broadsheet to Versailles that they could get their hands on. La Closure used his networks among the merchants and bourgeoisie of Geneva â as well as at Nyon, Versoix, and Lausanne â to acquire copies of anti-French pamphlets.84
There are a great deal of examples as regards information exchange, incidents of spying, and so forth. DâIberville possessed a considerable network of informants in Geneva itself, throughout the neighbouring cantons (especially Fribourg and Bern, but also as far away as Zurich), and in Piedmont and the Milanese. DâIbervilleâs letters mention these spies, whose information was usually reliable up to a point, but who demanded high prices for the information they supplied. La Closure maintained similar networks and was conscious of Genevaâs importance as a hub for the acquisition of news and intelligence
La Suisse romande â the region around Geneva and the Pays de Vaud â was also of importance to the Allies in terms of the trans-frontier exchange of money, manpower, and other resources. In July 1704, Mellarède wrote from Rolle to the Duke of Marlborough to inform him of the arrival of a number of Camisards at Geneva. The Sabaudian diplomat also warned of the precarity of communications between Switzerland and Piedmont, and stated that the only safe route lay through the Pays de Vaud.86 If the Allies truly intended to assist the Camisards in their revolt against Louis XIV, then a reliable individual â such as the enigmatic François-Louis de Pesmes, Marquis de Saint-Saphorin â should be entrusted with the task of managing the details.87 At Turin, the British envoy to the Sabaudian court, Richard Hill, was engaged in channelling funds from Geneva (drawn on Lullin & Nicolas) to the Cevennes â just one example of double-dealing from one of the major international bankers handling remittances for Louis XIV.88 Hill also coordinated the relief missions and the arrival of officers through the Alps from Geneva, Lausanne, and Bern, as the Grand Alliance sought to capitalise on the internal weaknesses of France and to create a âfifth columnâ of Protestant fighters within the kingdom of France itself.89 Genevan printers came to Turin to get pro-Camisard literature printed, and there was a regular flow of anti-French traffic. The British crown maintained an agent at Geneva, Gaspard Perrinet, Marquis dâArzéliers, who was charged with observing political developments and liaising with the Camisards as well
Geneva could also serve as a meeting-point for clandestine summits. In the spring of 1709 Abraham Stanyan, British ambassador in Switzerland, came to the shores of Lake Geneva to meet Count Venzati, a disreputable adventurer dishonourably discharged from the imperial army. Venzati demanded 50,000 pounds sterling from the British and Dutch, and the rank of lieutenant-general in the imperial forces. He claimed to have uncovered crucial information concerning the inability of the French to continue the war. Venzati negotiated with Stanyan, via the medium of the Marquis de Saint-Maurice, formerly a minister of the Duke of Savoy who lived in exile at Geneva. Venzati also provided letters concerning French troop movements in the Dauphiné, Savoy, and along the Rhône. This channel of espionage ultimately came to nothing, as the Earl of Sunderland, British Secretary of State, refused to meet the exorbitant demands of this amateur spy.90 Before ever even approaching Stanyan, Venzati had already offered his services to La Closure, the French resident-agent, who viewed him with immense suspicion and kept him at armsâ length.91
6 Conclusion
This short essay merely sheds a pinprick of light on Genevaâs stature as a hub of various kinds of financial and military activity in the early years of the 18th century. The city-republicâs neutrality â and its crucial location between France, Italy, and Switzerland â contributed to this scenario. The cityâs role as a trading crossroads, an information hub, and an independent republic, home to Protestant banking families with far-flung networks across Europe, meant that it fulfilled an important part in a system of international transactions and exchanges for the purposes of war-making. Research which I am continuing to carry out will demonstrate that status more fully over the course of the 18th century, until the French annexation of 1798 destroyed the cityâs independent and neutral status. Genevaâs liberation by the Austrians in 1813â14, and its adherence to the recrafted Swiss Confederation in 1815, stimulated a new era in which the rise of public banking augmented the cityâs fortunes.
This research was part of the âEuropean Fiscal-Military System c.1530â1870â project which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 787504).
For Amelotâs career as the French ambassador in Switzerland, and his rôle in secret negotiations to end the War of the League of Augsburg, see Edouard Rott, âLe secret de lâempereur (1692â1694),â Revue historique 147:1 (1924), 1â21; and instructions to Amelot in 1688, in, Suisse, 1, ed. Georges Livet (Recueil des instructions aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France 30) (Paris, 1983).
Kew, The National Archives [TNA], State Papers [SP], 96, vol. 9, Coxe to Nottingham, 31 January 1691.
âLa timidité des catholiques de ne se point déclarer au sujet de lâalliance du Milanez je ne puis néanmoins douter que si le comte Casati avoit eu les trois pension promises et les ordres pour une médiocre levée, il nâeust remporté de cette assemblée une satisfaction presquâentière ⦠plus on tardera à entrer à donner satisfaction à ces gens-cy, plus ils se rendront difficiles et augmenteront leurs pretentionsâ, Paris, Archives des Affaires étrangères [AAE], Correspondance politique [CP], Suisse, vol. 128, fol. 379, the Marquis de Puysieux to Louis XIV, 30 July 1701.
Andreas Würgler, ââThe League of Discordant Membersâ or How the Old Swiss Confederation Operated and How it Managed to Survive for so Long,â in The Republican Alternative: The Netherlands and Switzerland Compared, eds. André Holenstein, Thomas Maissen, and Maarten Prak (Amsterdam, 2008), 29â50.
TNA, SP, 96/10, dispatches of Aglionby for February and March 1703.
See the various essays in The War of Spanish Succession: New Perspectives, eds. Matthias Pohlig, Michael Schaich (Oxford, 2018). The classic text on Swiss importance to both sides is Sven Stelling-Michaud, Saint Saphorin et la politique de la Suisse pendant la guerre de succession dâEspagne 1700â1710 (Villette-les-Cully, 1935), which examines the career of an enigmatic military officer and diplomat in the service of the Grand Alliance.
For examples of relevant scholarship, see Andreas Affolter, Verhandeln mit Republiken: Die französisch-eidgenössischen Beziehungen im frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 2017); Andreas Behr, Diplomatie als Familiengeschäft: Die Casati als spanisch-mailändische Gesandte in Luzern und Chur 1660â1700 (Zurich, 2015); Christian Windler, ââOhne Geld keine Schweizerâ: Pensionen und Söldnerrekrutierung auf den eidgenössischen Patronagemärkten,â in Nähe in der Ferne: Personale Verflechtung in den Aussenbeziehungen der Frühen Neuzeit, eds. Hillard von Thiessen, Christian Windler (Berlin, 2005), 105â133; and Andreas Würgler, âSymbiose ungleicher Partner: Die französisch-eidgenössische Allianz 1516â1798/1815,â Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte 12 (2011), 53â75.
Dwyryd W. Jones, War and Economy in the Age of William III and Marlborough (Oxford, 1988); Aaron Graham, âMilitary Contractors and the Money Markets 1700â1715,â in The British Fiscal-Military States 1660-c.1783, eds. Aaron Graham, Patrick Walsh (London, 2016), 83â112.
Abraham Stanyan, An Account of Switzerland (Edinburgh, 1714), p. 163. Stanyan served as the British resident ambassador to the Swiss cantons between 1705 and 1713, and was partly responsible for the Grand Allianceâs tentative efforts to infiltrate the financial networks of the most significant banking families in Geneva. Stanyan also managed the raising of funds in Bern for the Allied forces in northern Italy after 1707. For his diplomatic career, see Philip Woodfine, Claire Gapper, âStanyan, Abraham,â in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB]; and Albert Zeerleder, âDie politische und literarische Mission des englischen Gesandten Abraham Stanyan in der Schweiz von 1705 bis 1713,â Berner Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Heimatkunde 4 (1942), 87â102.
Gillian Lewis, âCalvinism in Geneva in the Time of Calvin and of Beza (1541â1605),â in International Calvinism 1541â1715, ed. Menna Prestwich (Oxford, 1985), 39â70.
Körner has pointed out that the development of merchant banking in 16th-century Geneva owed much to the example of shifts elsewhere in reformed Switzerland â most particularly in the Zurich of Ulrich Zwingli in the 1520s: Martin Körner, âGenève et la Suisse reformée en 1584,â Bulletin de la Société dâHistoire et dâArchéologie de Genève 18 (1984), 3â22, p. 12. See also idem, Solidarités financières suisses au XVIe siècle (Lausanne, 1980), pp. 227â264.
For an explanation as to the defining features of a hub in this regard, see Peter H. Wilson, Marianne Klerk, âThe Business of War Untangled: Cities as Fiscal-Military Hubs in Europe (1530sâ1860s),â War in History 29:1 (2020), 80â103.
Catherine Santschi, âGenève et les Suisses: Mariage arrangé ou mariage dâamour?â in Eidgenössische âGrenzfälleâ: Mülhausen und Genf, ed. Wolfgang Kaiser (Basel, 2001), 25â57.
Olivier Fatio, Béatrice Nicollier, Comprendre lâEscalade: Essai de géopolitique genevoise (Geneva, 2002).
Salomon Rizzo, âUn petit Ãtat désire de se bien limiter avec ses voisins, surtout quand ce sont des grands princes â¦â Contexte et acteurs du traité de limites de Paris de 1749: Les travaux dâapproche genevois (1719â1725) (unpublished MA thesis, University of Geneva, 2003).
Otto Hintze, âMilitary Organization and the Organization of the State,â in The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, ed. Felix Gilbert (New York, 1975), 178â215.
André-Emile Sayous, âLes principales phases de lâhistoire de la banque à Genève: Pendant le XVIIIe siècle,â Annales dâhistoire sociale 1:2 (1939), 133â140, pp. 133â135.
Calendar of State Papers Domestic (Anne), 1, ed. Robert P. Mahaffy (London, 1916), p. 552, Dobourdieu to the Earl of Nottingham, 25 January 1703.
But in truth, many of these financiers would partly be the authors of their own downfall, as their connections to Samuel Bernard, the most powerful of all international bankers, would prove in 1709. The crash of April that year, when Bernardâs correspondents in Lyon refused to honour the bills of exchange he had drawn on that place, brought France temporarily to its knees â Bernard himself was eventually bailed out by the crown, but many âlesserâ financiers went under, suffering losses which forced them into bankruptcy. Bernard had overreached himself and had suffocated the money markets with paper instruments for which the crownâs promises â born out of desperation for cash â were the only security. In so doing, he had dragged down many bankers from Geneva to Amsterdam who were willing to speculate on this next-to-worthless commodity.
Herbert Lüthy, Die Tätigkeit der Schweizer Kaufleute und Gewerbetreibenden in Frankreich unter Ludwig XIV. und der Regentschaft (Aarau, 1943).
Guy Rowlands, Dangerous and Dishonest Men: The International Bankers of Louis XIVâs France (London, 2015); see also idem, The Financial Decline of a Great Power: War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIVâs France (Oxford, 2012).
Corinne Walker, âLes pratiques de la richesse: Riches Genevois au XVIIIe siècle,â in Ãtre riche au siècle de Voltaire: Actes du colloque de Genève (18â19 juin 1994), eds. Jacques Berchtold, Michel Porret (Geneva, 1996), 135â160, pp. 138â140.
Herbert Lüthy, La banque protestante en France de la Révocation de lâEdit de Nantes à la Révolution, 1â2 (Paris, 1959â61). For a brief assessment of the enduring popularity of the term, see John F. Bosher, âHuguenot Merchants and the Protestant International in the Seventeenth Century,â The William & Mary Quarterly 52:1 (1995), 77â102.
Aaron Graham, Corruption, Party and Government in Britain, 1702â13 (Oxford, 2015).
See also Geneva, Archives dâÃtat de Genève [AEG], Fonds Saladin, 12, for a useful outline of Antoine Saladinâs business undertakings and his links to banks in Lyon, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Turin, and Madrid in the years 1707â10.
The various social, political, economic, diplomatic, cultural and religious consequences of the Edict of Fontainebleau in October 1685 are the subject of a highly impressive and detailed collection of essays which were published for the 300th anniversary: Genève au temps de la révocation de lâEdit de Nantes (1680â1705), ed. Olivier Reverdin (Paris/Geneva, 1985). For the migration of Protestant refugees from the Three Leagues of the Grisons to Geneva during and after the âValtellina crisisâ, see Alessandro Pastore, âThe Shaping of a Religious Migration: The Sacro Macello of 1620 and the Refugees from Valtellina,â in Exile and Religious Identity, 1500â1800, ed. Gary K. Waite (London, 2016).
Jean-François Bergier, Genève et lâéconomie européenne de la Renaissance (Paris, 1963). The exhaustive synopsis offered in Anne-Marie Piuz, Liliane Mottu-Weber, LâEconomie genevoise, de la Réforme à la fin de lâAncien Régime: XVIeâXVIIIe siècles (Geneva, 1990) is no less valuable.
For an interesting snapshot of the financial markets in Genevaâs heyday in the mid-15th century, see Michele Cassandro, Il libro giallo di Ginevra della compagnia fiorentina di Antonio Della Casa e Simone Guadagni 1453â1454 (Prato, 1976).
Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397â1494 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963), pp. 289â290.
Richard Gascon, Grand commerce et vie urbaine à Lyon au XVIe siècle: Lyon et ses marchands (environs de 1520 - environs de 1580) (Paris, 1971); Estelle Leutrat, Les débuts de la gravure sur cuivre en France: Lyon 1520â1565 (Geneva, 2007), p. 23.
Jean-François Bergier, âLa politique commerciale de Genève devant la crise des foires de Lyon, 1484â1494,â in Lyon et lâEurope: Hommes et société: Mélanges dâhistoire offerts à Richard Gascon, 1, ed. Université Lyon II (Lyon, 1980), 33â46.
Françoise Bayard, âLes Bonvisi, marchands banquiers à Lyon, 1575â1629,â Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales 26:6 (1971), 1234â1269; Marco Schnyder, âArgument juridique, artifice rhétorique ou mythe? La paix perpétuelle de 1516 dans les pratiques et les discours des marchands suisses en France (1516â1792),â in Après Marignan: La paix perpétuelle entre la France et la Suisse, eds. Alexandre Dafflon, Lionel Dorthe, and Claire Gantet (Lausanne, 2018); Monica Martinat, âFamiglie tra le Alpi. Itinerari di alcune famiglie mercantili tra Svizzera e Francia (XVIIâXVIII secolo),â Mélanges de lâÃcole française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 125:1 (2013), 2â15; idem, âGenevois à Lyon, Lyonnais à Genève: Itinéraires de migrants et de convertis (XVIIe siècle),â Revue de lâhistoire des religions: Genève, refuge et migrations (XVIeâXVIIe siècles) 232:1 (2015), 37â51.
Piuz, Mottu-Weber, Lâéconomie genevoise, p. 502; André Holenstein, âLes fruits de la paix et les effets du géopolitique: Ãchanges économiques entre la France et le corps helvétique à lâépoque modern,â in Après Marignan: La paix perpétuelle entre la France et la Suisse, eds. Alexandre Dafflon, Lionel Dorthe, and Claire Gantet (Lausanne, 2018), 573â588.
Yves Krumenacker, âChoosing the Path to Exile: Networks, Destinations and Determinants,â in Huguenot Networks, 1560â1780: The Interactions and Impact of a Protestant Minority in Europe, ed. Vivienne Larminie (New York/London, 2017), 109â122, pp. 114â116.
As Greg Monahan has pointed out, the Lyonnais merchants dealt more in luxury goods than in grain and disdained to invest heavily in the cereals trade: W. Gregory Monahan, âLyon in the Crisis of 1709: Royal Absolutism, Administrative Innovation and Regional Politics,â French Historical Studies 16:4 (1990), 833â848, p. 835.
Piuz, Mottu-Weber, LâEconomie genevoise, pp. 377â381; Laurent Burrus, La communauté suisse à Marseille au XVIIIe siècle: Les logiques spatiales, sociales, économiques et familiales dâun collectif étranger (unpublished MA thesis, University of Lausanne, 2018), p. 6.
Steven Laurence Kaplan, âProvisioning Paris: The Crisis of 1738â1741,â in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, eds. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru (Ithaca/London, 1997), 175â210, pp. 191â195.
Hermann Blanc, La Chambre des blés de Genève, 1628â1798 (Geneva, 1941).
AAE, CP Genève, 24, fols. 12â13, La Closure to Torcy, 15 June 1703.
E.g., AEG, Registres du Conseil [RC] 207, fol. 450, 11 September 1707.
Junko Thérèse Takeda, Between Crown and Commerce: Marseille and the Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore, 2011), p. 48.
AAE, CP Genève, 22, fols. 17â18, La Closure to Torcy, 25 September 1701, informing the French minister that he has warned the Genevan magistrates that they should not abuse their privileges in France by smuggling or by facilitating the trade of members of the Grand Alliance.
AEG, RC 202, fol. 212, 29 April 1702.
AEG, RC 202, 2 May 1702, fol. 219; also cited in Lüthy, La banque protestante, 1, p. 47.
AEG, RC 198, 14 September 1698, fol. 296. In January 1700, one Jean Rodolphe Bulet was barred from serving on the Grand Council (to which he had recently been elected) unless he returned from the Pays de Vaud (a territory ruled by Bern) to take up residence once again in Geneva: AEG, RC 201, 20 January 1701, fols. 11â12.
In April 1701, word came to the chambre des négoces at Geneva to the effect that the prevôt des marchands at Lyon was using all possible means to interrupt commerce between Geneva and Marseille: AEG, RC 201, fols. 148, 160, 12 April and 27 April 1701.
Charles Aubert, Les De La Rüe: Marchands, magistrats et banquiers: Genève et Gênes, 1556â1905 (Geneva, 1984); Luca Codignola, Maria E. Tonizzi, âThe Swiss Community in Genoa from the Old Regime to the Late Nineteenth Century,â Journal of Modern Italian Studies 13:2 (2008), 152â170; Dino Carpanetto, Divisi dalla fede: Frontiere religiose, modelli politici: Identita storiche nelle relazione tra Torino e Ginevra (XVIIâXVIII secolo) (Turin, 2009); and Gian Paolo Romagnani, âI mestieri del danaro fra norma e trasgressione. Negozianti, banchieri, e ginevrini nella Torino del settecento,â in Le regole dei mestieri e delle professioni: Secoli XVâXIX, eds. Marco Meriggi, Alessandro Pastore (Milan, 2000), 152â175.
Olivier Fatio, Nicole Fatio, Pierre Fatio et la crise de 1707 (Geneva, 2007), pp. 29â30.
Charles François dâIberville, resident de France à Genève. Correspondance, 1688â1690, 2, ed. Laurence Vial-Bergon (Geneva, 2003), pp. 1157â1160, dâIberville to Louvois, 5 December 1690.
Anne-Marie Piuz, âà Genève à la fin du XVIIe siècle: Un groupe de pression,â Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations 25:2 (1970), 452â462.
Lüthy, La banque protestante, 1, p. 177.
Michael P. Martoccio, ââThe Place for such Businessâ: The Business of War in the City of Genoa, 1701â1714,â War in History 29:2 (2022), 302â322.
Romagnani, âI mestieri del danaro,â pp. 161â162; Rowlands, Dangerous and Dishonest Men, p. 69.
âCes negociants ⦠ont une maison de negoce ouverte à Lion, à Turin, et icy. Ils font egalement des affaires pour Messieurs Bernard et de Meuve pour les remises dâItalie. Ils en font aussi pour la meme raison actuellement pour M. le Duc de Savoye en Suisse. Câest un commerce de banque, qui est dâun usage permis dans touttes les villes qui sont libres, quâil est impossible dâempecherâ, AAE, CP Genève, 24, fols. 197â198, La Closure to Torcy, 7 December 1703.
Piuz, Mottu-Weber, Lâéconomie genevoise, p. 531.
Christopher Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690â1720 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 82. Victor Amadeus II appears to have bought the majority of remounts for his cavalry in Switzerland, using the Reding family of Schwyz as his intermediaries at a point when he was still an ally of France: AAE, CP Genève, 21, fols. 279, 285, La Closure to Louis XIV, 7 June and 22 June 1701; and AAE, CP Genève, 22, fol. 9, same to same, 10 August 1701. In the Nine Years War, the Duke had commissioned Pierre Le Maître and Henry Grossinger âfrom Genevaâ to buy horses for him in the Holy Roman Empire, according to passports granted to these buyers in May 1690 by the secretary of the British envoy to the Confederacy, Thomas Coxe, see The diary (1689â1719) and accounts (1704â1717) of Ãlie Bouhéreau, eds. Marie Léoutre et al. (Dublin, 2019). I am grateful to Dr Marie Léoutre for this reference.
Huguetan was finally compelled to leave in 1704: AEG, RC 204, fol. 297, 24 May 1704.
AAE, CP Genève, 24, fol. 32, La Closure to Torcy, 27 July 1703; see also Rowlands, Dangerous and Dishonest Men, pp. 139â140.
For example, AEG, 201, fols. 120â121, 14 March 1701, report on negotiations between the sieur Turrettini and the French resident La Closure, acting on behalf of the French controller-general of finances, Chamillart, and dealing in part with the question of French specie being reformed in Geneva.
Rowlands, Financial Decline, pp. 102â105.
Claude-Frédéric Lévy, Capitalistes et pouvoir au siècle des lumières: Des origines à 1715 (Paris, 1969), pp. 42â47.
London, British Library [BL], Add. MS 70193, fol. 70/2lr, John Drummond to Robert Harley, 22 September 1704. I am grateful to Dr Aaron Graham for this reference. Drummond was a Scots merchant who resided in Amsterdam and frequently provided the British government with information on the French efforts to remit money to multiple war theatres. See Ragnhild Hatton, âJohn Drummond in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Merchant Turned Diplomatic Agent,â in Studies in Diplomatic History: Essays in Memory of David Bayne Horn, eds. Ragnhild Hatton, Matthew S. Anderson (Hamden, Connecticut, 1970), 69â96.
Joël Félix, ââThe Most Difficult Financial Matter That Has Ever Presented Itselfâ: Paper Money and the Financing of Warfare under Louis XIV,â Financial History Review 25:1 (2018), 43â70; Rowlands, Financial Decline.
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the Right Hon. Richard Hill, ed. William L. Blackley (London, 1845), p. 482, Hill to Hedges, 3/14 January 1705.
See also the entry for Amy Buisson, son of a Genevan syndic, Jean Buisson, in Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS). Buisson entered French service in 1673 and was colonel-proprietor of the regiment de May (1715â21).
The muster lists and details of supplies for these expeditions are in AEG, Fonds militaire, I, no. 36, Rôles et comptes du secours de Genève à Berne et à Zurich, 1653, 1657, et 1712.
AEG, Fonds militaire, I, no. 37, Rôle des troupes suisses en garnison à Genève, 1692; AEG, Fonds militaire, I, no. 38, Logement des soldats suisses, 1693; Comptes de la garnison suisse à Genève, 1742â44.
AEG, RC 203, fol. 602, 25 November 1703. For a detailed analysis of Genevaâs role in extradition treaties and the return of deserters to French military authorities, see Marco Cicchini, âLa désertion: Mobilité, territoire, contrôles: Enjeux sociaux et politiques au siècle des Lumières,â Dix-huitième siècle 37 (2005), 101â115.
AEG, RC 204, fols. 158, 164, 18 March and 21 March 1704.
Tony Borel, Une ambassade suisse à Paris, 1663: Ses aventures et ses experiences (Paris, 1910), pp. 33â34; see also Peter Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (Ithaca, 2004), pp. 168â169.
AEG, RC 201, fol. 274, 14 June 1701; AAE, CP Genève, vol. 21, La Closureâs correspondence to Versailles between 1699 and 1701.
AAE, CP Genève, 21, fol. 282, Louis XIV to La Closure, 14 June 1701.
Turin, Archivio di Stato di Torino [ASTo], Negoziazioni con i Svizzeri, mazzo 7, no. 19, instructions to Mellarède, 4 October 1703. Mellarède was ordered to obtain support from Bern and Zurich for the neutrality of Savoy, now under direct threat of annexation by Louis XIV. In return, Victor Amadeus II promised to renounce his dynastyâs claims to Geneva and the Pays de Vaud: this was something of a hollow promise.
AEG, RC 203, fol. 583, 16 November 1703. Regisâs behaviour â acting without conciliar authorisation â earned him a rebuke from the Small Council.
Correspondance, 2, ed. Laurence Vial-Bergon, p. 837, dâIberville to Croissy, 21 July 1690, in.
Christopher Storrs, âThomas Coxe and the Lindau Project,â in DallâEuropa alle Valli valdesi: Atti del XXIX Convegno storico internazionale: Il Glorioso Rimpatrio (1686â1989), ed. Albert de Lange (Turin, 1990), 199â213, pp. 212â213. In the same volume, see Olivier Fatio, âGenève et les Vaudois entre 1686 et 1689,â 97â113.
Correspondance 1, ed. Laurence Vial-Bergon, p. 583, dâIberville to Croissy, 1 November 1689.
The French ambassador to Switzerland in the 1650s, Jean de La Barde, had proposed during the first War of Villmergen that French troops should join those of the Duke of Savoy in Bresse and the Pays de Gex, using the region as a launchpad from which to intervene between the warring cantons: Borel, Ambassade suisse à Paris, p. 19.
AAE, CP Genève, 28, fols. 226â227, La Closure to Torcy, 15 October 1706.
For a short description of the imperial invasion of Savoy and the Dauphiné in 1709, see Phil McCluskey, Absolute Monarchy on the Frontiers: Louis XIVâs Military Occupations of Lorraine and Savoy (Manchester, 2013), p. 54.
AEG, RC 209, fols. 304â305, 5 August 1709; AAE, CP Genève, vol. 30, Lozilièreâs correspondence for 1709â11.
The principality of Neuchâtel, further to the north, was another âSwissâ territory on the frontier which could offer a relatively easy potential route into Switzerland in case of need. In the early years of the 18th century, it was separated from France by a recently-conquered province (the Franche-Comté), in a rather analogous situation to that of Geneva, where Savoy (overrun after 1703) and the Pays de Gex acted as partial buffers. For a more general discussion of the challenges the French state encountered in channelling resources for war and moving them to their required destination, see Guy Rowlands, âMoving Mars: The Logistical Geography of Louis XIVâs France,â French History 25:4 (2011), 492â514. The succession to Neuchâtel in 1707â08 was a pressing issue in part because of the principalityâs strategic value, and its proximity to Bern, the strongest canton in military and political terms.
John C. Rule, Ben S. Trotter, A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State (Montréal, 2014), pp. 334â335.
AAE, CP Genève, 24, fols. 20â21, 24â27, La Closure to Torcy, 16 July and 18 July 1703.
BL, Add. MS 61256.
For Saint-Saphorinâs fascinating career, see the classic work by Stelling-Michaud, Saint-Saphorin.
Diplomatic Correspondence, ed. Blackley, p. 491, letter of 19/30 January 1704/5.
This echoed efforts to do the same in the early stages of the Nine Years War, again using Geneva as a hub for the purposes of organising, because of its sympathetic populace and its proximity to the French frontier: see Matthew Glozier, âSchomberg, Miremont, and Huguenot invasions of France,â in War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648â1713, ed. David Onnekink (London/New York, 2016), 121â154.
BL, Add MS 16537.
AAE, CP Genève, La Closureâs letters of early 1707.