THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE MOST SACRED RIGHT OF ALL: PROPERTY, PUBLIC DEBT, AND LAW AT THE PARIS STOCK EXCHANGE, 1793-1825 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY TYSON DAVID ENGSTROM LEUCHTER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2017 Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without support from a wide variety of sources. The Department of History and the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago provided financial support to begin, and then to continue, my studies. A grant from Sciences Po in Paris enabled a first year of research in the French archives; a Chateaubriand fellowship from the Embassy of France enabled a second. A Markovitz fellowship from the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago provided for a crucial year of writing. A generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities permitted me to spend a lovely summer at Marist College, discussing the meanings of property with fellow scholars across multiple disciplines. The staffs at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Centre des archives économiques et financières, the Archives nationales de France, and the Archives de la préfecture de la police all provided essential help in discovering the material that made writing the dissertation possible. It would be difficult to imagine a better advisor than Jan Goldstein. One of the first classes I took in my graduate education was her seminar on Intellectual History Methods, and I recall it still as an eye-opening experience. Since then, I have been lucky to have been guided by her penetrating insight, remarkable eye for detail, wit, and stories of France. Her continued support through this long process means very much. I look forward to continuing to learn from her example. My committee has followed this project through its many twists, turns, and occasional culs-de-sac; its debt to them is beyond estimation. Jan Goldstein’s comments, constructive criticism, and advice on this project have steered it towards a better place than it ever would have ended up in otherwise. Bill Sewell generously offered invaluable commentary on ii numerous aspects of French history. His work stands as an inspiration of the ways a historian can fruitfully combine social institutions, intellectual discourses, and material practices and experiences. Moishe Postone provided a terrific example of how to pursue historically specific theories of capitalism, which greatly helped shape this project; he also provided welcome encouragement and humor. Bernard Harcourt furnished critical insights into the dense intersections of law, politics, and theory. I think fondly of the informal seminars he held with his advisees, in which we happily discussed our work over dinner and wine. In the graduate community at the University of Chicago, I have found a remarkable collection of scholars and friends. As a prospective student, I roomed with Robin Bates, and, though I didn’t know it at the time, that brief stay inaugurated an intellectual collaboration that I look forward to continuing for years to come. I must also thank him for introducing me to the Rolling Stones’ classic Exile on Main Street, which sustained me through my first seminar paper. Erika Vause and Alexia Yates have done and continue to do inspiring work in French economic history. My own work is better for knowing them. Carolyn Purnell and Eleanor Rivera have been constant sources of sharp insight, good food, and good humor. Jack Hight, John Acevedo, Jake Smith, Emily Fransee, Sarah Panzer, Thomas Dodman, and Chris Dunlap have all provided valuable feedback, welcome distraction, and excellent companionship across my time in grad school. Chicago would not be Chicago without them. During my stay in France, I encountered a much-cherished community of researchers and friends. Already a dear friend from my undergraduate days, Ward Penfold was a wonderful fellow traveler in France; we spent many a late night discussing the intricacies of French history, politics, and occasionally a good Stephen Colbert clip on YouTube. As the saying goes, completing my research without his friendship and input would have been “pas iii possible.” Catherine Clark, Brian Jacobson, Jessica Fripp, Andrew Ross, Jacob Lewis, and Philip Fileri all provided intellectual stimulation, good times, and invaluable exposure to different disciplinary approaches. We also all shared a love for exploring the life and culture of Paris, from an early morning trip through Rungis, to an afternoon visit to the Musée Jacquemart-André, to enjoying a summer night’s bottle of rosé by the canal. I think of these times often and hope more will come in the future. Special mention must also be made of the women who ran the cheese and vegetable stands at my local fresh market; I may not have discussed the vicissitudes of the French public debt with them too frequently, but they undoubtedly made living in Paris all the more enjoyable. My thanks to them for pointing me towards a particularly nice batch of Vacherin Mont d’Or and for not laughing too uproariously when I decisively mangled the term for “celery root” in French. This project has benefitted from those kind enough to read bits of it through its long maturation process. I received valuable feedback from multiple presentations at the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Modern France and the Francophone World Workshop and the Social Theory Workshop. Audiences at two annual conferences of the Society for French Historical Studies offered useful insights. At various points, Paul Cheney, Robert Morrissey, Leora Auslander, John Shovlin, Clare Crowston, Rebecca Spang, Michelle Chihara, and Rafe Blaufarb all provided much-appreciated comments. I also thank the anonymous reviewers at Modern Intellectual History for very helpful feedback on an article submission. On an October Thursday night, I met Kate Franklin. My life is better with her in it. Finally, I must thank my parents. They have been there from the beginning of this project to the end, through its ups and downs, from Chicago to France and back. I cannot say how much their love and support means to me. I dedicate this dissertation to them. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..ii List of figures……………………………………………………………………………………..vi Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..vii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: Republicanized Debts and Lord Despotism: The Consolidation of the Rente Perpétuelle and the Form of a Revolutionary Public Debt………………………………33 Chapter 2: The Illimitable Right: The Marché à Terme, Property, and Political Authority in Napoleonic France…………………………………………………………………….70 Chapter 3: Privilege, in its Evil Sense: Law, Economic Liberalism, and the Company of Parisian Brokers, 1801-1841………………………………………………………...112 Chapter 4: The Honest Speculator: Debt, Honor, and Financial Regulation in Restoration France……………………………………………………………………...179 Chapter 5: Settling Accounts: The Émigré Indemnity and Financing Citizenship in Restoration France…………………………………………………………………...216 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...286 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………295 v List of Figures Fig. 1 – “La Rente française a surmonté tous les crises”……………………………………….289 vi Abstract “The Most Sacred Right of All: Property, Public Debt, and Law at the Paris Stock Exchange, 1793-1825” This dissertation examines the entwinement of property, finance, and the state in post- revolutionary France, taking the Paris Stock Exchange as its primary object. It focuses on political discourse, theoretical and legal debates about the moral rightness and economic utility of financial phenomena such as public debts and futures contracts, and the legal travails of the Paris stockbrokers, who maintained a controversial state-granted monopoly on financial intermediation at the Exchange. These debates helped establish the conceptual and legal boundaries of property, which, as the repeated disputes over the Exchange show, were up for grabs. The French Revolution of 1789 ostensibly ushered out an age of legal privilege and ushered in an age of property; the story of the Paris Stock Exchange helps illuminate just why that age of property took the specifically capitalist shape it did. The first half of the nineteenth century was a formative period for the modern Paris Stock Exchange. Emerging out of the architecture of the Old Regime fiscal-military state, but making striking departures from that conceptual-institutional apparatus, creditors and debtors, stockbrokers and lawmakers, revolutionaries and reactionaries repeatedly sparred over the nature of public debts, financial speculation, and the post-revolutionary state, in an age where public debts were to be justified not to fund military adventure, but for public and private economic utility. The modern Exchange thus was legitimated according to different theoretical grounds than prior formations; my dissertation explores the contours and boundaries of these grounds, illuminating the path of French capitalism and the implantation of finance capital in a discursive context otherwise quite hostile to it. vii The persistent controversies over the Exchange represented repeated attempts to sort out what kinds of moral attitudes were appropriate to post-revolutionary society. What kinds of economic manipulation of property were just and fair, and how might valid limits be set by the proper authorities?