The “Lavalette Affair:” Jesuits and Money in the French Atlantic

By Andrew Dial

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of a Doctorate in History

Department of History and Classical Studies Faculty of Arts McGill University Montréal

©Andrew Dial, 2018

1

Abstract

The “Lavalette Affair” rocked Paris in the spring of 1761. Caused by a Jesuit priest on Martinique, Fr. Antoine Lavalette, it was the first of several colonial scandals to hit the French public sphere in the wake of the Seven Years War and the spark which led to the Jesuits’ 1764 expulsion from France. During the interwar years, Lavalette had created a currency exchange network for colonial subjects looking to transfer their money back to France without losing value from the lopsided transatlantic exchange rate. This network collapsed at the onset of the war, leading his creditors to seek redress from the French courts. This dissertation contextualizes Lavalette’s activities within the Society of Jesus’ global presence to determine how his activities fit the acceptable actions for priests. It examines how Lavalette used transatlantic flows of commodities and the language of credit to borrow over 2 million livres. This research discusses how Lavalette’s creditors attempted to treat the Society of Jesus as a merchant house (société) under the jurisdiction of merchant courts. Finally, this thesis recounts Lavalette’s efforts to stay afloat during the Seven Years War and the ultimately successful efforts of the Jesuit superiors to shut him down.

Résumé

L’« affaire Lavalette » a frappé Paris pendant l’été 1761. Causée par le père Antoine Lavalette, un prêtre Jésuite à la Martinique, il s’agit du premier d’une série de scandales coloniaux arrivant à Paris à la fin de la Guerre de Sept Ans et menant ultimement à l’expulsion des Jésuites de France en 1764. Avant la guerre, Lavalette avait créé un réseau d’échanges de capitaux pour des sujets colonials qui avaient besoin d’envoyer de l’argent en France. Le réseau s’effendre au commencement de la guerre menant ses créanciers à chercher justice dans un procès auprès de la juridiction consulaire. Cette thèse aborde des activités commerciales de Lavalette dans le contexte globale de la Compagnie de Jésus afin d’interroger la teneur de ces activités commerciales considérés comme acceptables pour les ecclésiastiques. Elle examine comment Lavalette a utilisé la circulation des denrées et le langage du « crédit » afin d’emprunter plus de 2 millions de livres. Cette recherche discoute aussi les efforts des créanciers afin de traiter la Société de Jésus comme une société des marchands ainsi sujette à la juridiction consulaire. Finalement, cette thèse raconte les efforts de Lavalette pour maintenir sa solvabilité pendant la Guerre de Sept Ans ansi que la victoire de ses supérieurs Jésuites afin de mettre fin à ses activités commerciales.

2

Table of Contents Table of Figures & Tables ...... 4 Acknowledgements ...... 6 Introduction ...... 9 Chapter 1: How to Fund a Mission ...... 26 Chapter 2: The Martinique Mission ...... 66 Chapter 3: The Making of a Procurator ...... 98 Chapter 4: Sugar and Gold ...... 130 Chapter 5: Cultivating Crédit ...... 160 Chapter 6: How not to respond to a faillite ...... 189 Chapter 7: Société, Solidité, Scandale ...... 223 Chapter 8: “Je vivrai profitte de cette guerre” ...... 260 Chapter 9: Final Reckoning ...... 277 Epilogue ...... 313 Works Cited ...... 318

3

Table of Figures & Tables

Figures

Figure 2.3 Jesuit missionaries in the French Caribbean, 1658-1761………………………...87

Figure 2.4 Metropolitan Mission Revenue, 1670-1760…………………………………...…..94

Figure 3.1 Map of southeastern France with cities important to Lavalette……………….106

Tables

Table 1.1 Enslaved Persons owned by the Jesuits c.1760…………………………………...52

Table 2.1 Enslaved People owned by the Society in the French Caribbean c.1763……….90

Table 2.2 Income of the Canada mission, 1665……………………………………………...95

Table 2.3 Burdens (“onera”) of the Canada mission, 1665………………………………....95

Table 2.4 Revenue for the Jesuits in the îles du Vent, 1743…………………….……….…102

Table 2.5 Expenses for the Jesuits in the îles du Vent, 1743………………………..………102

Table 4.1 Path of Bills of Exchange written on David Gradis et Fils………………..……..152

Table 4.2 Bills of Exchange drawn on David Gradis et fils. Apr. 1753-Jan. 1754…….….153

Table 6.1 Funds Lioncy frères et Gouffre owed to the Jesuits………………………….…..208

Table 6.2 Funds the Society owed to Lioncy frères et Gouffre………………………….….209

Table 6.3 Share of Jesuit debt in Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s assets and liabilities………...209

Table 6.4 Judgements against the Jesuits by the Paris merchant court…………………...234

Table 7.1 Anti-Jesuit Works………………………………………….……………………....251

Table 7.2 Pro-Jesuit Works…………………………………………………………………..251

Table 8.1 Missionary Allegiance and Province of Origin…………….………………….….296

Table 9.1 Missiones Americae Meridionalis accounts for 1749………………………….....304

Table 9.2 Missiones Americae Meridionalis accounts for 1754………………………….....304

4

Table 9.3 De la Touche’s Summary of the Mission’s income………………………………307

Table 9.4 De la Touche’s summary of the mission’s active debts…………………………..307

5

Acknowledgements

Like Lavalette, I have many debts which I can never repay. My supervisors at McGill,

Allan Greer and Kate Desbarats, have been the models of academic mentors. They suggested books, wrote reference letters, and offered financial support without which this dissertation would not have been possible. Nicholas Dew provided valuable feedback and suggestions. Any remaining errors are mine rather than theirs.

A fellowship from the Cundil Foundation covered three years of study at McGill.

Funding from the McGill Faculty of Arts defrayed the cost of a 2014 archival research trip to

Europe during which many archivists assisted with the research. At the Archivum Romanum

Societatis Iesu in Rome, Fr. Daneluk answered key questions and Francisco the archivist somehow brought me the documents I requested despite my nonexistent Italian. Fr. Robert

Bonfils at the Archives français de la Compagnie de Jésus introduced me to the collections at

Vanves which contained key documents for this project. Rebecca Somerset tracked down names in the Archives of the Jesuits in Britain. Isabel Harvey kindly checked my French translations and taught me more about the inner workings of patronage networks than I could have ever learned from academic literature. Sonia Isadori put me up in her Ostiense guest room within walking distance of one of Rome’s best gelaterias and recommended several books on the

Jesuits. Leslie Tomory provided me with an introduction to Opus Dei’s Netherhall House in

London, who kindly opened their doors to a Protestant researching a Catholic scandal.

En France, je devais dire un grand “merci” au Christian Bosc et sa femme, qui a donné un chamber dans leur maison à Marseille à un pauvre etudient Americain pour quelques jours.

Merci aussi à Bernard Lemenager, qui m’a donné l’usage de son pied-à-terre à Paris pour deux mois en 2014, et à sa fille Agathe. Mes recherches étaient les plus agréable grâce à leur hôpitalité et bonté.

6

Leslie Tomory and Thomas Glasbergen provided indispensable help making sense of

Lavalette’s sometimes barely comprehensible Latin. I will miss translating Augustine and

Milton with them amid Thompson House’s afternoon hububb. Thanks also goes to the

Desperate to Finish Anonymous writing group at McGill. Carolyn McNally, Colin Gilmour,

Sonia Roy, Veronika Helfert, Raminder Saini and Max Hamon need no longer remain anonymous. Their comments, constructive criticism, and timely deadlines got me over the hump of the first chapters.

A short-term research fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library in the fall of 2016 allowed me to read about Jesuit haciendas surrounded by the indescribable beauty of a New

England autumn. The warm feedback I received from the international collection of scholars gathered there gave me the first inkling that my project would be of interest to historians outside the French Atlantic. Scott Miller encouraged me to reconstruct the macro-economic context of

Lavalette’s activities, a line of inquiry which bore much fruit, and conversations with then- curators Dennis Landis and Kevin Ward gave me an appreciation for the materiality of the publications surrounding the scandal.

A dissertation fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies introduced me to Philadelphia’s scholarly community. Kathy Brown generously gave of her time to read a chapter and taught me more about how institutions function than any textbook. Jeremy Zallen,

Christopher Heaney, Nancy Gallman, Jordan Smith, Andrew Ferris, Hayley Negrin, Emilie, and

Roderick McDonald all provided helpful suggestions and feedback. Late night conversations with Andrew Zonderman and Aaron Hall in the kitchen of Dan Richter’s Victorian townhouse

(which he graciously rented to three fellows) made me rethink my treatment of Lavalette’s enslaved men and women. Richard Dunn kindly showed interest in my work and suggested further research avenues.

7

The attendees of an October 2014 French Atlantic conference sponsored by the

Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture kindly welcomed an intimidated graduate student to his first professional conference. Comments by Alexandre Dubé, Susan

Peabody, and Brett Rushforth were helpful in framing the project at its early stages. A question from Emily Clark prompted me to think about the Jesuits’ changing relationship to the colonial state. Crystal Eddins, Hunter Harris, Bethany Aram, Joseph de la Hausse de Lalouvière, Trevor

Burnard and Evan Haefeli all asked useful questions and gave fruitful suggestions at the Fifth

Summer Academy of Atlantic History in Seville, Spain in September 2017. Justin Irwin and

Alex Borucki both asked about the Jesuits’ slaves at early stages of the project, questions which motivated me to make slavery part of the project.

Gene Turner at Louisiana State University generously provided an orphan historian from

McGill with an office and access to LSU’s library resources, without which this dissertation could not have been written. LSU’s interlibrary loan staff deserves thanks for handling the near- daily requests for francophone books.

On a personal note, many thanks go to Marg Buchanan, Raymond Guérard, and André

Brouillette, who first welcomed me to Montreal in the fall of 2012. Their hospitality and home- cooked meals were a lifesaving grace during the frantic months of coursework and reading for comprehensive exams. Afternoon conversations with Eric Svenson in LSU’s oceanography department were welcome breaks from to the writing process. Finally, a multitude of thanks goes to Andrea Price, who is the best wife an academic husband could ask for. She has tolerated my absence on fellowships during the first years of our marriage and has nodded quietly to many impromptu historical lectures over the dinner table. To her I am eternally grateful.

8

Introduction

The man in front of them was dying. He had been bedridden for six weeks and had only left his room a few times in a sedan chair. The sickness, which he had contracted on a trip to the far-off colony of Saint Domingue, would kill him by the end of the year. Yet when Jean Raynal and Joseph d’Heury met Antoine Lavalette for the first time in Heury’s Toulouse home on 1

September 1767, Lavalette’s voice was still audible, his mind was still active, and his memory was still clear. Lavalette could recall the places he had travelled, the people he had met, and the price of roofing tiles from twenty years prior.1 Traces of the personal magnetism which had once made him a trusted and influential figure on two continents must have shown through the frailness of his body. For a brief period, Lavalette had been the most powerful economic figure on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Hundreds of people had trusted his signature on bills of exchange collectively worth over two million of livres. People as far apart as Maryland and

Madrid knew his name. He had once been a member of the most powerful order in the Catholic church, the Society of Jesus. His actions had brought the Society to its knees. Surely some residual energy of that former authority showed through the powerless body in front of them.

It was this past which had brought Raynal and d’Heury to his door. Between 1751 and

1762, while superior general of the Jesuits’ Îles du Vent mission, Lavalette had created a currency transfer system between Martinique and France. At its height, bills of exchange bearing his name worth more than two million livres were circulating through France’s port cities. When this system collapsed at the outbreak of the Seven Years War, his creditors sued the

Society, turning the case into a public scandal (the “Lavalette affair”) which rocked Paris in the spring of 1761. This suit gave the Jesuits’ enemies an opening to engineer their expulsion from

1 Jean Raynal and Joseph d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses du Sr. Valette Pretre cy devant Jesuite aux Interrogatoires qu’il a Subir à Toulouse par ordre du Roy, ” 1767, Serie Memoires et Documents : Rome vol. 9 : fols.186-198,

9

Louis XV’s domains. Now, six years after these momentous events, crown officials wanted to know what he had done, where he had been, whom he had spoken to, and where the money had gone. The Secretary of State for the maison du Roi ordered Lavalette’s papers seized and a sworn statement (procès-verbal) taken. Raynal, an avocat au parlement in Paris, and d’Heury, subdélégué of Languedoc’s intendant, were charged with doing so.2 Readying their pens, they prepared to take down Lavalette’s story.

This dissertation is the story of the “Lavalette affair.” It reconstructs transatlantic flows of specie, credit and sugar which Lavalette harnessed to rise so quickly. It dissects the ancien régime language of credit which Lavalette used to influence people and borrow money. It contextualizes his currency network within the Jesuits’ global presence, specifically the debates over what entrepreneurial activities were permitted by members of the Society. It relates how

Lavalette’s creditors and their lawyers attempted to interpret the Society of Jesus within the rules of a merchant partnership (société). Finally, it follows the Jesuit investigator through the wartime Caribbean as he shut down Lavalette’s trading network.

Historiography of the “Lavalette Affair”

The first accounts of Lavalette and his business dealings were written during the scandal itself. Lavalette’s name first appeared in print in anti-Jesuit publications which portrayed him as an example of the Society’s penchant for lucre. Lawyers in the parlementary trial over his debts published narratives of his actions to ground their arguments. Newspaper accounts of the trial further spread these narratives around the Atlantic world. Lavalette himself wrote a “Mémoire

Justificatif” after his removal from power which only his superiors saw afterwards but which has been a major source for historians. These publications set the narrative for the “Lavalette affair” as it was unfolding.

2 Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses;” Raynal and d’Heury, “Interogatoires.”

10

The seminal text for recent scholarship on the “Lavalette affair” is Camille de

Rochemonteix’ Le Père Antoine Lavalette à la Martinique, d’après beaucoup de documents inédits, published in 1907. A Jesuit apologist, Rochemonteix explicitly set out to “dégager la reponsabilité de la Compagnie [de Jesus], qui ne participa jamais à ses fautes.”3 Despite this agenda, his close reading of the archival material (often quoted at length), and strong narrative made his work the standard account of “the Lavalette affair” through the twentieth century. An indefatigable detective of primary sources, Rochemonteix made extensive use of the Jesuit and

French state archives. Since Rochemonteix, other historians have explored specific aspects of the “Lavalette affair.” Geoffry Holt uncovered the English province’s investment in Lavalette’s businesses and debts in a 1969 article.4 D.G. Thompson’s forensic accounting untangled much of Lavalette’s web of borrowing and the lengthy trail of Lavalette’s debts in France through the

Revolution. Thompson debunked Rochemonteix by demonstrating the Society’s complicity in

Lavalette’s financial activities. She further showed that the rotating cast of provincial leadership prevented the Jesuits from responding effectively to the problems posed by his debts.5 Finally, the archeologist Stephen Lenick has recently excavated Lavalette’s plantation on Dominica. He argues that it was a site of power projection in a Caribbean frontier space.6

Vignettes of the “Lavalette affair” weave their way through French Atlantic literature.

Adrien Arden and Jean de Maupassant offer synopses of the Lavalette narrative in their books on the French merchants George Roux and Abraham Gradis.7 Louis-Philippe May, Richard Pares,

3 Camille Rochemonteix, Le père Antoine Lavalette à la Martinique: d’après beaucoup de documents inédits (Paris: A. Picard, 1907). 4 Geoffrey Holt, “The Fatal Mortgage. The English Province and Père La Valette,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 38 (January 1, 1969): 464–78. 5 D. G. Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors,” French History 10, no. 2 (June 1, 1996): 206– 39; D. G Thompson, “The Fate of the French Jesuits’ Creditors under the Ancien Régime,” The English Historical Review 91, no. 359 (1976): 255–77. 6 Stephan Lenik, “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763)” (Syracuse University, 2010). 7 Adrien Arden, Un armateur marseillais: Georges Roux. (Paris, 1890), 131–36; Jean de Maupassant, Un grand armateur de Bordeaux: Abraham Gradis (1699?-1780) (Bordeaux: Feret, 1917), 44–51.

11

and Kenneth Banks used “the notorious Father Lavalette” to highlight the rampant smuggling in the Caribbean, the instability of Martinique’s economy, and the corruption of colonial officials.8

Gérard Marion and Gavin A. Bailey reference it within the context of state finance and the John

Law scandal.9 J.F. Bosher connected the scandal to the affaire du Canada as a moment when the

French state rejected Catholic trading networks in favor of Protestant ones.10 Lavalette has thus been on the radar of those who study merchants, but only as a momentary blip. Outside the world of merchants, Dauril Alden placed the “Lavalette affair” alongside two seventeenth- century Iberian Jesuit financial scandals as an example of how the Society dealt with such problems.11 For historians of the Jansenists, specifically Dale Van Kley and Catherine Maire, the “Lavalette affair” was one battle in the larger war between the Jesuits and the Jansenists.

They show how anti-Jesuit lawyers partnered with Lavalette’s creditors to fight the Society in court, and how the rhetoric used was part of the longer battle leading to the Jesuits’ expulsion.12

In their narratives, the “Lavalette affair” is always an outside force, a bolt of lighting from the far-off Caribbean storm clouds which ignites the powder keg of Parisian political tensions.

Current Literature

Recent work in a number of areas, such as on the Society of Jesus, Atlantic history, and merchant networks, provides the basis for a new look at the “Lavalette affair.” The writing of

8 Louis Philippe May, Histoire économique de la Martinique (1635-1763) (Paris: M. Rivière, 1930), 199; Kenneth J Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713-1763 (Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 169; Kenneth Banks, “Official Duplicity: The Illicit Slave Trade of Martinique, 1713-1763,” in The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel, ed. Peter A Coclanis (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 229–51; Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739-1763 (London: F. Cass, 1963), 339–40. 9 Gauvin A. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism in the French Atlantic Empire: State, Church, and Society, 1604- 1830 (Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2018), 41–42; Gérard Marion, L’administration des finances en Martinique, 1679-1790 (Paris: Harmattan, 2000), 268–86. 10 J. F Bosher, The Canada Merchants, 1713-1763 (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1987), 191–212. 11 Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and beyond, 1540-1750 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), 550–65. 12 Dale K Van Kley, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757-1765 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) 90-107; Catherine-Laurence Maire, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation : le jansénisme au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1998) 500-510.

12

Jesuit historiography has recently taken a global turn. Titles such as Salvation and Globalization in the early Jesuit missions and The Jesuits and Globalization, plus the wide geographic sweep of essays in the two volume The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 all speak to the efforts directed toward the scholarly integration of the Society’s far flung presence.13

Lavalette’s activities have yet to be studied within this global scope or contextualized within the

Jesuit’s established practices, the modus procedendi. Doing so will shed light on the Society’s evolving sense of acceptable practices and the degree to which Lavalette was exceptional.

Historians of the Jesuits have often discussed the Society of Jesus using the language of business. C.R. Boxer famously branded the Society as the “first multinational corporation.”14

Dauril Alden labeled the Society’s endeavors in the Portuguese empire an “enterprise.”15 The

Jesuit scholar Nicholas Cushner has asked whether South American Jesuits were “agrarian capitalists” and argued that the Society’s institutions functioned as “vertically integrated businesses.”16 Cushner, who has done the most work on Jesuits’ Latin American plantations, is of two minds about the modernity of Jesuit management strategies. On the one hand, he argues that the Jesuits were conservative, not innovative, in their business practices. “They introduced....no new plants or cattle varieties” he writes, “their methods of cultivation were those practiced by most of their lay counterparts; they were hardly leaders in crop rotation or in the use of fertilizer, and their cattle ranches and farms were characterized by a high degree of

13 Luke Clossey, Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Jose Casanova and Thomas F. Banchoff, eds., The Jesuits and Globalization: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016); John W O’Malley, The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 (University of Toronto Press, 1999); John W. O’Malley, The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 (University of Toronto Press, 2006). 14 Dauril Alden has disputed this point. Quoted in Alden, Enterprise, 668. 15 Alden, Enterprise. 16 Nicholas P. Cushner, Farm and Factory: The Jesuits and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism in Colonial Quito, 1600-1767 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982); Nicholas P Cushner, Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina, 1650-1767 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 164.

13

mismanagement and ineptitude.”17 On the other hand, he concludes that “the interrelated Jesuit system of reinvestment, the use of slave and salaried labor, and large-scale production for a market, is a clear example of the early development of agrarian capitalism,” The Jesuit haciendas in South America were not limited to subsistence agriculture but produced consumer crops, such as yerba mate, for long-distance luxury markets.18

Other historians of the Jesuits have argued more firmly against the idea of the Society as an efficient, modern business. Thomas Murphy concludes that the Maryland Jesuits made little attempt to regulate the workdays on their properties in a structured or industrial manner. Instead they “seem to have conducted themselves according to the medieval method of governing serfs- managing relatively lightly and according to long established customs.”19 Dauril Alden has ardently rejected the accusation of Portuguese Jesuits seeking the treasures of heaven over the treasures of earth: “The notion that the Jesuits in this assistancy fled from the embraces of the virtuous Lady Poverty to the seductive arms of that vile, base slut called Materialism is unsupported by any available evidence. To the best of their abilities, the Jesuits served only one master. It was not the devil.”20

Rather than characterizing the Society of Jesus through its management structure or mindset for profit, it is useful to consider the activities in which Lavalette involved himself.

Ferdinand Braudel conceptualized capitalism as a “narrow platform” of speculative finance and long-distance trade centered on European cities. This capitalism rode upon capricious flows of

17 Nicholas P. Cushner, Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600-1767 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), 78–79. 18 Cushner, 132. 19 Thomas Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838, Studies in African American History and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2001), 40. 20 Alden is also more nuanced on whether the Jesuits were innovative. He notes that they were not innovative but states that there is evidence they brought in new crops and ran an experimental farm. Alden, Enterprise, 427–29 and 650.

14

precious metal and drew commodities from exploited global hinterlands.21 Lavalette’s arbitrage system depended upon the movement of specie. The mission’s plantations exploited African labor to produce sugar for shipment to Paris and Amsterdam. His bills of exchange were debts backed by future deliveries of commodity crops. State contracts and loans embedded him in the world of speculative financiers (albeit in the smaller context of Martinique rather than Paris or

Amsterdam). In Braudelian terms, Lavalette was a capitalist.

For scholars of the French Atlantic, the “Lavalette affair” adds an economic dimension to the vast literature on the Jesuits as educators and missionary ethnographers. The historiography on Jesuits in the French Atlantic has tended to focus on their missionary and ethnographic work with the indigenous groups of North America or their views of race in the Caribbean rather than their economic activities.22 Like their compatriots in Latin America and around the world, the

Jesuits in the regions claimed by France were significant economic actors. The Jesuits were the largest landowners in the St. Lawrence valley, as historians of seigneurialism have long known, and were active in the fur trade.23 More recently, Christopher Parsons has discovered Jesuit plans for cultivating Canadian ginseng and trading it to China.24 Allan Greer has argued that the

21 Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York, New York: Harper & Row, 1981); John Day, Money and Finance in the Age of Merchant Capitalism (Oxford ; Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 110–38. 22 On the missions to the indigenous, see Allan Greer, Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Dominique Deslandres, Croire et faire croire: les missions françaises au XVIIe siècle, 1600-1650 (Paris: Fayard, 2003). For race in the Caribbean see Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance : Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France (Chapel Hill; Williamsburg, Va.: University of North Carolina Press ; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2012); Sue Peabody, “‘A Dangerous Zeal’: Catholic Missions to Slaves in the French Antilles, 1635-1800,” French Historical Studies 25, no. 1 (December 21, 2002): 53–90. 23 For the seigneurial system see Sylvie Dépatie, Mario Lalancette, and Christian Dessureault, Contributions à l’étude Du Régime Seigneurial Canadien (LaSalle, Québec : Hurtubise HMH, 1987); Benoît Grenier, Brève Histoire Du Régime Seigneurial (Montréal: Boréal, 2012); Allan Greer, Property and Dispossession: Natives, Empires and Land in Early Modern North America (Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Michel Lavoie, C’est Ma Seigneurie Que Je Réclame : La Lutte Des Hurons de Lorette Pour La Seigneurie de Sillery, 1650-1900 (Montréal : Boréal, 2010). For the fur trade, see Lucien Campeau, “Le commerce des clercs en Nouvelle-France,” Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa. 47, no. 1–2 (April 1977): 27–35. 24 Christopher M. Parsons, “The Natural History of Colonial Science: Joseph-François Lafitau’s Discovery of Ginseng and Its Afterlives,” The William and Mary Quarterly 73, no. 1 (February 7, 2016): 37–72.

15

Jesuits were instrumental in defining indigenous land ownership within the seigneurial system.25

Archeologists Yannik Le Roux and Stephan Lenick have uncovered Jesuit plantations in the

French Caribbean.26 This dissertation connects their work to the global literature on Jesuit haciendas and credit networks in the Iberian empires by placing the Jesuits in a new context of state financing and transatlantic trade networks.

Atlantic History

This dissertation also draws on the burgeoning literature of Atlantic history. A focus on oceanic trade connections began in 1950s and 1970s with Huguette and Pierre Chaunu’s work on

Seville and Jacob Price’s study of Chesapeake tobacco.27 Since the 1980s and 1990s, Bernard

Bailyn, Alison Games, David Armitage, and others have called on historians to widen their scope of inquiry beyond the silos of national boundaries to uncover the flows of goods, people, and ideas which knit Europe, Africa, and the Americas together.28 Cecile Vidal, Helen Dewar, Pierre

Gervais, Kenneth Banks, James Pritchard, Bertie Mandleblatt and others have drawn fruitful connections between France and its colonies around the Atlantic rim.29 Lavalette’s commercial

25 Greer, Property and Disposession. 26 Yannick Le Roux, Réginald Auger, and Nathalie Cazelles, Loyola: les jésuites et l’esclavage : l’habitation des jésuites de Rémire en Guyane française (Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2009); Stephan Lenik, “Mission Plantations, Space, and Social Control: Jesuits as Planters in French Caribbean Colonies and Frontiers,” Journal of Social Archaeology 12, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 51–71. 27 Huguette Chaunu and Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l’Atlantique, (1504-1650), École pratique des hautes études. 6. section. / Centre derecherches historiques. Ports, routes, trafics 6 (Paris: A. Colin, 1955); Jacob M Price, France and the Chesapeake; a History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674-1791, and of Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973). 28 Silvia Marzgalli, “Sur Les Origines de l’Alantique History: Paradigme Interprétif de l’Histoire Des Espace Atlantiques de l’Époque Moderne,” Dix-Huitieme Siecle 33 (2001): 17–31; Alison Games, “Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities,” The American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (June 1, 2006): 741–57; Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History : Concept and Contours (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2005). 29 Gilles Havard and Cécile Vidal, Histoire de l’Amérique française (Paris: Flammarion, 2005); Helen Dewar, “‘Y Establir Nostre Auctorite’: Assertions of Imperial Sovereignty through Proprietorships and Chartered Companies in New France, 1598-1663” (University of Toronto, 2012); Pierre Gervais, “Neither Imperial, nor Atlantic: A Merchant Perspective on International Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” History of European Ideas 34, no. 4 (2008): 465–73; Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea; James S Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730 (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Bertie Mandelblatt, “A Transatlantic Commodity: Irish Salt Beef in the French Atlantic World,” History Workshop Journal 63, no. 1 (March 1, 2007): 18–47. On the reluctance of francophone historians to engage in Atlantic history, see Cécile Vidal, “The Reluctance of French Historians to Address Atlantic History,” Southern Quarterly 43, no. 4 (2006): 153–89.

16

activities spanned multiple empires (France, Spain, Holland, Britain), Caribbean islands

(Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St. Eustatius) and European countries (Britain, Holland,

France, Italy) making the transnational and transimperial emphases of Atlantic history an ideal framework in which to discuss the “Lavalette affair.”

French History

A central theme of French historiography has been state formation. Drawing on the seminal work of William Beik and Sharon Kettering, scholars such as Kenneth Banks, James

Pritchard, and Shannon Lee Dawdy have shown that patron-client networks and geographical constraints limited the run of royal writ in the colonies.30 The various naval secretaries’ attempts to crack down on inter-imperial smuggling or enforce slave codes often came to nothing since the governors and intendants charged with carrying out their orders possessed countervailing agendas. Emily Clark, Sue Peabody, and Sophie White have demonstrated that missionaries from all orders were often in tension with the state due to their concern for the wellbeing of the enslaved population. This concern generated conflict with the interests of plantation owners and state administrators.31 This literature, however, has ignored the material causes for tension between colonial church and state, specifically worries that the missionaries’ extensive landholdings were stunting the colonies’ economic growth.

The 1760s were a period of public scandals in France, a moment when religious controversies and state finances captivated the burgeoning public sphere. A significant scholarly literature has developed around these controversies. Alex Dubé, J.F. Bosher, and Catherine

30 William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France : State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc. (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Sharon Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea; Pritchard, In Search of Empire; Shannon Lee Dawdy, Building the Devil’s Empire French Colonial New Orleans (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 31 Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834 (Williamsburg, Va.; Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture ; University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Sophie White, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).

17

Desbarats have studied the trials of colonial officials for corruption, the affair de la Louisiane and the affaire du Canada, in the wake of the Seven Years War.32 The 1760s saw a peaking of debates over the state’s debts and financial apparatus as Michael Kwass, James Riley, and

Arnaud Decroix have demonstrated.33 Catherine Maire and Dale Van Kley have shown how the

Jesuits’ enemies, the Jansenists, created a highly effective news network which led to the

Society’s expulsion in 1764.34 More broadly, the work of Sarah Maza on judicial scandals and

Thomas Luckette and Pierre Lachaier on credit crunches, have shown the connections between the rise of Parisian print culture and the news-worthy failures of early modern capitalism.35 The

“Lavalette affair” adds a religious dynamic to the discussions of state debt. It also provides an

Atlantic and financial dimension to the Jesuit expulsion process, which has thus far been treated as a metropolitan phenomenon.

Merchants

A central focus of Atlantic history has been the merchants whose networks of credit knit the early modern world together. Studies describing the rise, and occasionally fall, of individual merchant houses are a staple of this literature.36 A major theme of this dissertation is how

Lavalette’s network rose so quickly. Conducting trade required creating trust and cultivating a

32 Alexandre Dubé, “Les Biens Publics. Culture Politique de La Louisiane Française 1730 - 1770” (McGill University, 2010); Bosher, Canada Merchants. Desbarats’ work is currenly forthcoming. 33 Michael Kwass, Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberté, Égalité, Fiscalité (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Michael Kwass, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2014); James C Riley, The Seven Years War and the Old Regime in France: The Economic and Financial Toll (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986); Arnaud Decroix, Question Fiscale et Réforme Financière En France, 1749-1789 : Logique de La Transparence et Recherche de La Confiance Publique (Aix-en-Provence : Presses universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2006). 34 Maire, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation; Van Kley, Jansenists. 35 Thomas M. Luckette and Pierre Lachaier, “Crises financières dans la France du XVIIIe siècle” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine vol. 43 no. 2 (Apr-Jun 1996): 266-292. 36 S.D. Smith, “Gedney Clarke of Salem and Barbados: Transatlantic Super-Merchant,” The New England Quarterly 76, no. 4 (December 2003): 499–549; Pierre Gervais, “Mercantile Credit and Trading Rings in the Eighteenth Century,” Annales HSS 67, no. 4 (December 2012): 693–730; David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Dale Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen: French Trade to Canada and the West Indies, 1729- 1770 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1978).

18

reputation for creditworthiness. Pierre Gervais, Albane Forestier, Francesca Trivellato, and

David Hancock, among others, have parsed out the ways in which merchants mitigated the ubiquitous risks of trading across a dangerous ocean with people they had often never met.37

Religious organizations occur only peripherally in this literature despite groups such as the

Jesuits and the Moravians having had a significant economic presence throughout the Atlantic world.38

Related to these studies of merchants has been a similar discussion of credit. Clare

Crowston, Laurence Fontaine, and Rebecca Spang have teased out the multiple facets of this polyvalent concept.39 For the merchants, credit meant not only money borrowed at interest, but also a good reputation which would allow one to borrow. Credit thus meant membership in the close-knit “trading rings” of the merchant community.40 In a specifically French context, crédit also meant influence at court or among patrons and clients. As propounded by Sharon Kettering,

Sarah Chapman, and Kenneth Banks, patron-client chains were hierarchical constructions in which strategically placed patrons used their crédit to procure favors (positions, pensions, preferment) for lower-level clients in exchange for loyalty and a secure powerbase.41

37 Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers the Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Albane Forestier, “Commercial Organization in the Late Eighteenth Century Atlantic World: A Comparative Analysis of the British and French West Indian Trades” (The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2009); Hancock, Citizens of the World. 38 Katherine Carté. Engel, Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press ;, 2011).Travis Glasson, Mastering Christianity : Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (New York : Oxford University Press, 2012); Clark, Masterless Mistresses; Kathryn Burns, Colonial Habits : Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Durham N.C. : Duke University Press, 1999). 39 Clare Haru Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013); Laurence Fontaine, L’économie morale : pauvreté, crédit et confiance dans l’Europe préindustrielle (Paris: Gallimard, 2008); Rebecca L Spang, Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015). 40 Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Fontaine, L’économie morale. 41 Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients; Sara E Chapman, Private Ambition and Political Alliances : The Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain Family and Louis XIV’s Government, 1650-1715 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004); Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea.

19

These two forms of credit/crédit have been studied and considered in isolation from each other. With the exception of Clare Crowston, whose work on Rose Bertin’s fashion procurement for Marie Antionette shows that business savy could create powerful connections which in turn could generate profits, historians of merchants study merchant credit while historians of the aristocracy study courtly crédit.42 Lavalette provides a useful counterpoint to Crowston’s

Bertrand; one more deeply embedded in the stereotypical merchant community. Studying his rise and fall is a granular look at the intricate ways credit and crédit interacted on a transatlantic scale. How did Lavalette gain the trust of people he had never met and with whom he shared no kinship? How did he cultivate the influence of powerful patrons at far remove? Furthermore, the religious dimensions of credit/crédit have long been ignored. Crédit did not exist solely among mortals but extended into the spiritual realms with patron saints and masses for the dead.

The “treasury of merit” and the “economy of salvation” signify imbue theology with economic dimensions. The word “credit” itself has its origins in the concept of faith and belief (credo).

Studying Lavalette is thus an opportunity to examine the religious dimension of ancien règime credit/crédit.

Negotiatio or Commerce

A major theme of this dissertation is the question of negotiatio or commerce. Whether

Lavalette was guilty of breaking canon law’s prohibitions against priests engaging in commerce has been a perennial question in the historiography of the “Lavalette affair.” Camille de

Rochemonteix, Dale Van Kley, and Gillian Thompson all condemn him as having breached canon law’s prohibitions on commerce, defined as “buying and reselling for a profit.” Widening the scope of inquiry to take in the Society’s global activities reveals that Jesuit administrators and theologians struggled to apply this simplistic definition to the bills of exchange, joint stock

42 Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex.

20

companies, and quasi-industrial management techniques of burgeoning Atlantic capitalism. Key moments, such as the donation of the Society’s first slaves or the bequeathing of a hacienda forced procurators and fathers general to decide how the Jesuits’ need for income would be balanced against its spiritual mission. Considering the question of commerce from this global perspective reveals the “Lavalette affair” to have been a watershed event in which Lavalette’s activities could have defined the future modus procedendi. The expulsions and suppression, however, cut short those debates and the Jesuits’ future.

The “Lavalette affair” occurred during a period of sea change in thinking about the role of trade and the place of merchants in society. Amalia Kessler has observed that the way French merchants defended their livelihood against these charges changed over the course of the eighteenth century. Previously commerce had been an inherently “virtuous” activity which generated bonds of trust and fraternal unity amongst merchants. With the rise of anonymous negotiable instruments and joint stock companies, however, merchants shifted to claim that trade was a public good which enriched the nation beyond the merchant community. The eighteenth century saw intense debates in France over the nobility’s participation in trade and the continued usefulness of prohibitions against usury. 43 Echoes of these debates can be found in the

“Lavalette affair.” The questions of what economic activity was acceptable for the priestly station, for example, mirrored the debates over nobles doing commerce. The most influential book on the latter question, Abbé Coyer’s La noblesse commerçante, appeared in 1756, the same year Lavalette’s credit network collapsed.44 Lavalette defended his activities by saying they were useful to the king and the Society. These echoes, however, were merely echoes and not a full-throated conversation. All of the actors in the “Lavalette affair” took for granted that

43 Amalia D Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007). See also Guy Richard, Noblesse d’affaires au XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: A. Colin, 1974); Fontaine, L’économie morale, 170–220. 44 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 273.

21

commerce, however defined, was unfitting for the priestly station. None of the lawyers who handled the case of his debts discussed commerce as a virtue or public utility. Lavalette’s claim of utility to the king has more in common with Jesuits in South America who were pressured into making forced loans to the state than it does the abstract debate over La noblesse commerçante.

Lavalette’s main defense for conducting trade was either to hide it or claim that financial necessity forced him into it.

Slavery

The historiography of the Jesuits as slaveowners is fragmentary, dated, and concentrated on South America. It primarily consists of chapters on “labor” in books about the Jesuits’ haciendas.45 These chapters compare the Jesuits to lay planters, finding that while the enslaved men and women on the Jesuits’ plantations did endure harsh labor conditions and physical punishments, they were better fed, clothed, housed, and treated than those on other plantations.46

Scholars of the French Caribbean have added to this conversation. Archeologists have excavated

Jesuit plantations on Dominica and in Guiana.47 Historians Brett Rushforth and Susan Peabody have teased out how French priests shaped conversations about race in the French colonies.48

While a full discussion of the Jesuits as slaveowners in the French Caribbean is beyond the scope of this work, the source material relating to the “Lavalette affair” provides a glimpse of the

African men and women whose labor supported the Martinique mission and Lavalette’s exchange network.

Sources

45 Cushner, Lords of the Land; Cushner, Farm and Factory; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches; Alden, Enterprise; Herman W Konrad, A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial Mexico: Santa Lucía, 1576-1767 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1980). 46 Arnold J. Bauer, “Christian Servitude: Slave Management in Colonial Spanish America,” in Agrarian Society in History: Essays in Honour of Magnus Mörner, ed. Magnus Mörner, Mats Lundahl, and Thommy Svensson (London; New York: Routledge, 1990), 89–107. 47 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola. 48 Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance; Peabody, “A Dangerous Zeal”; Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola; Lenik, “Mission Plantations.”

22

This dissertation goes beyond the pool of primary sources that previous historians have used to reconstruct the “Lavalette affair.” Rochemontiex, Thompson, and Van Kley have focused on sources in the main Jesuit archives in Rome (the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu or ARSI) plus official correspondence in the French colonial archives (Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer or ANOM) and printed works. I continue to use these source bases. From the triennial catalogues housed at ARSI, for example, I create a partial overview of the Îles du Vent mission’s finances. A handful of letters exist from Lavalette and other missionaries on

Martinique, permitting glimpses into life in the mission and its plantations. The letters and report of Fr. François de la Marche, the Jesuit visitor who investigated Lavalette and removed him from power, allow me to trace his investigation and Lavalette’s activities during the Seven

Years’ War. Rochemonteix used the official correspondence from Martinique’s governor and intendant to follow Lavalette’s activities on Martinique. I have used them more broadly to reconstruct conditions in the wartime Caribbean and the Marine’s changing policies toward the religious orders. During the height of the scandal, while the Paris parlement determined the fate of Lavalette’s debts, lawyers for both the Jesuits and the Jansenists published their own histories of Lavalette and arguments in support of their positions, which Dale Van Kley has used to contextualize the “Lavalette affair” within the Jansenist-Jesuit battles of the mid-eighteenth century. I have used these sources to explore how contemporaries defined “commerce” and conceived of the Society’s position within the merchant community.

In addition to these traditionally rich sources, I have found untapped veins of material off the beaten trail. The bankruptcy records of Lavalette’s key agents in Marseille, Lioncy frères et

Gouffre, held in the Archives Départmentales des Bouches du Rhône, list the debts he had accumulated and how his creditors fought over them. The Fonds Gradis in the Archives

Nationales, and Lavalette’s correspondence to Mlle. Beuvron de Harcourt in the Archives

23

Françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus (AFSI) provide glimpses into how his arbitrage network functioned and how he cultivated the merchant community’s trust. Lavalette did not keep account books or if he did they have not survived, making these records invaluable for fleshing out the scope and contours of Lavalette’s currency system. British and French newspapers reveal how word of the “Lavalette affair” circulated around the Atlantic to surprising places.

Finally, Raynal and d’Heury’s procès-verbal in the Archives des Affaires Étrangères chronicle his movements in the last years of his life.

In writing this dissertation, I have attempted to let Lavalette speak in his own words to the greatest extent possible. Lavalette’s letters to Abraham Gradis and Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt provide one avenue of doing so. Other snippets of Lavalette’s voice come from the published legal arguments during the scandal, which often quote extensively from his correspondence. By far the single largest written work Lavalette left behind is his “Mémoire

Justificatif,” written to his former superiors sometime between his removal from power in 1762 and death in 1767. ARSI holds a copy, written in a more stable hand from his short, sharp pen strokes.49 Despite its clear agenda of portraying Lavalette in the best light possible, I have found the “Mémoire Justificatif” quite useful and thus quote from it extensively. For vital periods of

Lavalette’s life, most notably his early years in the Caribbean, the “Mémoire Justificatif” is the best source for his activities and provides glimpses into his thought processes.

Notes on Language and Nomenclature

Contemporaries did not speak of the “Lavalette affair” or the affaire du Père Lavalette, though they did consider the scandal to be a discrete event. They instead spoke of the “debts of

Father Lavalette” or “la banqueroute du Père Lavalette.” Lavalette did not consider himself part of an affaire until after the scandal had died down. The name “Lavalette affair” is a creation of

49 This copy is in ARSI GAL 115 fols. 98-117. An abridged copy is in the Archives français de la Compagnie de Jesus (Archivum Francium Societatis Iesu or AFSI)

24

historians, most notably Dale Van Kley and J.F. Bosher. The term is now common currency, albeit with limited circulation. Despite its anachronism, I have found the “Lavalette affair” to be a useful term which not only encapsulates the Parisian scandal, but draws connections between similar ancien régime scandals such as the affaire du Canada and the affaire de Calas.

Historians are divided on whether to call the “affair’s” central character Antoine

Lavalette or Antoine La Valette. For Rochemonteix he is “Lavalette.” For Thompson, Van

Kley, and Lenik, he is “La Valette.” Lavalette himself suffered from a confusion of names: he entered the Society as Valette but his superiors renamed him Lavalette to distinguish him from another Antoine Valette. Many printed accounts of the scandal call him “La Valette.” A glance at his letters, however, shows that he signed them “Lavalette” as one word, so that is how I refer to him here.

To retain the flavor of the period, I have not translated or modernized quotations in

French. I have, however, translated Latin quotations into English for the reader’s benefit.

Finally, though the distinction between livres tournois (l.t.) and livres coloniales (l.c.) was central to Lavalette’s activities, contemporaries elided the difference as often they specified it. Lavalette’s “Mémoire Justificatif,” for example, lists his losses in the unhelpful livres, as does

Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s balance sheet.50 While the latter can be assumed to mean livres tournois, the former cannot. Historians less familiar with the complexities of early modern money transfer have likewise papered over the distinctions. Where possible I have specified whether an amount was in livres tournois or livres coloniales but where the sum was unspecified,

I have left it in the vague livres.

50 Lavalette did, however, also listed the sums in “écus Romaines” for the father general’s benefit.

25

Chapter 1: How to Fund a Mission

Ignatius of Loyola conceived of the Society of Jesus as fundamentally poor. He denounced greed as a “contagion” and lauded poverty as a “strong wall,” “defense,” or “rampart” which kept the devil at bay.51 However, food needed to be put on refectory tables, robes on missionaries’ backs, and roofs over students’ heads. The annual expenses for a single Jesuit could run to hundreds of Spanish pesos and thousands of Portuguese reís.52 In addition to these costs of living, the Society required funds for travel, the construction and upkeep of buildings, books, utensils, and vestments for saying mass, the provisioning of students, and a variety of other expenses. This paradox of holy poverty versus pragmatic necessity reared its head within

Ignatius’ lifetime. He initially expected the Society to survive on alms and donations but was forced to confront the need for colleges to have a stable funding source. The solution was a compromise enshrined in the Constitutions: the professed houses which harbored the Society’s administrators were to live off alms while colleges were permitted an endowment. Neither institution could access the funding source of the other.53

Jesuits have a name for their customs and everyday practices: noster modus procedendi

(our way of proceeding). This Jesuit habitus, created from the daily actions of Jesuits across the centuries and around the globe, guides the actions and decisions of the Society. It forms the traditions and precedents within which the Jesuits interpret and enact the written rules of

Ignatius’ Constitutions and the decrees of the General Congregations.54 It is also the product of conflict between Rome’s ideals for the Society and the missionaries’ on the ground realities. The

51 Ignatius and George E. Ganss, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and the Complementary Norms: A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts. (Saint Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), Part VI Chapter 2 Section 1; Alden, Enterprise, 615-17. 52 These were 120 and 290 pesos in Paraguay’s colleges and reductions respectively. Jesuits in China cost between 30,000 and 65,000 reís. Cushner, Lords of the Land, 6; Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 173. 53 Missions were not mentioned in this compromise. Ignatius and Ganss, Constitutions, Part IV Chapter 2 Section 6 and Part VI Chapter 2 Section 3; Thomas H Clancy, An Introduction to Jesuit Life: The Constitutions and History through 435 Years (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976). 54 O’Malley, The Jesuits, 8.

26

lived experience of the modus procedendi, decided through countless contests between Rome and the periphery, determined how the material needs of the Society’s overseas missions, colleges, and professed houses were to be provided for while maintaining the vows of holy poverty.

This chapter describes how the Society of Jesus created and lived the modus procedendi in regard to funding practices between 1540 and Lavalette’s arrival in the Caribbean two centuries later. Lavalette would have understood the modus procedendi as defining the expected activities of a priest, procurator, and superior general. His superiors would have viewed his actions through its lens. While neither Lavalette nor his French superiors would explicitly invoke the practices of Iberian Jesuits in Mexico or Macao, their conceptions of what economic activities were permissible and fitting for the sons of Ignatius followed a path blazed by their

Spanish and Portuguese brethren. This will be the first overview of the Jesuits’ economic activities which attempts to bring together their full geographic and temporal (pre-suppression) scope. It is possible through a generation of regional studies in English and French. Many of these studies focus on the Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal, which contained much of the

Jesuits’ overseas presence and where the remaining documentation is most extensive. A synthesis of these studies reveals the overarching commonalities which comprised the Society’s modus procedendi within an infinity of local variations.55 This chapter thus reveals the rich repository of customs of which Lavalette was the beneficiary.

55 Cushner, Lords of the Land; Cushner, Farm and Factory; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches; Clossey, Salvation and Globalization; Greer, Property and Dispossession; Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda; Alden, Enterprise; Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding; Dauril Alden, “Sugar Planters by Necessity, Not Choice: The Role of the Jesuits in the Cane Sugar Industry of Colonial Brazil, 1601-1759,” in The Church and Society in Latin America: Selected Papers from the Conference at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 29-30, 1982 (New Orleans: Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University, 1984), 139–72; Nicholas P. Cushner, Landed Estates in the Colonial Philippines (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1976); C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. (Berkeley,: University of California Press, 1951); Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Roy Clinton Dalton, The Jesuits’ Estates Question, 1760-1888; a Study of the Background for the Agitation of 1889, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968); Charles J Borges, The Economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542-1759: An

27

Organization

The Society of Jesus which Lavalette joined as a novice in the 1720s was a spiritual and temporal powerhouse. Scholars have identified its streamlined administrative structure as a key component of its success.56 Where St. Dominic and St. Francis made the local chapters of their respective orders independent of an overarching authority, Ignatius centralized power in the hands of the father general in Rome. Elected for life, the father general approved every major decision and appointed every other official within the Society down to the lowliest novice and the most far off mission. The Jesuits’ vows of obedience in theory gave the father general more power than the European monarchs whose bureaucracies were hampered by patronage chains and local power blocs. Ignatius even allowed him to ignore the Constitutions in desperate situations. In practice, however, the general merely rubber stamped the recommendations of local agents who knew more about the character of individual Jesuits and the situation on the ground. For problems that required an on-the-ground presence, the father general could appoint a visitor imbued with his authority to inspect a region or settle a dispute. Separate from the father general was a general congregation composed of representatives from each province. This body met either upon the death or (more rarely) the summons of the father general. The general congregation elected a new father general and issued decrees addressing current issues which served as amendments to Ignatius’ Constitutions.57

Below the father general, the Society’s basic unit of administration was the province headed by a father provincial. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these ranged in

Explanation of Their Rise and Fall (New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1994).There are other studies in German, Spanish, and Portuguese but this author is regrettably limited to French, English, and desultory Latin. 56 J. Gabriel Martinez-Serna, “Procurators and the Making of the Jeuits’ Atlantic Network,” in Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, 1500-1830, by Bernard Bailyn and Patricia L Denault (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 181–209; Markus Friedrich, “Government and Information- Management in Early Modern Europe. The Case of the Society of Jesus (1540-1773),” Journal of Early Modern History 12 (2008): 539–63. 57 In the Ignatian tradition, pope held absolute power over the Society in theory but was delegated to the father general in practice. Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 23; Martinez-Serna, “Procurators,” 183-87.

28

size from several tightly clustered provinces on the Italian peninsula to province of Malabar which spanned the eastern Indian Ocean. The provincial oversaw Jesuit institutions within the province, approved large sales and expenditures, dealt with royal officials, and decided policy matters not deemed important enough for the father general. It was his personnel recommendations which the father general validated for posts within the province. Assisting the provincial was a procurator who handled the province’s temporal affairs and a group of consultors (usually four to five in number) who advised the provincial on major actions and policy decisions. For convenience, the provinces were grouped into one of five assistances

(Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany) defined loosely by nationality with a father assistant in

Rome to advise the father general on the affairs of that region, state, or empire.58 The Society represented its organizational structure as a tree, with the boughs representing the assisstancies breaking off into the provinces and the leaves of individual houses. The French assistancy, which covered the European hexagon and the French monarch’s overseas colonies, was composed of five provinces: (Ile de) France, Champagne, Lyon, Toulouse, and Aquitaine. The overseas missions were attached to the province of France and overseen by the provincial in

Paris.59

Each province in turn oversaw the various colleges, missions, professed houses, and novitiates which were the Society’s reason for being. A rector headed each college and a superior general headed each mission. The colleges’ and missions’ administration reproduced that of the province, with each rector and superior general having their own procurator and consultors. Each of the administrative levels described above were filled by “professed” Jesuits who were ordained, had taken all four vows (poverty, chastity, obedience, and obedience to the

58 A sixth Polish assistancy was also added in 1755 just before the suppression. 59 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 23-24; Martinez-Serna, “Procurators,” 182-91.

29

pope) and demonstrated great proficiency in Latin. Temporal coadjutors (non-ordained brothers from lower educational and socioeconomic backgrounds with more practical skills) performed administrative tasks below the college and mission level, such as overseeing farms, ranches, and estates, plus the Society’s missionary and education work.60 On large haciendas in Spanish

America, this hierarchy extended even further, to paid majordomos who oversaw the work of hired and enslaved laborers. In theory, then, the Society of Jesus formed a seamless hierarchy from the father general (and the pope above him) to the newest novice (and the enslaved workers below them).

Parallel to this administrative hierarchy was a network of procurators who handled the

Society’s temporal affairs. The post derived from officials in the Roman state who managed the affairs of others. Each province, college, mission, and house maintained a procurator. A procurator general in Rome assisted the father general. Mission procurators in Seville, Lisbon, and Paris handled the European affairs of far-flung missions throughout the Catholic empires.

Court procurators represented the Society before European monarchs. Procurators for colleges, missions, and houses oversaw the provisioning of their institution. They purchased and sold goods, acquired stores, hired or bought labor, and maintained detailed inventories of the supplies on hand. Procurators also guarded the institution’s cashbox and maintained its account books.

They dealt with the college’s paperwork, sent and received reports from Rome, and archived the various records of donations, bequests, land titles, lease agreements, and royal directives. They were nodes for the movement of information, money, goods, and people among the provinces and institutions. Finally, procurators handled the institution’s legal affairs, representing the it

60 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 76; Alden, Enterprise, 311-17.

30

before royal and ecclesiastical courts. The provincial procurators regularly held their own congregation in Rome which mirrored the Society’s general congregation.61

For overseas provinces and institutions, the mission procurator served as the vital link connecting them to Europe. Each overseas province in the Spanish and Portuguese empires maintained its own mission procurator in Lisbon and Seville, while one mission procurator in

Paris handled the affairs of the province of France’s extra-European missions. A 1710 description of the necessary qualities for a mission procurator written by a former missionary to

Martinique, Guillaume Moreau, could have described any Jesuit procurator:

“Le Procureur de la Mission doit estre un homme capable d’en gouverner les

biens empeschant quils ne deperissent et travaillant a les augmenter; capable de

les dispenser autant que la necessité, ou lutilité de la mission le pourra exiger,

capable de tenir un bon ordre dans Ses affaires pour estre tousiours en etat dy voir

clair, et d’en rendre un compte fidele quand on le luy demandera pour cet effet il

faut donc que ce Soit un homme habile et entendu dans les affaires, Sage,

charitable, et compatissant, exacte [sic] vigilant et fidele, néstant pas moins

important de dispenser ce bien à propos, que de le conserver et de laugmenter.”62

Sometimes mission procurators had spent time overseas and thus understood conditions on the ground, but often they had never left Europe. Moreau decried the mission procurators in

Paris for treating the job as a sinecure.63 The most important duty of the mission procurator was the recruitment of new missionaries for duty overseas. He encouraged likely candidates to apply to Rome, acquired the funds for the successful appointee’s travel, and arranged their transport

61 For a more detailed overview of the procurator network, see Martinez-Serna, “Procurators”; Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 25. 62 Guillaume Moreau, “Mémoires concernant la Mission des Pères de la Comp.ie de Jésus dans les Isles françoises de Lamerique,” 1710, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI) GAL 121, Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu. 63 Moreau.

31

and lodging. The mission procurator also served as the province’s European agent, selling goods and investing money sent to him from overseas, distributing gifts from colonial benefactors, acquiring funds and provisions for the missions, keeping accounts, and handling the reams of paperwork which maintained the Society’s communications networks. As we shall see, the mission procurator in Paris who worked with Lavalette, Dominique de Sacy, both helped to get

Lavalette’s fund transfer system off the ground and picked up the pieces when it collapsed.

Mission procurators also represented overseas provinces at royal courts and the Roman curia.

Finally, the mission procurator was responsible for handling any lawsuits and legal affairs with which the province became entangled in Europe.64

Procurators everywhere were thus essential to the efficient running of the order, yet their emphasis on temporal rather than spiritual affairs put them in tension with the Society’s heavenly ideals. In 1646 the decree of the Eighth General Congregation attempted to restrict the office of procurator to coadjutors and non-professed, but pragmatism prevented such a rule from being implemented.65 They also required permission from their superiors and the mission’s consult (a body of 4-5 venerable levelheaded priests who advised the superiors on major decisions) to alienate property or make large expenditures.66

Information Network

The centralization of power in the hands of the father general required a constant flow of information to Rome. Jesuits who wished to be posted to the overseas missions wrote indipetae to the father general explaining their calling and specifying their preferred region.67 Any Jesuit could write to the Father General a “soli” letter which would be opened by him alone. The

64 Moreau, “Mémoires.” 65 Martin D. O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty Jesuit General Congregations, 1st edition (St. Louis, Mo: Inst of Jesuit Sources, 1994), 282. 66 Alden, Enterprise, 317. 67 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 95.

32

Constitutions required college rectors and mission superiors to write weekly reports to the provincial which would be compiled into a monthly report to Rome.68 The Constitutions also required each province to send a “catalogue” to Rome every three years providing a complete inventory of the province’s personnel and finances. These triennial catalogues listed each Jesuit by name, age, location, posting, and a short character sketch. Institutions listed their revenue, expenditures, and cash on hand. Edifying litterae annuae describing God’s work through the

Society’s members arrived in Rome each year from around the world and were often published for the benefit of the Society’s European patrons. A copy of the provincial’s findings on their annual inspection tour of the province likewise made its way to the general’s desk, as did his report on meetings of the provincial congregation.69 Procurators wrote, compiled, and sent these documents. In the decades after Ignatius’ death, the volume of paper reaching Rome had become such that the general congregations passed decrees scaling it back.70 The housing of this paperwork upon its arrival in Rome necessitated the creation of a centralized archive, providing easy access for both Jesuit administrators and future historians.

Precise rules governed how this information was to be collected. The formula scribendi set down by Ignatius himself in the 1540s and revised throughout the sixteenth-century instructed correspondents not to cover multiple topics in the same letter, but to instead pen separate letters so each could be routed to the proper authorities. A strict template governed the recommendation letters (informationes ad gubernationem) from local consultors advising the father general on a “personnel” decision. These letters were compiled at the provincial level into

68 Extra-European missions would do so “as often as shall be prescribed to them.” O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 124. 69 Friedrich, “Information-Management,” 544. 70 The second congregation (1565) specified that catalogues were to be sent once a year rather than three times a year. The fourth congregation (1581) limited the annual reports to one for each province. O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 123 and 178.

33

a single packet and forwarded to the father general’s office.71 Provinces were not supposed to exchange correspondence but communicate through Rome.72

Accounting

The need to record and report financial data resulted in a detailed system of accounting at every level of the Society. The procurator of each assistancy, province, college, mission, professed house, hacienda, and plantation down to individual farms and ranches maintained a set of financial records which are a boon for historians studying Jesuit finances. Scholars who have studied these records found that there was no standardized method for recording transactions, although regional guidelines and an overarching modus procedendi developed over time.73

Published Instrucciones for running haciendas which circulated amongst Spanish American

Jesuits recommended eight types of account books: a daybook, a monthly summary for audits, a record of planting and harvests, a personnel record, an inventory of all assets, a record of land grants, a book of miscellaneous transactions, and payroll for the hired labor.74 A 1665 handbook for the college of Quito required hacienda administrators to maintain two books: one listing annual income, expenses, and harvests and the other an inventory of all the hacienda’s possessions.75 Nicholas Cusher’s examination of Jesuit hacienda records listed separate books recording agricultural production, sale of produce, income, expenses, inventories, and general ledgers.76 These were audited on the provincial’s triannual inspection tour, during the compilation of the triennial catalogues, and when a new provincial took over.77 In theory, this

71 The recommendation letters for Lavalette’s appointment to superior general of the Martinique mission are an example of this process. Friedrich, “Information-Management,” 546–48. 72 The Constitutions did grant some provinces an exemption from this rule. Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 26. 73 Cushner, Lords of the Land; Cushner; Farm and Factory; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches; Alden, Enterprise; Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda. 74 The Santa Lucía hacienda outside Mexico City followed this system. Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 118–19. 75 Cushner, Farm and Factory, 84–86. 76 Cushner, Farm and Factory, 147; Cushner, Lords of the Land, 114-15. 77 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 299; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 119-20.

34

precision allowed rectors, provincials, and fathers general to keep a close eye on the institutions under their care.

Like most state officials, Jesuit procurators were not trained in accounting practices and learned on the job how to keep financial records. Unlike merchants, they did not use the double- entry bookkeeping system of credits and debits, which would have required a lengthy apprenticeship to master. Instead, their accounts are simple lists of income and expenses designed to show the institution’s financial stability. The triennial catalogues for the province of

France, which will be discussed in the next chapter, listed the annual revenues, burdens, and net annual revenue for each mission plus whether the burdens were rentes or temporary debts.78 The practice of distinguishing burdens with rentes from temporary debts does not appear to have been practiced everywhere, leading to confusion between regular income/debt and short-term gains/losses.79

Inefficiencies

“The image of the Society of Jesus as a finely tuned machine whose parts always worked smoothly together and efficiently in response to the dictates of a chief engineer is a pervasive one,” writes Dauril Alden, “....in reality the society never hummed as harmoniously or as efficiently as is often thought.”80 The time it took to get letters from Beijing or Huronia to Rome and back again made it impossible for the father general to actively manage every situation on the ground. His personnel appointments were usually rubber stamps on the recommendations

78 See the triennial catalogues in ARSI FRANC 11-21B. 79 Alden found no evidence of budgeting in the Portuguese accounts, while Cushner reports annual planning budgets in Argentina. Alden, Entrprise, 619; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 119. 80 Alden, Enterprise, 229. Previous generations of historians, most notably Charles Boxer, described the Jesuits in triumphal and often militaristic terms; a picture which continues in Friedrich, “Information-Management” and Martinez-Serna “Procurators.” The recent work of Luke Clossey, Dauril Alden, Gillian Thompson, Adina Ruiu, and others have challenged this by pointing out the limitations of the Society’s organization structure. Clossey, Salvation and Globalization; Thompson “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors”; Adina Ruiu, “Conflicting Visions of the Jesuit Missions to the Ottoman Empire, 1609–1628,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 1, no. 2 (March 12, 2014): 260– 80.

35

sent by provincials and other local officials. Although the Jesuits did not have as sweet a phrase as obedzco pero no complo, they could still also find creative ways to avoid carrying out the wills of those they had promised to obey. They requested clarification, pleaded the need for more study, used patrons to intercede, appealed to other authorities, and when all else failed, they directly disobeyed. In the most well-known example of recalcitrance, Jesuits in China kept the question of Chinese rites open for a century through continual appeals despite multiple rulings from the papacy and the Propaganda Fide. When the pope decided in the mid-seventeenth century that Jesuit lands would be subject to the tithe, Mexican Jesuits pointed out that the order had not been approved by Castile’s Council of the Indies, only to have the ground cut out from under them when Philip IV ratified it.81 Still, the modus procedendi of those on the ground usually won out over the father general’s intentions.

Nor were the Jesuits account books always in order. Instructions from Spanish American provincials following their inspection tour often reiterated the order to keep clear accounts, implying that those they had found on their journey were anything but orderly.82 Visitor Peter

Kenney complained after inspecting the Maryland plantations in 1820 that he could not find

“anywhere a regular + uniform system of keeping the books” so that he “could not exactly learn the actual state of each farm.”83 When the provincial of Nueva Grenada visited the College of

Guayaquil’s Palenque hacienda in the 1690s, he found the account books to have attracted more attention from mice than men.84

Sources of Jesuit Funding

Royal Subsidies and Lay Donations

81 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 52. 82 Cushner, Farm and Factory, 84-86; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 41-44. 83 Quoted in Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 33–34. 84 Cushner, Farm and Factory, 83.

36

The greatest source of donations for Jesuits in the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies was royal patronage. In the three Catholic empires, the crown provided a travel stipend to get missionaries from Europe to the colonies followed by a pension upon their arrival. The

Portuguese crown, for example, paid Jesuit missionaries in the Zambezi missions of

Mozambique the salary of two soldiers.85 Missionaries in Mexico around 1600 received 400 pesos per year, plus bonuses for those operating special services (a school for Indian children) or in remote areas such as California. The Spanish crown also granted land and endowments for colleges and start-up money to missions for the purchase of bells, utensils, and other necessities.86 The College of Diu on the west coast of India received annual income from the state to fund Arabic study and missionary work in Ethiopia.87 Missionaries in the French

Caribbean received state salaries in tobacco and, later, sugar. Often the state did not grant direct subsidies but instead gave the Jesuits access to royal income streams, sometimes in far off places. The Portuguese crown promised 200,000 reales from the customs house in Malacca to support Jesuits in Macao88 and customs at Diu were supposed to fund the China mission.89 The

Lisbon college of Santo Antão derived 15.7% of its income in the first half of the seventeenth century from royal duties on spices imported to the city; duties from which the Jesuits themselves were exempt.90 Excise dues on victuals, soap, and opium entering Goa went to the

Jesuit-run royal hospital in the port.91

Yet the perennial precarity of state finances meant that payments often arrived tarde, mal, e nuncio (“late, incomplete, and never”) in the words of a Portuguese Asian proverb.92 Royal

85 William Francis Rea, The Economics of the Zambezi Missions 1580-1759 (Roma: Inst. Historicum S.I, 1976), 20– 21; Alden, Enterprise, 322–29. 86 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 26; Alden, Enterprise, 432. 87 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 51. 88 Alden, 533. 89 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 167. 90 Alden, Enterprise, 529. 91 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 27. 92 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 168.

37

coffers, never overflowing to begin with, emptied quickly. Payments or orders to pay could be lost at sea. Only half of a 1693 disbursement from the Malacca customs house personally ordered by Philip II reached its Jesuit beneficiaries.93 By 1708, the viceroy of New Spain owed the Jesuits four years’ worth of back pay for churches and priests in northeast Mexico.94 Funds were also rerouted for urgent military needs. In 1656, the fortress captain of Diu island commandeered an inheritance of 6 million reís left to the Society by a wealthy merchant.95

Royal patronage came with strings attached. In return for their subsidies, the Jesuits in

Portuguese Asia served as translators and diplomats, paid out stipends granted by the crown to third parties, operated hospitals and pharmacies, maintained fortresses and granaries, and even minted coins.96 Jesuit missionaries in New France served as liaisons among Indian groups and

Indian detachments during military conflicts. The Jesuit hacienda of Santa Lucía outside

Mexico City kept sleeping quarters for the viceroy when he traveled through the region.97 States authorities also strong-armed Jesuit provinces and institutions into contributing to colonial defenses; an expense which the Jesuits usually attempted to negotiate. In 1656, the fortress commander of Diu borrowed 7.5 million réis from the Jesuits to pay troops and bribe a local ruler.98 In 1641, cabildo of Lima decreed a tax on sugar and sheep to pay for the construction of a fort. The cabildo exempted the Jesuits from this tax in return for an in-kind loan of 98,800 pesos in limestone and other construction materials.99 In 1664, the Goa Jesuits “offered” one- eighth of their income to the state to pay for the colony’s defense. In 1737, the Goa viceroy

93 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 166; Alden, Enterprise, 322–29. 94 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 166. 95 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 167. 96 Alden, Enterprise, 329–43. The rector of the Daman College had permission to accept royal deposits and act as royal treasurer. Borges, Goa Jesuits, 61. Jesuits served as fortress administrators in Northern India. In 1635, the Jesuits of Diu were put in charge of protecting bazarucos (small copper or tutenag coins) from fraud. Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 168. 97 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 155. 98 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 167. 99 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 142.

38

requested an inventory of the Jesuits’ silver to engage in the Maratha wars. The Jesuits pled poverty and offered 40,000 xerafines instead.100

The Jesuits also cultivated private donors in Europe and the colonies. From their 1561 arrival until the foundation of the college in 1581, Jesuits in Lima would send a coadjutor on an alms begging trip every two months.101 The Maryland Jesuits relied on periodic gifts from rich benefactors to offset their unprofitable tobacco plantations.102 Many donations for the China missions came from German princes and bishops, of whom the Dukes of Bavaria were particularly munificent.103 Priests and aristocrats in Mexico donated thousands of pesos to the

Pius Fund in Mexico to pay for Lower California missions.104 The Marquis de Villa Puente, a

Mexican creole landowner said to own 230,000 head of cattle was probably the most generous funder for religious causes, giving over 200,000 pesos to missions in California and China in the early eighteenth century. In return, the Jesuits in China sent him a relic of St. Francis Xavier.105

The Jesuits in Paris printed and circulated reports from New France as the famed Jesuit Relations to encourage recruitment and donations. The pious Madame de la Peltrie, better known for funding the Quebec Urulines, bought rentes from the Canadian Jesuits.106 These donations could be in kind as well. In 1587, Goa’s viceroy promised the Jesuits of the Japan province four Arab horses.107 James Carroll, father of the first Catholic bishop of the United States John Carroll, willed slaves to the Maryland Jesuits in 1729.108 Benefactors often endowed colleges with the funds they bequeathed. In addition to constructing the church and residence, the founder of Saint

Ignatius college in Manila, Esteban Rodríguez de Figueroa, agreed in 1594 to give to the vice-

100 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 46–47. 101 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 135-36. 102 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 35. 103 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 174-76. 104 Begun in 1697-8, the Pius Fund lasted through the twentieth century. Clossey, 166. 105 Clossey, 187-88. 106 See chapter 2. 107 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 53. 108 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 235; Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 35.

39

principal 21,000 pesos as an endowment. Because Figueroa died before this arrangement could be finalized, the Jesuits only received 14,000 pesos plus property which he had purchased for them.109 The English Catholic Baronet William Godolphin pledged 4,000,000 reis to the China mission in the early eighteenth century but his family prevented the money from being remitted.110 State subsidies and alms were thus not stable foundations on which to build a mission or college since they depended on the whims of the donor and exigencies of the royal purse. To create this stability, the Jesuits turned to internal forms of funding over which they had more control: agriculture, long-distance trade, and investments.

Jesuit Landowning

Between 1570 and the eighteenth-century suppressions, the Society of Jesus acquired massive landholdings around the world. In addition to provisioning colleges and missions with necessary supplies and foodstuffs, these lands provided an income stream through the sale of their produce. Canon law allowed religious institutions to own land and sell its produce, a practice which medieval monasteries had followed for centuries. The Society’s ownership of sugar plantations, palm groves, cattle ranches, haciendas, seigneuries, and prezos was not the result of a planned initiative by a father general, but the result of contested negotiation between

Rome and the periphery. This back-and-forth began in Mexico. When in 1576 the provincial of the New Spain province, Pedro Sanchez, purchased the hacienda of Santa Lucía just outside

Mexico City to support the college of San Pedro y San Pablo, both father general Mercurian and the provincial congregation balked at the idea. Rather than cite the Constitutions, they expressed worries that a Jesuit-run farm would be too expensive and hurt the Society’s reputation. They preferred to rent out the land or buy urban rental properties instead. Sanchez stalled and defended his decision long enough for Santa Lucía to become profitable and the college to

109 Cushner, Landed Estates, 27–28. 110 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 172.

40

become reliant on it, after which point the controversy died down and Jesuit haciendas spread across Spanish America.111 The Brazil province’s decision to grow sugar cane was likewise contested, even though the Jesuits in Brazil had been handling sugar since their arrival in the

1550s. The crown paid the missionaries’ stipends in sugar and wealthy patrons made donations in sugar but Manuel da Nóbriega’s plans for Jesuit-owned sugar plantations met opposition from both Rome and members of the province on the grounds that it would violate canon law prohibitions against commerce. The debate ended when father general Claudio Acquaviva definitively sanctioned growing cane in 1594 and the Jesuits began doing so in 1601.112

By the eighteenth-century suppressions, the Jesuits were the largest landowners in many colonies and dominated the local economies.113 The fifteen Jesuit colleges in Peru had at least four or five medium and large haciendas at the suppression, some had as many as ten.114 They were “by far” the largest landowners in the St. Lawrence valley.115 These lands were often strategically located: Jesuit seigneuries in New France were clustered around the colonial towns of Montreal, Quebec, and Trois-Rivières while the Jesuits of Louisiana boasted a plantation adjacent to New Orleans.116 The Jesuits’ eighteen Mozambique prezos (grants of local labor similar to a Spanish American encomienda) were all within 30 miles of the commercial hub of

Tete.117 As a result, Jesuit agriculture could have an outsized effect on local economies. In the

1750s, Brazilian estates represented just under 3% of Brazil’s sugar exports.118 Five Jesuit sugar

111 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 20-38 ; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 2. 112 Alden, Enterprise, 416; Alden, “Sugar Planters by Necessity,” 143–44. 113 The Jesuits in Europe never became large agricultural producers, preferring to rely on donations, stipends, investments, and urban rental properties. Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 163. 114 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 4. 115 Greer, Property and Dispossession, 166. 116 Grenier, Brève Histoire Du Régime Seigneurial, 112–14; Dalton, Jesuits’ Estates Question, 60; Charles T. Soniat, “The Title to the Jesuits’ Plantation,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 5 (1911): 15–17. 117 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 87. 118 Alden, Enterprise, 425.

41

haciendas produced 20-35% of Peru’s total sugar production in the eighteenth century, making them the largest single agricultural investment in the region.119

This land came from the crown, private donations (usually in exchange for a pension), exchanges with other institutions, or outright purchases.120 In sixteenth-century Goa, the

Portuguese Estado da India awarded the lands of destroyed Indian temples to the Jesuits.121 The

French crown doled out seigneuries to the Jesuits of New France while the Sieur de Bienville donated several land grants to the Louisiana Jesuits.122 College founders often granted land to colleges as part of the endowment which would be added to over time as institutional needs changed; Vilaseca’s grant of 40,000 pesos to the Jesuits of Mexico City for the purchase of Santa

Lucía being a famous example. Although the Constitutions permitted the Society to receive only gifts that were unconditional and irrevocable, in practice they often accepted bequests laden with requirements for a pension or masses.123 Upon their first arrival in a region, the Jesuits were usually able to acquire land cheaply through donors, but as their resources grew vendors charged them higher prices.124 This situation reversed itself in eighteenth-century Spanish America as profitable Jesuits haciendas rode out economic downturns and purchased bankrupt neighboring haciendas cheaply.125 As the Jesuits estates grew during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European monarchs, the papacy, and the father general tried to limit the Society’s holdings. In 1699, father general Thyrsus González de Santalla limited land acquisitions to colleges without enough income for operating expenses and outlined a multi-layered approval process for new real estate purchases but his decree was ignored in practice.126 At the beginning

119 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 124. 120 Alden, Enterprise, 425. 121 Alden, 376–82. 122 Greer, Property and Dispossession, 2018; Soniat, “The Title to the Jesuits’ Plantation.” 123 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 18. 124 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 28. 125 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 154. 126 Alden, Enterprise, 383; Cushner, Lords of the Land, 38; Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 17.

42

and end of the seventeenth century, Portuguese monarchs issued calls for inventories of Indian lands held by religious orders and banned them from acquiring more, but these orders were also never enforced.127 Louis XV’s ministers issued similar decrees in 1721 and 1743 which will be discussed in the next chapter. In England and Maryland, the Jesuits put estates in the hand of friendly nobles (England) or owned plantations as individuals (Maryland) to skirt anti-Jesuit laws.128 Local church officials also took it upon themselves to cut the Jesuits down to size.

During the summer of 1619, the bishop of Cochin seized villages in western Sri Lanka which produced income for the Jesuits, but the governor of the Estado da Índia returned the properties.129 Bishops and cathedral chapters fought to make Jesuit estates liable to the tithe.

Pope Leon XI declared in 1605 that the holdings of Spanish Jesuits were subject to the tithe and

Paul V extended the decree to Portuguese holdings in 1613. However, an extensive lobbying campaign by the Jesuits pushed Gregory XV to exempt the Portuguese Jesuits in 1622.130

Much of what the Jesuits raised or grew went to supply their colleges with the food and provisions necessary for its educational work. The Santa Lucía hacienda outside Mexico City, grew a variety of crops for the College of San Pedro y San Pablo including maize, barley, beans, squash, sage, chili, amaranth, tomatoes, oats, wheat, broad beans, and chick-peas. Its ranches raised sheep, goats, horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, and hogs from which they procured meat, wool, and skins. It also had a mill for spinning wool.131 The prazos in Mozambique produced rice, vegetables, salt, fumbas (sleeping bags), fish, ivory, ameixeira (millet), peas, breu (copral for varnish), nipa (a spirit made from palm leaves), prickly pears, salt, vegetable oil, cotton,

127 Alden, Enterprise, 435–56. 128 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 15; Geoffrey Holt, The English Jesuits in the Age of Reason (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns & Oats, 1993), 146–50. 129 Liam Matthew Brockey, The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia (Cambridge, Mass ; London: Harvard University Press, 2014), 123–24. 130 Alden, Enterprise, 464–70. 131 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 175–210.

43

ivory, tiles.132 The estate of Jesús Maria belonging to the Argentine college of Córdoba had a vineyard, wheat farm, and cattle ranch while its estate of Altagracia spun cloth and bred mules.133 Other Argentine estates included tile works, brick works, and stands of trees, allowing the college to construct new buildings at a reduced cost.134 Many colleges in south and central

America possessed cattle ranches. The college of Bahia in Brazil owned five ranches along the

São Francisco River, which supplied it with 600 animals per year. Dauril Alden estimates that the Brazil Jesuits owned 200,000 head of livestock at their suppression in 1757.135

Since canon law did not consider selling the produce from church lands to be prohibited commerce, the Jesuits often sold the crops of their estates to local markets. The Peruvian hacienda of Jesús María produced sugar, wine, corn, and cacao to be sold for high prices in nearby mining town of Potosí. The province’s far-sighted procurator, Nicolás Mastrilli Durán, optimistically calculated that this trade would bring in 25,000 pesos per year.136 The estate of

San Pedro Tunasan in the Philippines grew rice for Manila. In the eighteenth century the estate diversified by planting 20,000 cacao and coconut trees. The nearby estate of Nasugbu grew sugar cane, cotton, and wheat.137 The college of St. Paul in Goa, India also owned palm groves, coconut trees, rice paddies, and salt pans.138 The college at Sena in Mozambique used wood grown on its prezos to build and sell boats.139 In 1740, Jesuits on the Santa Lucía hacienda constructed a distillery for making pulque from the maguey plant which would be sold in Mexico

City.140 The missionaries in Maryland grew tobacco for sale in Europe.141 Sugar was the most

132 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 63–78. 133 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 165. 134 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 33. 135 Alden, Enterprise, 409–10. 136 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 41-42. 137 Cushner, Landed Estates, 42–43. 138 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 49. 139 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 60–61. 140 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 175–210. 141 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 37.

44

widespread Jesuit cash crop, being grown in the Philippines, Peru, Brazil, and the Caribbean.

The income from these market-oriented activities could be quite substantial. Between 1707 and

1753, the college of St. Ignatius in Manila received half its income from its landed estates.142 In

1757, four of Brazil’s five colleges received 30% of their income from sugar plantations, with the Espirito Santo receiving an outstanding 83%.143

Jesuit South American haciendas were particularly successful at creating an internal economy that allowed them to keep production in house rather than buy from external suppliers.144 The enslaved men and women who worked a Jesuit sugar plantation would be clothed with textiles produced in Jesuit mills and fed from wheat and grown on Jesuit farms and ranches. This system of keeping costs in house allowed the colleges to minimize expenses and maximize revenue.145 Diversifying their estate operations also provided flexibility which allowed the Jesuits to ride out lean times. In Peru, sugar haciendas grew cane on less than 50% of their land, using the rest for corn, alfalfa, grazing, orchards, or lying fallow.146 The Maryland tobacco plantations, in contrast, never developed such self-sufficiency and had to buy all housekeeping supplies and building materials, plus pay taxes and quitrents. Only bread, meat, and firewood came from the plantations themselves. These plantations were notoriously unprofitable and survived only with regular infusions from local donors.147

To work these lands, the Jesuits relied on a variety of free and unfree labor. Jesuits in the

La Rioja-Catamarca region of Argentina used paid but compulsory Amerindian mita labor as established by the Incas and adopted by Spanish conquistadors. Each year the caciques of the town would meet with the Jesuits and draw up a list of how many Amerindians would labor on

142 Cushner, Landed Estates, 43–44. 143 Alden, Enterprise, 426. 144 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 29. 145 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 211. 146 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 64. 147 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 47.

45

the Jesuits’ estates each month.148 The servants (moços) who waited on the Jesuits in Goa began as temporary workers and were paid as time went on. They had to be over twenty years of age and approved by the father superior of their institution.149 In China, Jesuits used indentured servants who contracted to work in their residences for several years. Jesuits in colonial

Maryland sponsored the transportation of Catholic indentured workers from Britain and Ireland to cultivate their plantations and increase the Catholic population.150 Local Amerindians in Latin

America could be hired as temporary laborers for varying periods. Amerindian laborers with contracts of several months or years called conchabados provided year-round work on Argentine haciendas while Amerindian farm hands were hired on short term contracts for labor-intensive harvests and cattle drives.151 Chinese mestizos worked as cowboys on the Philippine estates.152

These contracts were not always amicable. Majordomos and administrators on the Santa Lucía plantation in Mexico ensured enough workers during the harvest season by threatening to bar local Amerindian pueblos from renting the hacienda’s fields for their livestock, although it is unclear how often such browbeating occurred.

Workers on haciendas were paid salaries and given rations commensurate to their task and status. Peruvian annual salaries ranged from fifteen pesos for a contract laborer to 200 pesos for a majordomo.153 Workers borrowed against their salaries but the Jesuits discouraged the practice of borrowing beyond what could be paid off in the next accounting period to avoid a system of debt peonage.154 Salaries were usually paid in kind with urban workers earning more and being more likely to be paid in cash. Cloth, tea, soap, knives, yerba mate, shirts, and belts

148 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 89. 149 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 59–50. 150 Brockey, The Visitor, 361; Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 14–16. 151 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 235. 152 Cushner, Landed Estates, 47. 153 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 86. 154 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 94-95.

46

were typical payments in Argentina. Rural conbachados could also use small plots of land on the estate to grow crops.155 Entire families often worked on the same hacienda, although the

Jesuits discouraged the practice as it created power blocks and fostered nepotism. Hired labor had the advantage of being flexible to the estate’s needs; signing on temporary workers allowed haciendas to track with the seasonal labor demands of the agricultural year.

The Jesuits also participated in the coercive systems of plantation slavery. The decision to possess other humans began in Angola and was initially as contested as that of owning haciendas. Fathers general Francis Borgia (1569) Everard Mercurian (1576) and Claudio

Aquaviva (1584) each issued directives to the province of Portugal that no house should own enslaved men and women and ordered them to liberate any in their possession. These directives were ignored, however, as Jesuits in Brazil and Africa claimed that the enslaved were the only option available for labor. Rome tacitly accepted this fait accompli by 1600 and settled for regulating their treatment instead.156 Later Jesuits would justify possessing humans by pointing out that the Society had not done the enslaving itself and arguing that the purchase put the enslaved within the reach of evangelization.

However reticent to own slaves initially, the Society quickly became reliant upon them.

Enslaved men and women harvested Jesuit sugar in French Guiana, herded Jesuit cattle on

Mexican haciendas, played instruments in Peruvian Jesuit colleges, and constructed Jesuit churches in Goa. Although number of enslaved men and women held by the Jesuits has yet to be calculated on a global scale, the numbers from regional surveys indicate that the Society owed between 20,000 and 25,000 people at the mid-eighteenth century suppressions, meaning there were as many enslaved workers as priests (around 22,000) (Table 1.1).

155 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 96. 156 Alden, Enterprise, 507–8; Borges, Goa Jesuits, 48.

47

Table 1.1 Enslaved Persons owned by the Jesuits c.1760 Province Slaves Brazil 5,686 Maranhão 736 Paraguay 3,164 Chile 1,121 Peru 5,224 Quito 1,364 New Granada 358 Goa 810 France (Includes French colonies) at least 1,807 England 192 Total at least 20,462 Table 1.1 Enslaved Persons owned by the Jesuits c.1760 Note: Numbers for the Goa province only include the Mozambique prezos. This table does not include Mexico, Cuba, or much of Asia. Sources: Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 524; Rea, Zambezi Missions, 129 ; Le Roux, et al. Loyola, 78 ; AFSI Brotier 189 VI fols. 66-72 and F An 41 1/7 ; Marc de Villiers du Terrage, Les Dernières années de la Louisiane française: le chevalier de Kerlérec d’Abbadie (Paris: Guillmotot, 1904), 162-5 ; J. Rennard, Histoire religieuse des Antilles françaises des origines à 1914, d’a̕près des documents inédits (Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises, 1954) 248-9 ; Murphy, Jesuit slaveholding, 45-47.

In some regions, the Society possessed a significant percentage of the enslaved population. Three to five percent of all enslaved persons in New Granada were Jesuit-owned.157

In French Guiana, the Jesuits are estimated to have owned one-fifth of the colony’s enslaved population.158 The overwhelming majority of these people were enslaved Africans in Portuguese and Spanish America. Although the Jesuits did own Amerindians in Brazil and the pays d’en haute, Koreans and Chinese in Macao, “dark skinned Muslims” and low-caste Indians in Goa, these workers were never more than drops in a wider sea of African labor.159 Jesuit slaveholding has been most extensively studied in Spanish America, with an emphasis on comparing the

Jesuits to lay planters. While acknowledging the harsh punishments and difficult labor that the

157 Bauer, “Christian Servitude,” 94. 158 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 78. 159 Alden, Enterprise, 487 and 513–15; Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance, 270; Cushner, Landed Estates, 47–48.

48

enslaved performed, this literature has argued that the men and women owned by the Jesuits were better fed, clothed, and housed than the people owned by lay planters. These better living conditions combined with an emphasis on family creation, lead to demographically self- sustaining communities.160 This literature, however, is regional, dated, and focused on Jesuit management techniques rather than the lives of the enslaved themselves. Future research is needed to nuance this overly positive picture. Though called to save souls, the Society of Jesus was a consumer of bodies.

In addition to hired and enslaved labor, the Jesuits also rented out both rural and urban properties to tenants in return for payment in kind and labor. In Brazil, tenants called lavadores de cana grew sugar cane on small plots of Jesuit lands in exchange for which they were required to grind their sugar at the Jesuits’ mill and pay half of their crop in rent; terms which were standard in seventeenth-century Brazil.161 A 1765 inventory of the Maryland plantations listed

39 tenant farmers. As a seigneurial proprietor, the Quebec college collected foodstuffs and firewood harvested by the habitants of their seigneuries.162 In 1595, the Philippine estates of

Quiapo and Meyhalingue had 200 Chinese inquilinos who lived in serf-like conditions of inherited occupation.163

College rectors and mission superiors, supported by their procurators, oversaw the network of sugar plantations, palm groves, haciendas, seigneuries, or prezos possessed by their institution. Each estate was run by a temporal coadjutor, who was usually older and from a lower socioeconomic background than the Jesuits he served. Because they needed to know the details of their operations, how to keep account books, and how to manage a workforce, they

160 See Bauer, “Christian Servitude” for a survey of this literature. 161 Alden, Enterprise, 403–5. 162 Greer, Property and Dispossession, 166. 163 Cushner, Landed Estates, 49.

49

tended to come from backgrounds with practical skills or experience in business.164 Below the coadjutors, the Society’s universal hierarchy broke down into positions determined by local practice. Published manuals on plantation management (instrucciones) which circulated through the archipelago of colleges, missions, and haciendas in Spanish America gave those institutions the most standardized labor system within the Society. Jorge Benci’s 1705 Economia cristã dos senhores no governo dos escravos (Christian economic principles in slave management) served a similar function for Portuguese Jesuits.165 A coadjutor or hired administrator usually ran each estate. The Santa Lucía hacienda outside Mexico City, for example, was overseen by a retired missionary and two coadjutors. 166 Hired or (more rarely) enslaved majordomos helped by clerks and assistants oversaw far-flung fields and discrete operations such as mills and distilleries.

Below them, overseers directed the laborers’ day-to-day tasks.167 In Mozambique, fumos both enslaved and free, managed the Society’s prezo.168 Slaves on French Caribbean plantations were overseen by two commandeurs, one to oversee males and the other for females. Like other plantation owners, the Jesuits preferred their commandeurs to be black since they spoke African languages and were thought to be more inflexible with other Africans.169 In Maryland, the

Jesuits themselves lived on the plantations and managed its daily tasks.170

Jesuit Commerce

The Dutch itinerant Jan Huyghen van Lindschoten wrote of the Jesuits in the 1590s that

“there is not any commoditie to be had or reaped throughout all India, but they have their part therein, so that the other orders and Religious persons, as also the common people doe much

164 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 76; Alden, Enterprise, 311-17. 165 David G. Sweet, “Black Robes and ‘Black Destiny’: Jesuit Views of African Slavery in 17th-Century Latin America,” Revista de Historia de América, no. 86 (1978): 87–133. 166 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 42. 167 Konrad, 113. 168 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 114. 169 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 118. 170 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 15.

50

murmur thereat, and seeme to dislike of their convetous [sic] humors.”171 Wherever they went, the Jesuits developed trade networks to sell the product of their estates and to ensure the provisioning of their institutions. They were able to do so because canon law permitted selling the produce of church lands to outsiders and exchanging goods for necessities as long as no profit was involved. To outsiders, particularly non-Catholics, this trade appeared to be evidence of “convetous humors.”

Much of this trade was internal to the Society. Relics and exotic gifts for benefactors made their way to Europe in return for books and specie. Overseas institutions sent local products to their mission procurators in return for European goods. The mission procurator at St.

Antão in Lisbon, for example, sent books, religious and liturgical articles, cloth and foodstuffs

(olive oil, meat, plums, cereals) to Goa and received pepper, bazar stone, diamonds, ivory and aloeswood in exchange.172 The overseas regions also exchanged goods with each other. Cloth and foodstuffs circulated among Jesuit institutions in India and Mozambique. The Goa province sent altar clothes, worked silver, and Chinese porcelains to Brazil. Colleges in Portugal and the

Atlantic islands sent wheat and wine overseas. Brazil colleges exported the plantation crops of sugar, tobacco, and cacao. Jesuit shipments of cacao, cloves, coffee, sasparilla, and sugar from

Belém in Brazil to Lisbon far outweighed those of other religious orders, although they made up only a tiny fraction Brazil’s overall spice trade.173 Colleges in Spanish America acted as hubs and supply centers for their farms and ranches, storing goods to be sold or distributed.174

The Jesuits also conducted a lively trade with those outside the Society to support their spiritual endeavors. Jesuit-owned mills in Quito produced textiles which they shipped by boat to

171 Quoted in Borges, Goa Jesuits, 41. 172 Borges, 44. 173 Alden, Enterprise, 547–48. 174 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 119.

51

Peru in exchange for silver and other goods.175 The province of Paraguay and its Indian reduccionés produced yerba mate and cattle hides which they sent downriver by raft to Buenos

Aires or across the mountains by wagon to Chile and Peru. Between 1725 and 1767, the

Argentine and Paraguay colleges sold 150-180,000 pesos in yerba, mules, and hides (excluding local sales and internal consumption).176 Because their missions were producing it, yerba mate took on the nickname “Jesuit tea.”177 The Jesuits in Paraguay used the profits from the yerba mate trade to pay the 9,000 peso annual tribute for the Guaraní Indians.178 The Jesuits of

Mozambique sold ivory from elephants which died on their property.179 The Quebec college traded furs for food and clothing; Jesuit missions in the pays d’en haute were also nodes for the fur trade. 180 One Jesuit missionary in Iroquoia proposed cultivating North American ginseng for sale to Chinese consumers.181 Members of the Society also bought and sold people. Jesuits in

Macau are known to have undertaken voyages to other southeast Asian ports to purchase enslaved Africans.182

Because they did not have access to landed estates, the Macao-administered province of

Japan and vice-province of China were forced to support themselves with trade, most famously the silk-silver trade between Macao and Nagasaki. The Ming dynasty banned commercial relations with Japan in 1557, thus creating an opportunity for smugglers and Portuguese merchants to exchange Chinese silk at Nagasaki for Japanese silver. When a promised royal stipend of 200,000 reales drawn on the Malacca customs house never materialized, the provincial of the Japan province, Allessandro Valignano, negotiated an arrangement to ship 100

175 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 172. 176 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 172. 177 Cushner, 158. 178 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 152. 179 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 142. 180 Campeau, “Commerce des clercs,” 33; Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance, 282. 181 Parsons, “The Natural History of Colonial Science.” 182 Alden, Enterprise, 530–45.

52

picules of silk to Nagasaki each year; an arrangement which the papacy and crown assented to in

1587. Always controversial, this trade earned between one and two million reales until Japanese protectionist policies wound it down during the 1620s. When the silk/silver trade exchange ended, the visitor Andre Palmiero suggested sending Chinese goods to Europe for sale and approved the province’s purchase of ships to trade Chinese porcelain and silk acquired at Canton with Tonkin across the South China Sea. Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a succession of Jesuit junks traded with the Lesser Sunda Islands, Vietnam, Siam, and

India. Their holds were filled with goods of both Asian (sandalwood, ivory, rice, pepper, salt, tin, lead, quicksilver, sulfur, seed pearls, coral, and amber, birds’ nests, “fish wings”) and

European (cotton, woolen cloth, brass bells, lace towels, fine handkerchiefs, soaps, silver platters, wine cups, candle holders) origin. In the eighteenth century, the proceeds of the Jesuit- owned não S. Pedro e S. João between Macao and India were split between the province of

Japan, the vice-province of China, and the governor of India’s northern province.183 Church and state both gave their reluctant blessing to this trade, but the visible presence of a Jesuit ship trading for profit provoked criticism from competing merchants and provided a weapon for the

Society’s enemies.

The colleges in South America created an overland network of similar geographic expanse. The College of Buenos Aires sent 20,000 cattle across the Andes every two years to markets in Chile. This was a dangerous route; a quarter of the animals often arrived lame or ill.184 Peruvian colleges and haciendas, separated from Africa by an ocean and a continent, maintained an agent in Panama who bought enslaved Africans exclusively for transshipment to the region. Hacienda or provincial officials would send a guide to escort the slaves down from

183 Alden, 531–38; Brockey, The Visitor, 328. 184 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 166.

53

Panama or Cartagena.185 Wine and sugar from Peru also traveled by ship down the coast and by mule across the Andes to Buenos Aires.186 The Argentine college of Córdoba served as a hub for trade from Argentina and Paraguay across the Andes to Peru and Chile. It transshipped yerba mate from the Paraguay reductions to colleges in Peru, Chile, and Potosí who distributed it. It took two years for the college’s accounts to realize a return from each shipment.187 The Córdoba college hacinendas also bred mules and fabricated cloth which were exported to the Peruvian silver mines of Potosí and Huancavelica.188 Agents in Salta and Potosí monitored the price of mules and would send a messenger to Cordóba when demand was high. The college of Belén in

Buenos Aires served a similar function. It warehoused and sold the hides and yerba mate sent from the Argentine pampas and the reductions of Paraguay.189

Jesuit colleges and professed houses, then, served similar functions as the merchant houses around the Atlantic rim: they bought, sold, warehoused, and shipped goods on account for other institutions. The Jesuits of Argentina had this system down to a science. Two business offices, (oficios), one in Buenos Aires and the other in Córdoba served as agents for the missions and colleges in more remote areas. Colleges transporting hides to Buenos Aires could store their products in the college of Buenos Aires’ two store rooms run by the oficio and overseen by the provincial procurator. The oficio made purchases on their behalf and debited the colleges’ accounts. Since goods were purchased in bulk, they received discounts relative to lay buyers. In a comparison to the twentieth-century retailers Sears & Roebuck, Nicholas Cushner claims that the volume of goods and money flowing through the oficios in the eighteenth century made them the first and largest “mail order” purchasing house in Latin America.190

185 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 90. 186 Cushner, 132. 187 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 149. 188 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 165. 189 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 170–71. 190 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 170-71; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 146-48.

54

Exemptions from tax levies granted by pious and benevolent monarchs helped the

Jesuits’ trade network to become so large and profitable. In 1573, King Sebastian of Portugal granted the Jesuits an exemption from customs duties on goods shipped to or from Brazil. By the end of the decade they also received an exemption from all excise duties on foodstuffs shipped, purchased, or exchanged within the kingdom or its empire. The Province of Brazil owned a ship (“fragata do colégio”) in the seventeenth century on which they transported goods duty free.191 A 1688 order required all captains sailing between the Amazon and Portugal’s

Atlantic islands to carry whatever cargos the Jesuits wanted.192 Jesuits in Spanish territories were exempt from the alcabala, a sales tax levied at four percent in the eighteenth century, although in Argentina they did have to pay an ecclesiastical tax to the bishop’s office.193 During the 1640s and 1650s, Jesuits in Quebec were able to sell furs to the Company of New France and the Communauté des Habitants at full price, thus avoiding the 25-50% cut which the monopolies took out as a transport fee. These exemptions provoked anger among merchants who could not compete with the lower-priced Jesuit goods.194

What the crown could give, the crown could take away. As with land purchases, authorities in both church and state sought to define what they considered to be acceptable economic activity for the clergy by cracking down on Jesuit trade. Where previous Portuguese monarchs had allowed the Goa Jesuits to import 100 quintals of copper from China to pay off the college of St. Paul’s debts, the Philippine kings forbade them from doing so. A seventeenth- century request from the Jesuits in Brazil to export ginger and import brazilwood was also rejected.195 Jesuits on the ground could evade these restrictions from on high. In 1754, the

191 Alden, Enterprise, 531–32. 192 Alden, 547–48. 193 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 154-71. 194 Campeau, “Commerce des clercs,” 32. 195 Alden, Enterprise, 530–31.

55

governor of Tucumán forbade the transport of hides from Córdoba in Argentina, but the Jesuits successfully argued that papal bulls and concessions exempted them.196 When a flurry of royal orders from Madrid failed to stop Argentine Jesuits from selling yerba mate and European goods, the crown resigned itself to limiting them to 12,000 arrobas annually.197

The Jesuits retained close relationships with the merchant community in places where they lived. The silver-silk trade between Macao and Japan worked primarily through intermediaries. The Jesuits in New France appear to have had standing orders with certain merchants, specifically Charles Polycarpe Bourgine, Étienne Ranjard, and François Gazan in La

Rochelle and Jean Jung of Bordeaux, to provision the Quebec college. Papers from ships captured during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War show almonds, raisins, olive oil, nails and dry goods bound for the Jesuits of New France.198 Argentine Jesuits allowed local merchants to provision their colleges and earn commissions selling produce from the colleges’ estates. The colleges also advanced them money. The Sena college in

Mozambique allowed locals to keep goods on deposit for a fee.199 Jesuits in Lima operated corner stores to sell wine and sugar from their haciendas until their superiors shut it down as being “indecent.” Following this shutdown, one Peruvian hacienda shipped their product directly to three retailers while another employed an agent who received a 4% commission.200

Consignments of Jesuit sugar to Chile and yerba mate to Lima were made to individual merchants who shipped and distributed them under their own names.201 The account book of the

Detroit mission lists a triangle trade in which the Jesuits provided French traders, the Cuillerier brothers, with glass beads, wampum, powder, shot, vermilion, awls, and shirts. The Cuilleriers

196 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 167. 197 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 152-53. 198 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 55. 199 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 149; Rea, Zambezi Missions, 60-61. 200 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 132. 201 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 171.

56

would then exchange these with the Indians for furs, skins, meat, and slaves, paying the Jesuits back in beef, butter, pork, wine, chickens, and canoes.202 Brokers in Canton purchased goods for the Jesuits of Macao which the priests would then trade in other parts of Asia. The seventeenth- century visitor André Palmiero cultivated ties with the Macao merchant community by making annual visits to various benefactors, the Senado da Câmara (city council) and the Misericórdia.

Successful Portuguese merchants in Macao provided funds for the college, in return for which the Jesuits served as mediators with Japanese and Chinese authorities. 203

Investments and Lending

The early modern period saw a sea-change in the thinking on lending money at interest.

Where medieval popes and theologians had defined usury as any profit intentionally made on a loan, by the eighteenth century this definition had been narrowed and watered down to mean excessive profits from a loan. Charging interest on a loan thus stopped being seen as inherently sinful as long as the interest rate did not become extortionate. Luis de Molina, a sixteenth- century Spanish Jesuit whose works on moral theology were influential in defining Catholic thinking on economic practices, was central to this change. Molina denounced the practice of lending with the intention of profit but recognized the need for lenders to be recompensed for the alienation of their capital. This line of reasoning opened the door for livelihoods based on lending. Defining the rate at which interest payments became “extortionate” or “excessive” was the new challenge. Molina left the task to the merchants themselves, but it quickly became the purview of the state as European monarchs set maximum interest rates for their domains (usually

5-10%). Although church authorities would continue to denounce usury, Benedict XIV’s 1745 bull Vix Pervenit being the most famous example, and French courts would continue to debate its

202 Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance, 282. 203 Brockey, The Visitor, 332–33 and 198.

57

relevance, lending at interest had become widespread in Catholic societies by the eighteenth century.204

As a result of this change, the Catholic church became the largest source of credit in

Catholic Europe and America. Montes pietatis advanced credit to the poor in France and Italy by serving as pawnbrokers.205 Casas de la Misericordia, banking and charitable houses controlled by the religious orders, financed projects throughout South America.206 The Jesuits, like the church at large, considered lending money to laymen even at interest to be a form of charity, since it saved them from the much higher interest rates of local loan sharks. Allessandro

Valignano, for example, asked for papal authorization to lend money at 10% interest in Japan as local credit sources charged 70-80%.207 Church institutions were mostly conservative lenders, preferring to give their money to haciendados, government officials, and other clergy who could pay it back.

Within this framework, Jesuits were the “most innovative and economically dynamic” of the orders, in the words of Linda Greenow.208 Their web of investments spanned the globe. The founder of Saint Ignatius college in Manila, Esteban Rodríguez de Figueroa, planned for one- third of the college’s 21,000 peso endowment to be invested in Mexico, but died before this could be realized.209 The province of Paraguay maintained investments in Europe to fund their travel, as did the provinces of the Portuguese assistancy.210 The Italian and German states were favored investment regions for the provinces in Asia. The Duke of Bavaria left 500 florins to the

204 Diego Alonso-Lasheras, Luis de Molina’s De Iustitiae et Iure: Justice as Virtue in an Economic Context (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2011), 126; Fontaine, L’économie morale, 190–220. 205 Fontaine, L’économie morale. 206 Nicholas P Cushner, “Merchants and Missionaries: A Theologians’ View of Clerical Involvement in the Galleon Trade,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 47, no. 3 (August 1967): 369. 207 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 119. 208 Linda L Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico: Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720-1820 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), 69–70. 209 Cushner, Landed Estates, 24–28. 210 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 129.

58

vice-province of China in 1616, an amount which had grown to 20,200 florins by 1689 when the

Turks overran his former estates.211 Overseas missions could also be a source of investment for

European provinces. The Maryland mission was expected to support the mother province in

Britain through the payment of a tax, but rarely met this obligation. 212

Like other ecclesiastical institutions, the Jesuits preferred to lend to other Jesuit institutions and religious congregations, followed at increasing rates of interest by prominent landowners, leading merchants, eminent government officials, and shopkeepers. Last were the government and the high nobility. In the Portuguese assistancy, preferred borrowers got 2-4% interest. Less trustworthy borrowers were charged up to 6.25%.213 The Goa and Malabar provinces were especially prolific at loaning to outsiders. In 1734 and 1735, the Malabar province lent 133 million reís while the Goa province lent 360.5 million contos and a further 805 million in the Bassein district of Northern India. Maratha-Mughal wars of the 1730s wiped out these investments.214 Argentine Jesuits accepted deposits from laymen, although this practice was frowned upon in the Portuguese assistancy.215

In the Spanish and Portuguese assistancies, the most common form of loan was a censo, a type of mortgage or annuity usually tied to land. Anyone owning the land would be required to make annual payments in silver or goods to those specified in the censo contract. Censos could be made on lands or religious houses and brought in small amounts at low interest rates.216 In

France, Jesuit colleges and missions purchased rentes on state income streams or other religious institutions. Jesuits in the Portuguese assistancy acquired grants of income streams from state

211 Alden, Enterprise, 546. 212 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 41. 213 Alden, Enterprise, 552–53. 214 Alden, 566. 215 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 144. 216 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 89; Alden, Enterprise, 560-61.

59

revenues, such as the revenue from a customs house or salt tax, or leases on Indian villages. 217

The Malabar province owned revenue producing villages in Sri Lanka and Cochin which supported the province and the college of Colombo.218 In 1665, the Goa Jesuits bought the inland island of Kumbarjua from the Estado da India for 20,000 xerafines. During the early eighteenth century, the province of Japan and the vice-Province of China turned to rents on villages in northern India to supplement their trading ventures. These provinces derived 81.2% of their Indian income from villages in 1719, but the Maratha wars of the 1730s eliminated many of these revenue streams.219

“Sea loans” to bankroll merchant voyages were riskier sources of funding where the entire investment could be wiped out if the ships were lost at sea. They were particularly prevalent in east Asia where 51% of the vice-province of China’s income came from sea loans in the 1660s.220 The college of Córdoba engaged in a land-locked version of this practice by providing capital for long-distance overland merchants.221 European Jesuits invested in the joint stock corporations emblematic of early modern capitalism. The English province placed funds in overseas trading ventures, with the East India Company being a favorite. The London district lost money in the South Sea Company bubble of 1720 but recovered by the end of the century with 10,000 pounds in the Royal Exchange Assurance. Due to the possibility of their seizure by the British state, these investments were made either abroad or through a wealthy Catholic family. French Jesuits were accused in 1642 of investing in the Company of New France (there is no evidence that they did so) and almost certainly invested in the John Law episode.222 The

217 Alden, Enterprise, 560–61. 218 Brockey, The Visitor, 104–5 and 123. 219 Alden, Enterprise, 394. 220 Alden, 564. 221 Cushner, “Merchants and Missionaries,” 144. 222 Holt, English Jesuits, 146–48; Campeau, “Commerce des clercs,” 30.The income for the Asian and Caribbean missions shows a sudden drop at the time of the Law episode. See chapter 2, Figure 2.4.

60

state’s constant need for funds and forced loans could also be turned to the Jesuits’ financial advantage. In 1728 the Goa Jesuits loaned 14,000 xerafines to the Portuguese state to outfit a fleet. In return, they charged eight percent interest and gained an extension of their grant to the administration of two villages with an income of 10-12,000 per year. In 1736, the governor of

Macao mortgaged his estate at Curca to the Jesuits for an eight-year loan of 40,000 xerafines and borrowed a further 30,000 xerafines from the procurator of the Japan province to outfit a fleet.223

The Jesuits also purchased and rented out urban real estate. Their portfolios included shops, warehouses, single-and multi-story homes, apartment blocks, and even mansions. Dauril

Alden has estimated that colleges in the Portuguese assistancy derived 7.7% of their income from urban real estate rentals. This was particularly prevalent in Asia and Europe where acquiring landed estates was more difficult. The Jesuits’ stone houses on the island of

Mozambique made them the largest house proprietors on the island. During the 1640s, the Japan province received 21.8% of its income from Macaonese properties and at the suppression it received 1,176,000 reales per year from 8 housing units in Lisbon.224

The Rules of Acquisition: Negotiatio

Gregory IX’s Ius Decretalium (1234) and the Council of Trent explicitly prohibited monks and clerics from mixing themselves in negotiatio (“trade” or “commerce”). This they defined as selling goods at a higher price than that for which they were acquired without changing them in some way.225 Selling sugar produced on church lands was thus an acceptable practice. Buying cloth at a low price and weaving it into clothes for sale at a higher price was also acceptable, since the price increase reflected the added labor. Deceptively simple and

223 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 46–47. 224 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 63; Alden, Enterprise, 396–402. 225 Campeau, “Commerce des clercs,” 28–29.This was also referred to as mercatoria or commercium.

61

straight forward, this definition proved difficult to apply in practice. Theologians and general congregations (the Society’s deliberative body which met upon the death of a father general) found themselves having to reinterpret it with the hair-splitting exactitude of canon lawyers, often coming to different conclusions. In 1565, the second general congregation decreed

“everything that has the appearance of secular business, for example, the cultivation of fields, the selling of produce at market, and the like, is understood to be forbidden to Ours.”226 This interpretation was clearly never followed. Fifty years later, the seventh general congregation also attempted to rule on which economic activities were off limits for the Society’s colleges.

Although the resulting decree claimed that the answers “vary and cannot all be listed” it did provide guidelines. Printing and selling books was negotiatio, as was acquiring fields to make a profit, “but it does not have the mark of business to acquire such fields for the management of our own farm or for the sustenance of our own animals.” Purchasing objects to sell them later at a higher price was business but purchasing animals for grazing fields or selling a superfluous item was acceptable.227

Theologians and provincials took up where the general congregations left off. Luis de

Molina, in his widely read De Iustitia et Iure (1593-1609), argued that negotiatio in support of charity rather than greed was a positive good, since it supplied regions with goods and smoothed out scarcities. In 1711, at the behest of the province of Paraguay’s hacienda managers, the

College of Córdoba’s theology faculty produced a list of rulings on thirty-five cases as to whether they were commerce or not.228 A 1627 pamphlet in the Philippines, published by a doctor Juan Oñez, defended the right of ecclesiastical institutions to ship silk on the Manila galleon. Oñez argued that clerical commerce was acceptable if it happened in small quantities,

226 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 126.Translation theirs. 227 O’Keefe et al., 276. 228 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 170-76.

62

made up the salaries which the crown left unpaid, and was conducted by a third party. Because the priests did not go to the Chinese market to buy silk themselves, he explained, but had the silks brought to them and packaged by their servants, they were within the bounds of canon law.

Diego de Bombadilla, a professor of moral theology at the Jesuit college in Manila, refuted

Oñez’ pamphlet in a lecture three years later. He rejected Oñez’ claim that using Chinese merchants made clerical involvement in the galleon trade legitimate but he accepted Oñez arguments that trade on a small scale (less than 1,000 or 2,000 pesos) and trade arising from necessity were both licit. The laws against clerical commerce, Bombadilla explained, did not apply when they caused grave inconvenience, such as deprivation from the necessities of life.

Ecclesiastical institutions owning factories was likewise acceptable, he argued, since the difference in the sale price came from the added labor not the goods themselves. Bombadilla considered transporting goods to a different location for a better price to be shrewd management, as was buying during abundance and selling during scarcity, provided the profit was by accident rather than intention.229

Faced with contradictory theologians and general congregations, Jesuits on the ground created their own guidelines to define prohibited trade. The Goa provincial allowed the Jesuits in Mozambique to sell ivory, provided the elephant had died on their land.230 Jesuits in

Argentina sold the workmanship of enslaved artisans, but not that of hired craftsman.231

Motivation could define legitimacy. The founder of the Jesuits’ east Asian presence, Francis

Xavier, defended a 1548 plan for supporting the Moluccas mission with five-fold profits on sales of cloth sent to the islands from India by claiming that the scheme was not animo lucrandi

(profits for the sake of profits) but rather animo charitatis or animo pius (profits for the sake of

229 Cushner, “Merchants and Missionaries.” 230 Rea, Zambezi Missions, 60–61. 231 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 154-55.

63

charity or piety).232 The objects being exchanged could also determine whether the trade was licit. Diego de Bombadilla, in his refutation of Oñez’ pamphlet, argued that priests should be forbidden from selling “indecent things” such as cards or women’s make up.233 Andre Palmiero, the seventeenth-century visitor to Macao, considered the Portuguese commerce with Canton to be “clean” and “honorable” since the brokers only trade in ‘things of great value and cleanliness.”234

More important still was whether the actions enhanced the reputation of the Society and were ‘fitting’ for the clerical state. Ignatius’ ban of collection boxes from Jesuit churches “to avoid all appearance of avarice” is explicit about the need to uphold appearances.235 “We must avoid not only what we are forbidden to do” decreed the second general congregation when it reiterated the ban in 1565, “but even any appearance of it.”236 Father General Edvard Mercurian dragged his heels on approving Sanchez’ purchase of the Santa Lucía plantation in Mexico over worries about the Society’s reputation should they become haciendados.237 Father general

Francis Borgia barred the Brazil Jesuits from growing sugar cane because he feared that it might cause a scandal, although Claudio Aquaviva relented when faced with the reality that the silver trade with Japan was much more controversial.238 Andre Palmiero expressed few concerns about sending silk with merchants but worried about the Japan province having its own vessel “because it carries cargo plainly for all to see and conducts trade in the public eye.”239

Selling the goods which the Jesuits produced themselves, an action which was outside the canon law definition of negotiatio and was therefore in theory acceptable, had to be done in a

232 Alden, Enterprise, 528–29. 233 Cushner, “Merchants and Missionaries,” 366. 234 Quoted in Brockey, The Visitor, 229. 235 Part VI, Chapter 2, Section 8. 236 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 129. 237 Konrad, Jesuit Hacienda, 35–38. 238 Alden, Enterprise, 416. 239 Quoted in Brockey, The Visitor, 329–31.

64

way that reflected well on the Society. The seventeenth-century practice of operating corner stores in Lima to sell the sugar and wine produced on Jesuit haciendas was stopped because it was considered “indecent” for clerics.240 Wholesale commerce, which took place outside the public eye, could thus be acceptable while retail commerce, with its visible shops and displays, was dishonorable, similar to the rules in France for nobles conducting trade.241 In 1738, the

Argentine provincial Jaime Aguilar forbade the business office in Buenos Aires from selling goods produced by Indians or accepting shipments of silver marked for the Society. “The effect of this,” he wrote, “will be to dispel the notion that we or the Indians are rich and that a great deal of treasure passes through our hands.”242

Conclusion

In one recent study, Amalia Kessler has noted that the Paris merchant court sought fairness or “equity” in their verdicts rather than the application of hard-and-fast rules. Arbiters decided what constituted a just price or whether to grant a delay of payment based on the immediate conditions of the case and the effects of their decisions on the parties involved.243

Jesuit theologians, general congregations, and provincials similarly issued flexible interpretations of canon law’s strictures on negotiatio to balance the Society’s spiritual purposes with its need for revenue. The necessity of keeping the Macao college funded or the opportunity of a donor providing a hacienda required renegotiating the definition of negotiatio as it applied to the

Society. On these occasions, the Society almost always decided, explicitly or tacitly, in favor of pragmatism and necessity. The “Lavalette affair,” occurring in a context of widespread bankruptcy and financial crisis, would be one of those decisive moments.

240 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 131. 241 Richard, Noblesse d’affaires, 28–64; Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 271–78. 242 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 177-78. 243 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce.

65

Chapter 2: The Martinique Mission

Mentioning the Jesuits in the French Atlantic suggests images of black-robed priests fighting and recording indigenous spirituality among the leafy forests of Iroquoia and Huronia.

The success of the Jesuit Relations has given the Society’s missionaries in northeastern North

America an outsized profile in comparison to the other missions supported by the province of

France. Yet Jesuits also catechized African slaves beneath West Indian palm fronds and held

Sunday mass in small churches at the feet of Martinique’s volcanic hills. Jesuit pirogues cut through the turquoise waters of the Caribbean as their brethren’s canoes rippled the surface of the Great Lakes. The Society’s missions to the French islands differed significantly from those on the continent. No college in the islands matched that of Quebec and no bishop attempted to bring the missionaries to heel or served as their advocate before state officials. By the mid seventeenth-century, the New France Jesuits had divested themselves of parish duties to concentrate on their missions to the indigenous peoples while the Caribbean Jesuits moved in the opposite direction. The rapid marginalization and death of the Caribs within the first decades of

French colonization directed the missionaries into parishes for the white population. The Jesuits’ efforts at conversion and catechizing would primarily be amongst the ever-incoming flood of enslaved Africans. The Society’s missions in the Caribbean were thus fundamentally different from those in New France and must be understood on their own terms.

Sue Peabody, Steve Lenick, Emily Clark, Brett Rushforth, and Sophie White have drawn scholarly attention to the religious orders in Louisiana, Saint-Domingue, and the Îles du Vent, thus contextualizing the New France Jesuits within the missions of the French Atlantic.244 This literature, however, has focused on the complex relationship between Catholic missionaries, the

244 Peabody, “A Dangerous Zeal”; Lenik, “Mission Plantations”; Clark, Masterless Mistresses; Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance; White, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana.

66

development of race-based slavery, and conversations of Indian acculturation rather than the

Jesuits’ significant economic presence. Jesuit plantations dominated the Caribbean sugar fields just as Jesuit haciendas dominated the Argentine pampas, but they have not received commensurate scholarly analysis.245 This chapter foregrounds the West Indian Jesuits’ material life as background for the “Lavalette affair.” In the century between the Jesuits’ 1640 arrival on

Martinique and that of Lavalette in 1742, the Martinique mission acquired significant estates through the largesse of powerful patrons. By 1700, the mission occupied such a dominant position in the island’s economy that state benevolence turned to suspicion and resentment. It was within this context that Lavalette arrived on Martinique.

The Company Priests

Companies with royal charters granting them a monopoly on the colony’s produce and trade first began the French colonization effort to the Antilles. In the case of the lesser Antilles, the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe (founded 1626) undertook the initial colonization ventures before being reorganized by Cardinal Richelieu into the Compagnie des Îles de l’Amérique in

1635. Richelieu envisioned the companies as a way to break Spain and Portugal’s commercial and religious stranglehold over the Americas.246 The charter for the Compagnie de Saint

Christophe required its directors to include a chaplain amongst its colonization forces and granted them permission to transport priests to the island.247 The 1635 Articles for the

Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique were more stringent: the company not only promised to

245 They have been excavated. See Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola; Lenik, “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763).” Rennard’s Histoire religieuse consideres Jesuit salaries and finances, but this work is dated and does not interact with the current historiography. J Rennard, Histoire religieuse des Antilles françaises des origines à 1914, d'après des documents inédits. (Paris: Société de l'h́istoire des colonies françaises, 1954). 246 Philip P Boucher, France and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Discontent? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 64–68; Erik Thomson, “France’s Grotian Moment? Hugo Grotius and Cardinal Richelieu’s Commercial Statecraft,” French History 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2007): 377–94; Dewar, “‘Y Establir Nostre Auctorite.’” 247 Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre, Histoire Generale des Habitées par les François…. vol. 1 (Paris : Thomas Iolly, 1667),

67

transport priests but “construire des lieux propres pour la celebration du service divin, & leur seront fournir des ornemens, livres, & autres choses necessaires pour ce sujet.”248

Dispute arose over which religious order was to fulfill these requirements. The directors of the Compagnie de St. Christophe initially chose Capuchins, a branch of the Franciscans, to serve the first settlement of the eponymous island in 1635. However, Louis XIII and Richelieu chose two Parisian Dominicans to accompany the Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique’s settlement of Guadeloupe. They also acquired privileges from the pope granting the Order of

Preachers ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all Caribbean islands held by France. The Capuchins protested this move, creating dissension between crown and company, Capuchin and Dominican until a flurry of letters between Paris and the papacy resolved the dispute.249 Afterwards, the director of the Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique, François Fouquet, looked towards the Jesuits.

As early as 1636, he requested the Jesuits’ provincial, Fr. Etienne Binet, “de nous nommer trois religieux de leur ordre” for transport to Martinique. Martinique’s governor, Jacques Dyel du

Parquet, resisted this intrusion; he preferred Capuchins or Dominicans to service the growing colony.250 Despite what must have been disappointment, Fr. Jacques Bouton stated that that du

Parquet “nous y receut fort courtoisement,” when his party arrived on Good Friday 1640 after a long and tiring Atlantic crossing.251 Within several weeks of their arrival, the Jesuits had won over du Parquet such that he granted them property on a hill just to the north of Saint-Pierre, the island’s major town.252 This estate would be the control tower for the Jesuit’s Caribbean presence.

248 Du Tertre, 1:47. 249 Du Tertre, 1:71; Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 15. 250 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 1:113. 251 Bouton's ship was captured by the English shortly after leaving France. Jacques Bouton, Relation de l’establissement Des Francios Depuis l’an 1635…. (Paris : Sebastien Cramoisy, 1640), 25. 252 The Jesuits also acquired a small parcel of land in the south of the island and attempted to create a parish there but sold it to the Capuchins in the 1680s. Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 42.

68

Like the Portuguese and Spanish crowns, the companies provided each priest with an annual salary paid in plantation tobacco which could be traded for provisions. The Compagnie de St. Christophe initially promised to provide secular priests with an annual pension of 400 livres and regular priests with 100-150 livres to pay for the voyage and outfitting a church.253

Fouquet not only promised the Jesuits transportation “avec deux ou trois hommes pour les servir” and 600 livres toward their start-up costs, he also granted them an exemption from the

“droits personnels” levied on all lay colonists.254 In 1645, the Jesuits obtained annual pensions from the Company for 150 livres in cash to the mission procurator in Paris and 500 pounds of tobacco on Martinique.255 The Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique ultimately proved unable to honor these promises. Five years after signing the agreement, the Jesuits appeared before the colony’s newly created Superior Council demanding the colony’s inhabitants provide the salaries which the Company had neglected. Rather than take on the responsibility, the ordered the

Company’s agent to pay them 24,000 pounds of tobacco.256 In 1637, the Dominican superior general, P. Pelican, returned to Paris to lobby the directors for land and labor to support themselves; for which the directors granted them land near the town of Basse-Terre.257 As in the

Iberian empires, missionaries looked to cultivable land to provide the stability which crown and corporate funding lacked.

Proprietary Priests

Priests were not the only group to whom the Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique could not pay their debts. By 1648, the Company owed 260,000 livres tournois to French creditors and

253 Rennard, 78. 254 Company records for 1 Jan. 1636. Quoted in Rennard, 41. 255 Like the English “pound,” the livre was used as both a weight and monetary unit of account. To avoid confusion, I refer to the weights as pounds and the currency as livres. Rennard, 80. 256 Pierre-François-Régis Dessalles and Bernard Vonglis, Les annales du Conseil souverain de la Martinique, vol. 1 (Paris : L’Harmattan, 1786), 37-41. 257 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 1:93.

69

was facing bankruptcy. Desperate for cash, the directors sold the islands to their governors. Du

Parquet bought Martinique, St.-Lucie, Grenada, and the Grenadines for 60,000 livres tournois.

Between of 1650 and 1661, the governors controlled their islands directly as personal fiefs, with allegiance only to the distant king.258 This “proprietary period” was foundational for both the islands and the Jesuits. During this decade, the outline of the Jesuits’ establishment in the Lesser

Antilles would take shape.

The Jesuits who first arrived on the island expected to have a ministry similar to their brethren in France and around the world: they would run missions to the local indigenous populations and a college to educate Catholic boys. “[Je] me fait coniurer le lecteur de cette

Relation,” Bouton concluded his 1640 description of Martinique and its inhabitants, “d’addresser ses vœux au ciel pour ces pauvres Sauvages, & pour ceux qui contribueront à leur conuersion pour la plus grande gloire de nostre bon Dieu.”259 The “pauvres Sauvages” of the Caribbean, however, proved a more difficult mission field than the Iroquois or Guaraní. French settlers under Du Parquet violently expelled Martinique’s Carib population by 1660.260 The Jesuits then shifted their attention to indigenous groups on St. Vincent and Guiana. When Du Parquet’s successor, Philippe Longilliers de Poincy, brokered a treaty in 1653 with the St. Vincent Caribs, its stipulations required the presence of Jesuit priests on the island. Over the course of a year

Frs. Guillaume Aubergeon and François Gueimu baptized many St. Vincent Caribs and began to teach them how to read, write, and sing psalms. However, this mission came to a sudden end on the morning of 23 January 1654 when the Caribs clubbed Aubergeon and Gueimu to death as a precursor to attacking other French settlements. The Jesuits would try to reestablish the St.

Vincent mission again during the 1660s and 1670s with royal funding, but lack of converts led to

258 Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 86. 259 Bouton, Relation, 140-41. 260 Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 92–93.

70

its closure in 1679 as a waste of resources.261 A mission to the Galibis of the South American coast fared better. After an initial false start, priests from France created a stable presence in

Guiana which endured through the mid-eighteenth-century suppression.262 The Martinique mission also initially ministered Irish Catholics in nearby English colonies. Arriving in 1650, Fr.

Jean Destriche built a church on St. Christophe close to the English portion of the island and visited neighboring Montserrat disguised as a woolen merchant. Camille de Rochemonteix has estimated that Destriche’s church on St. Christophe had 3,000 congregants and that he converted

400 Protestants back to Catholicism, but the mission to the English islands did not last beyond his death.263

Where Jesuit missions in other parts of the world founded schools to educate the local nobility, The Jesuits on Martinique never founded a college to match that of Quebec or the archipelago of Jesuit educational institutions across Catholic Europe and Iberian America.

Requests to the king in the 1680s and the purchase of “une assez grande maison” in Saint-Pierre for a college in the 1690s went nowhere. When they broached the subject to the Conseil de la

Marine in 1722 via the intendant Charles Besnard, the Comte de Toulouse immediately shot it down (“Cette proposition,” he scribbled in the margin “ne peut convenir absolument”). The governor Blondel de Jouvancourt preferred colonial boys be educated in France to cement “leur fidelité au Roy, qui n’a pas toujours esté sans soupçons.”264

261 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 12–13; Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 189; Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 92. 262 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 7; Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 44. 263 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 16; Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 190. 264 Colonial women must not have been a problem, given that the Ursulines ran a school in Saint-Pierre. Jean- Baptiste Patoulet, “Moyens praticables pour l’establissement d’un college, et d’un hospital a la Martinique,” 21 Dec. 1680. ANOM COL Series C8A vol. 2 fol. 392. Comte d’Amblimont to Comte de Pontchartrain, 19 Sept. 1699. ANOM COL Series C8A vol. 11. fol. 148. Blondel de Jouvancourt to Conseil de la Marine. 28 June 1723. ANOM COL Series C8A vol. 32. fol. 123. Quote from “Analyse d’une lettre de Besnard” 6 Oct. 1722. ANOM COL C8A vol. 30 fol. 419.

71

The failure of these endeavors left the Jesuits to focus on Martinique’s French and

African populations, groups which would be the primary recipients of their attention until the

Society’s expulsion in the 1763. Bouton found the island’s French colonists to be “presque abandonnez de tout secours spirituel, sans Messe, sans Prestre, sans Predicateur, sans Sacremens, dans une trop grande licence, liberté, & impunité” shortly after the Jesuits’ arrival on the island in 1640. In addition to taking over Saint-Pierre’s parish church from the secular clergy,265

Bouton envisioned founding new parishes along Martinique’s rugged coast. “Il sera necessaire,” he wrote,

“si on veut assister selon Dieu tous les habitans, dont la plus-part ont esté jusques

à present destituez de tout secours spirituel, de faire trois maisons & Eglises,

d’autant que nos François contiennent bien neuf ou dix lieuës d’estenduë de long

du bord de la mer, en un pays si rude á cause des mornes, qu’une Eglise ne peut

s’estendre que deux ou trois lieuës au plus.”266

During the 1640s and 1650s, Bouton’s successors established three parishes close to

Saint-Pierre and expanded to St. Croix, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, and Marie Galante.267 The missions to the smaller islands did not last. A 1660 status report to Rome by Fr. P.H. Du Vyvier listed fifteen priests and two brother coadjutors on Martinique, St. Christophe, and Guadeloupe.

Du Vyvier described the Martinique residence outside Saint-Pierre, with its five fathers and one brother, as lacking the comforts of home, but “abundant in all necessary things” and stated that

“God shouts into our ears and fills us with all consolation.”268

265 There is evidence of secular priests in the islands as early as 1627, making them the first clergy in the French West Indies. They remained a presence on Martinique through the seventeenth century but were slowly pushed out by the regular priests. Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 262–63. 266 Bouton, Relation, 97-98. 267 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 42; Du Tetre, Histoire Generale, 3:299. 268 P.H. Du Vyvier. “Status Missionu Franciae In America Meridionali,” 15 Dec 1660, ARSI GAL 110 I fol. 298- 300.

72

In addition to the French population, the Jesuits also ministered to the African slaves imported to work the growing plantations. Bouton was scornful of Africans, describing them as impertinent, ignorant, and unintelligent. Yet “on en a veu quelques-uns neantmoins [sic] bien devots & affectionnez aux choses de leur salut: un entre’autres mourut il y a quelque temps chez monsieur le gouverneur, qui prioit souvent & ne demandoit rien tant que d’estre instruit, & que l’on parlast de Dieu & des choses spirituelles.”269 In the 1650s, Pelleprat described catechism classes for African slaves held by the Martinique Jesuits, in which they were taught the Lord’s

Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Apostle’s Creed, and the Ten Commandments in their own language.

By 1670, this evangelization had been institutionalized in the form of the curé des nègres, a priest assigned specifically to baptize new arrivals from Africa and look after the spiritual well- being of urban black converts. In 1700, the Jesuits had two curés des nègres, one in Saint-Pierre, and the other on Guadeloupe. The curés des nègres thus conducted the Jesuits’ evangelical work to black slaves within a racially segregated framework.270

The Jesuits’ position as permanent parish priests was an oddity within the broader context of the Society. In the Constitutions, Loyola had forbidden its members from the administration of parishes, since they limited the priests’ mobility. In sixteenth-century Brazil and seventeenth- century New France, Jesuits served as parish priests temporarily until enough secular priests arrived. Only in the Caribbean and the Spanish Philippines did Jesuits administer parishes on a permanent basis.271 When news of the Caribbean Jesuits’ parochial role reached Rome in 1654, father general Goswin Nickel banned the practice, but he allowed the Jesuits on the island to

269 Bouton, Relation, 103. 270 Peabody, “A Dangerous Zeal,” 60–62. 271 William V Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972), 355; Martinez- Serna, “Procurators,” 188.

73

continue in their posts until enough secular priests arrived. This wave of clergy never materialized and the Jesuits reoccupied the parishes four years later.272

The proprietary period also saw the formal establishment of the Jesuits’ landed estates.

The crown belatedly issued letters patents in July 1651 allowing the Jesuits to settle in the islands and establishing their privileges. Most important of these were the tax exemptions. The crown exempted their lands and merchandise from “tous droits, charges, impositions.” Their domestics, indentured servants, and slaves were exempt from “droits réels & personnels,” guard duty, and corvée work (except in cases of urgent necessity).273 The proprietary period saw the island’s transition from small tobacco farms to large sugar plantations; a change catalyzed by the arrival of Portuguese Jews and Dutch refugees from Pernambuco in 1654 with an intimate knowledge of the sugar techniques.274 This change was reflected in the Jesuits’ salaries: they were now paid in sugar rather than tobacco. Taking over from the defunct Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique, du

Parquet and de Poincy paid each parish priest on the island 6,000 pounds of sugar (worth 400 livres cash) annually.275 The Jesuits also entered the sugar business themselves, turning the land granted to them by du Parquet and another property on Guadeloupe into prosperous sugar plantations. Their tax exemptions and stable salaries gave them advantages which no lay planter, except the governor himself, could match. By 1660, they ran the one of the largest sugar works on Martinique.276 A decade later, the 67 enslaved men and women on their Guadeloupe plantation were producing 40,000 pounds of sugar annually.277 This revenue would have supported their short-lived missions in other parts of the Caribbean, paid for the travel of new

272 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 185–86. 273 Dessalles and Vonglis, Les annales du Conseil souverain, 1 : 37-41. The crown granted similar letters patents to Canadian Jesuits at the same time. 274 Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 91. 275 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 81. 276 Rennard, 158. 277 Rennard, 230 and 245.

74

missionaries to the islands, and made up for shortfalls when the company salaries went undelivered.

Company Priests (Again)

Louis XIV’s coming of age in 1661 led to the end of the proprietors. His Secretary of

State for the Navy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, revived Richelieu’s plans of colonization through chartered companies with the creation of the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales in 1664.

Colbert dispatched a fleet of two warships and four merchantmen headed by Alexandre Prouville de Tracy to formalize this transfer of power in the Caribbean and Canada.278 The ordonnances which de Tracy handed down in June 1664 listed the church as recipient for fines levied on inhabitants’ misbehaviors. Owners of slaves caught selling animals in the market without permission, for example would be given tobacco fines “applicables aux Eglises.” Fines from inn owners caught violating restrictions were to be split between the church, the poor, and the whistleblower who discovered the violation.

For the Jesuits, life under the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales was not significantly different from that under the proprietors or previous companies. Like Richelieu’s companies before it, the new company agreed to “fourny le plus brievement que faire se pourra, des Prestres de bonne vie & mœurs, & de capacité requise, où il n’y en aura pour faire deservir les Eglises, celebrer le service Divin, assister les malades, & faire les fonctions curiales.”279

The new company was also benevolent in doling out land to the Jesuits and ensuring their revenue stream. The Society’s privileges, which the company directors got around to granting on the eve of the company’s 1674 dissolution, renewed their tax breaks, allowed them to construct mills “et Engins à Sucres,” and specified that any land the Jesuits acquired would be

278 Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 168–69. 279 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 3:176-77.

75

held under mortmain.280 In 1674, the company ceded two tracts of land to the Jesuits on

Guadeloupe, thus taking over the proprietors’ mantle as patron.281 Missionaries of all orders remained active participants in Martinique’s economy. Article fifteen of de Tracy’s

Ordonnances required “Ceux qui sont débiteurs aux Eglises, apres le premier refus qu’ils auront fait de payer, ils y seront contraints par la vente de leurs meubles & leurs esclaves;” implying that missionaries were a significant source of credit in the colony, a function which the state would continue to support.282

Direct State Patronage

When the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales collapsed in 1674, Colbert decided not to replace it but instead to put the islands under direct state control administered by the navy. The crown also took on the company’s role as patron of the islands’ priests. “Nous nous chargeons.....” Colbert wrote to Martinique’s new governor, Jean-Charles de Baas, “à la subsistance des curés, prêtres, et autres ecclesiastiques, à l’entretien et réparations des églises, ornements et autres dépenses nécessaires pour le service divin, et il sera par nous pourvu de personnes capables pour remplir et desservir les cures.”283 Within a year of the company’s collapse, the crown had reissued the Jesuits’ privileges as letters patents, thus recognizing their tax exemptions and ability to acquire property.284

Colbert initially planned to align the Caribbean colonies with France and New France by installing a bishop and imposing a tithe. His 1679 instructions to the Îles du Vent’s first intendant, Jean-Baptiste Patoulet, ordered him to conduct a survey of the parishes as the first step

280 “Déliberation de la Compagnie des Isles Occidentales” 3 Sept 1674, in M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’Amérique sous le vent ; vol. 1 (Paris : Chez l’auteur, 1784), 282-83. 281 ANOM COL F5A 9/1 282 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 3:74-75. 283 Quoted in Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 67. 284 “Déliberation de la Compagnie des Isles Occidentales, portant confirmation des Droits et Privileges accordés aux Jésuites par Sa Majesté dans l’une et l’autre Amérique.” 3 Sept. 1674 in Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 1:282-83.

76

in this move. “Après avoir examiné avec grand soin tous les prêtres séculiers et réguliers qui desservent les cures,” he commanded, “il donnera avis à Sa Majesté de leurs noms et conduite, et examinera en même temps le revenu dont on peut faire état pour chaque curé, soit par le moyen des dîmes qui pourraient être êtablies, soit par le moyen des terres qui ont été données aux

églises.”285 Presumably these changes would have been accompanied by the replacement of the religious orders with secular priests. However, De Baas’ gubernatorial successor, the Comte de

Blénac, poured cold water on Colbert’s plan, arguing that a tithe would only bring bad blood between inhabitants too indebted to pay the it and a clergy distracted from their spiritual duties by having to collect it.286 The Marine secretary quietly dropped his plans and the French

Caribbean remained titheless and bishopless until after the Jesuits’ expulsion.287

Although Colbert backed off from creating additional ecclesiastical structure, he envisioned the Marine, and through it the crown, to maintain an active oversight of the colonu’s religious orders. In addition to the state continuing to pay the missionaries’ salaries, administrators would work with the heads of the orders in Paris to oversee the missionaries’ spiritual and temporal activities. From 1674 onward, the governors and intendants of the French

Caribbean would continue to send Colbert and his successors updates on the number of priests and their finances. Marine Secretaries used this information to ensure an adequate number of priests by writing to the heads of the religious orders in Paris for more missionaries to fill any empty parishes. Intendants in France’s ports would then be instructed to provide the priests with free passage and (in the case of all but the well-endowed Jesuits) a sum for outfitting themselves for the voyage. They also tracked the missionaries’ movements. Priests were not allowed sail

285 Quoted in Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 68. This survey was initially to see whether a bishopric was possible for the French Caribbean colonies, but the planned bishopric was never implemented. 286 Rennard, 84–85. 287 Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 110.

77

across the Atlantic or between the islands without informing local administrators of their movements and, in the case of transatlantic travel, seeking the Marine’s permission.288

An important duty of the state’s patronage (and one which local administrators detested) was settling the various turf wars which inevitably cropped up between the orders. In the 1680s,

De Baas’ and Patoulet’s successors, the Comte de Blénac and Michel Bégon, negotiated two settlements dividing Martinique’s fifteen parishes between the Dominicans, Capuchins and

Jesuits. Du Parquet’s initial request for Dominicans and Capuchins had not gone unheard. A group of Dominicans under Fr. Jean de Boulogne had arrived on Martinique in 1654 under the patronage of Du Parquet’s wife. They acquired a house across Saint-Pierre from the Jesuits in the Mouillage district and in 1658 a plantation on the Atlantic side of the island at Ste. Marie.

Du Parquet also granted the Capuchins authority over the southern part of Martinique when they arrived in the 1650s.289 Smoldering tensions between the three orders over parish boundaries erupted into turf wars during the 1680s. In 1684, state officials brokered an agreement dividing

Saint-Pierre into a Jesuit parish of Saint-Pierre (or Le Fort since it was near the town’s fortifications) in the north and a Dominican parish of Mouillage to the south. This division extended even to ships at anchor in the harbor.290 In 1687, Blénac again oversaw the division of

Martinique’s sixteen parishes between the Dominicans, Jesuits, and Capuchins. The Jesuits would administer the four parishes around Saint-Pierre (Le Carbet, Le Prêcheur, Case Pilote and

Saint-Pierre itself), the Capuchins those in the south near Fort-Royal, and the Dominicans those to the east on Martinique’s Atlantic coast.291

288 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 70–71. For an example of the movement tracking, see: Combaud to SD and Braguier to France. 2 Mar. 1720 ANOM COL Series C8B 6 289 Rennard, 43–45. 290 Dessalles and Vonglis, Les annales du Conseil souverain, 1 :288. 291 The secular priests appear to have disappeared or lost their parishes by this point. Dessalles and Vonglis, 1:289.

78

Maintaining harmony within, in addition to between, the religious orders also fell under the state administrative purview. Governors and intendants worked with the missions’ superiors to discipline wayward priests who threatened the stability of the colonies. Ideally, the intendant would merely inform the mission’s head who would then decide what was to be done, thus preserving the orders’ autonomy vis-à-vis the state. The annals of Martinique’s Superior Council and the transatlantic correspondence between the governor/intendant and the Marine Secretaries are filled with examples of such disciplinary action. The most common response was to remove the priest from his parish either to the order’s residence on the island or back across the Atlantic.

In 1706, for example, P. Imbert, the Dominican curé of La grande Anse, insulted a planter, Pierre

Labbé Crochemore, from the pulpit and attempted to “le rendre odieux dans le quartier, même dans sa famille.” The Dominican Superior on the island, Bedaride, recalled Imbert from his post to the main Dominican house for three months to do penance for his actions. Often state administrators would directly order superiors to recall their missionaries.292 In 1765, the governor of the Îles du Vent ordered the Dominican superior to recall Father Ratte, a curé who had threatened to destroy his parish registers in a too-strident protest of recent gubernatorial ordinances.293 On Saint-Domingue, being connected to the organized resistance of the enslaved led to immediate recall. When the slave Makandal was burned at the stake on the suspicion of leading a poisoning ring against the colony’s planters, the Jesuit Fr. Duquesnoy was accused of suppressing the names of his conspirators. Duquesnoy was quickly removed to France as being too dangerous to look after slaves.294

292 Dessalles and Vonglis, 1:315-18. 293 d’Ennery and Peynier to Choiseul, 2 July 1765. ANOM COL Series C8A 67. fol. 27. 294 De Berryer to Bart and Elias 6 Apr 1759. ANOM COL Series B 109 See also the discussion of Makandal in Peabody, “‘Dangerous Zeal’” and Carolyn E Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990).

79

Another source of tension was the missionaries’ salaries. Since a tithe was never established, the priests received their salaries directly from the Domaine d’Occident, the state arm which oversaw the collection of taxes and customs duties in the colonies, as they had from the companies. The Jesuits on Martinique were quick to make the best arrangement possible.

When the Compagnie des Îles Occidentales collapsed in 1674, they obtained from the Domaine a concession of “2,500 livres tous les ans payables en sucre par les commis du dit domaine de l’îsle de la Martinique et pareille somme de 2,500 livres payables en France en argent” for their parishes on Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Christophe, and Guiana. This unworkable arrangement would have more than doubled each priest’s salary to over 15,000 pounds of sugar.295 Three years later, the intendant Patoulet revoked it and evened out the funding to all missionaries to

12,000 pounds of sugar per priest. This reduction also proved to be unworkable as the Domaine could not set aside enough sugar to meet this demand either. Instead, the parishes were divided into “old” and “new” parishes with curés of the former being paid the full 12,000 pounds of sugar and the latter getting only 9,000 pounds. When even this reduction proved to be unsustainable, Blénac and Bégon tweaked the state’s official valuation of sugar to permit them to dispense the same amount at a reduced cost to the Domaine. Jean-Baptiste Labat, Dominican superior general on Martinique during the 1690s, criticized the move, since it reduced the priest’s wages in real terms. Despite these failings, this system remained in place through the 1763 expulsion.296

295 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 82. 296 Even with an artificially low valuation, priests in the Caribbean were paid better than those in the France or Canada. Nine thousand pounds of sugar was worth 405 livres, whereas Canadian priests were paid 300 livres and French priests 200 livres. These statistics do not consider differences in the cost of living, which may have been considerable. Rennard, 83–87 and 158.

80

The Îles du Vent Mission circa 1700

In 1691, Pope Innocent XII belatedly bestowed upon Jacques Hedsin, superior of the

Jesuits’ Martinique mission, the title of apostolic prefect.297 This title, held by the superior general of each religious order in the French Caribbean, granted him limited episcopal authority where no bishopric had been formally established. Until the Guiana and Saint-Domingue missions were given their own apostolic prefects in 1731, Hesdin and his successors oversaw the spiritual activities of the Society’s missions throughout the French Caribbean from the “control tower” of the Saint-Pierre residence.298 The first decades of the eighteenth century were a period of growth for the French Caribbean Jesuits, from twenty priests and four brothers coadjutors in

1700 to sixty priests and 8 brothers coadjutors in 1730 (Figure 2.3). The bulk of this expansion was on Saint-Domingue, where in 1704 the Jesuits replaced the Capuchins as parish priests in the colony’s northern provinces.

297 “Facultates concessae a SDND Innocentio Divina prouida Papa xy Pro Jacobo Hesdin Societatis Jesu praefectio Missionum eiusque Socientatis Jesu in America Meridionalis.” 26 Sept 1691 ANOM COL Series C8B 1. 298 In 1703, Jesuits replaced Capuchin parish priests in the northern half of Saint-Domingue.

81

Jesuit missionaries in the French Caribbean, 1658-1761 70

60

50

40

30

20 Jesuits (Priests + Coajutors) + (Priests Jesuits

10

0 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 Year

Figure 2.3 Jesuit missionaries in the French Caribbean, 1658-1761. Source: Triennial Catalogues ARSI FRANC 11-21.

Contemporary descriptions portrayed life in the Saint-Pierre residence as idyllic for the

Jesuits who served there. “Notre maison est située dans le plus bel endroit de l’Isle, il y a de l’air et de frais en tous temps.” an anonymous Jesuit penned in 1701,

“Elle est grande, séparée de la ville et la paroisse par une longue et belle allée

d’orangers a haute futay qui fais toujours de l’ombre. Notre jardin est le plus

beau des Iles. La bibliothèque est bien fournie. Les Cases des fermettes de nos

negres qui sont en grand nombre joingent la maison. Nous avons en particuliers

nos autels. Nous som[mes] ordinairment six pretres a la maison, ceux du cure de

la paroisse demeure[nt] avec nous et ceux de nos Peres qui deserve[nt] les

Paroisse du Carb[et], et du Prescher de la cas[e] Pilote a une, a deux, ou trois

82

lieues d’ici viennes [sic] nous voir manger, et couche[r] chez nous quasi toutes les

semaines.”299

Because the Jesuits’ parishes were a short trip down the coast, their priests often lived in the Saint-Pierre residence during the week and traveled by boat to their parishes as needed.

Their proximity to Saint-Pierre’s busy harbor made them the first to greet important visitors and hear news.300 The residence also served as a rest spot for Jesuits to recuperate after long sea voyages or from bouts of sickness. In addition to the library, the house included a garden (“beau

& bien entretenu” in the words of Jean-Baptiste Labat), domestic chapel, and several courtyards.

Labat incorrectly claimed that the Jesuits had the only stone buildings on the island.301 Thibault de Chanvalon, who probably met Lavalette while studying the island’s botany and climate in the

1750s, listed cacao plants, pear trees, and European flowers amongst the specimens the Jesuits cultivated.302 Chanvalon also reported that the Jesuit residence possessed the only wine cellar on the island. “J’ai bu chez les P. Jésuites un vin de Cahors,” he later recalled, “qu’ils m’assurent avoir chez eux depuis plusieurs années, quoiqu’ils l’eussent reçu en futaille.”303

Like all Europeans transplanted to a tropical setting, the Jesuits on Martinique had to contend with regular waves of disease. When Labat visited the residence in 1696, he met their superior, Guillaume Moreau, “qui étoit convalescent d’une maladie contagieuse qui régnoit dans le pays,” and “un autre Pere qui morut peu de jours après.”304 Six priests died in the 1696 epidemic, necessitating the Marine Secretary to ask the Paris superiors to send more.305 Sickness visited again three years later. François Roger Robert reported to the Comte de Pontchartrain

299 Archives Nationales de France (AN) K 1232. 300 Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique…., vol. 1 (Paris : Cavelier père, 1742), 67. 301 Labat, 1 :70. 302 Jean-Baptiste Mathieu Thibault de Chanvalon, Voyage à la Martinique,…. (Paris : Cl. J.B. Bauche & Saint Jean le désert, 1763), 145, 147, and 158. 303 Chanvalon, 119. 304 Labat, Nouveau Voyage, 1:68. 305 Saint-Gilles to Comte de Pontchartrain. 19 Oct 1696. ANOM COL Series C8B 2 N.35.

83

that two-thirds of the Jesuits on the island had been taken ill with “la maladie de Siam” and five had died, reducing the population of the Saint-Pierre residence to two from its normal complement of five or six.306

A 277-hectare sugar plantation worked by 130 slaves supported these priests with 34,000 livres net annual income.307 In 1684, the Jesuits were listed as owning one of the four sugar refineries on the island, giving them an edge over lay planters who had to send their sugar to

France for refining.308 Lavalette would later describe the plantation as having a purgerie for refining the sugar, a vinaigrerie for producing taffia, a gragerie for milling manioc flour, and cisterns to hold syrup.309 Besides sugar, it is unclear what other crops the Jesuits grew commercially. The Loyola plantation in Guiana grew sugar, coffee, cacao, and (after its 1737 legalization in France) indigo.310 A 1678 appraisal of the property by three stonemasons and two carpenters listed a limekiln, cassava house and oven, storeroom for meat, courtyard, stable, forge, slave quarters, and infirmary which they collectively valued at between 21,500 and 38,100 pounds of sugar.311 The Jesuits also owned rental houses and shops in Saint-Pierre and Fort-

Royal which brought in 7-8,000 livres annually.312

Table 2.1 Enslaved People owned by the Society in the French Caribbean c.1763 Colony Number of Enslaved People Guiana (Loyola and Mont-Louis plantations) 495 Saint-Domingue (Terre-Rouge and Port-de-Paix) 470 Louisiaina 136 Guadeloupe 312 Martinique At least 200 Dominica 194 Total At least 1,807 Sources: Le Roux et al., Loyola, 78. AFSI, F An 41 and Brotier 189 VI fols. 66-72. Villiers du Terrage, Les dernières années de la Louisiane française, 162-5. Rennard, Histoire Religieuse, 248-9.

306 François Roger Robert to Comte de Pontchartrain, 22 Sept 1699. ANOM COL Series C8A 11. fol. 201. 307 La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22. fol. 117. Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 197. 308 May, Histoire économique, 130.. 309 Antoine Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL fol. 98-99. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 60. 310 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 71. 311 See the documents in ANOM COL Series F5A 9/2. 312 La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr. 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22. fols. 117-119.

84

The mention of slaves and slave quarters is a reminder that the Jesuits’ mission work and comfortable lifestyle rested on the coerced labor of Africans left anonymous in the record.

Inventories of the Society’s property conducted during the Jesuits’ expulsion in the early 1760s list them owning over 1,800 people across the French Caribbean (Table 2.1) with around 700 under the Îles du Vent mission.313 Jesuit writers rarely mentioned the enslaved men and women who cooked their food, cleaned their laundry, and grew their crops. One writer in the aftermath of the expulsion observed that the Jesuits had not been buying imported humans for years, implying that the mission’s enslaved laborers were born in the islands rather than in Africa. The

Marquis de Fénélon, Martinique’s governor during the expulsion in 1764, noted that plantations owned by religious orders “où l’on nourrit bien les nègres, où l’on a soin des mères et des enfants” had self-sustaining populations in contrast to the high gender disparities, low birthrates, and high death rates of lay plantations.314 Such evidence is in line with studies of Jesuit slaveholding in Guiana and South America, which also record balanced gender ratios and self- sustaining populations.315 If the Jesuits in the French islands followed the model of their South

American brethren, they would have provided baptism and religious instruction to the enslaved men and women on their plantations, thus adopting them into the Catholic spiritual community but making the maintenance of African religious traditions more difficult.

“Au point de vue financier les jésuites avaient une situation privilégiée,” J. Rennard concluded in 1954.316 In 1717, the intendant la Varenne estimated the Jesuits’ total annual income at 61,000 livres, higher than the Dominicans (46,000 livres) the Brothers of Charity,

(52,000 livres) or Camelites (20,000 livres). The majority of this revenue (52,000 livres) came

313 For comparison, Martinique’s total population was 12,500 whites and 70,000 blacks in 1763. May, Histoire économique, 57. 314 Frantz Tardo-Dino, Le collier de servitude: la condition sanitaire des esclaves aux Antilles françaises du XVIIe au XIXe siècle (Paris: Editions caribéennes : Agence de coopération culturelle et technique, 1985), 167–68. 315 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 127-8; Cushner, Lords of the Land, 90-91. 316 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 191.

85

from the two sugar plantations on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Rental houses and shops in

Saint-Pierre and Fort-Royal, combined with the salaries from the Domaine, brought in the rest.317

The Jesuits had several advantages relative to lay planters and the other orders. As in Spanish

America, the Jesuits’ tax exemptions allowed them to produce and ship their sugar more cheaply than lay planters. Their plantations were not burdened with debt from multiple sales or subject to revenue-sapping inheritance battles. Their parishes were better paid than those of the

Dominicans or the Capuchins. Seven of the ten Jesuit positions in the Îles du Vent were paid the

“old” salaries of 12,000 pounds of sugar or 540 livres.318 The close spacing of the Martinique parishes had the added benefit of allowing the procurator in Saint-Pierre to handle the disbursement of the priests’ salaries, a system which colonial administrators praised and encouraged the other orders to imitate.319 Finally, their plantation’s proximity to Saint-Pierre saved on transport costs, in contrast to the Dominicans’ plantation on the Atlantic side of the island. In recognition of this privileged position, the state did not subsidize the outfitting of new

Jesuit missionaries as it did the other orders; they only received free passage across the

Atlantic.320

In addition to their salaries, rental properties and plantations, the Caribbean missions received income from metropolitan investments managed by the mission procurator in Paris.

These accounts were divided into two types: general funds for all the Caribbean missions, and funds earmarked for specific missions or purposes.321 Though they only record the mission’s income in France, the triennial catalogues indicate that the Society’s Caribbean missions were

317 La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22. fol. 117. 318 The lower salary of 9,000 pounds of sugar or 405 livres went to two curés des nègres and a director of the “petites ecoles” on Guadeloupe. 1729, 1730. ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3. 319 Charles François Blondel de Jouvancourt to Conseil de la Marine. 28 June 1733. ANOM COL Series C8A 32. fol. 123. 320 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 191. 321 Moreau, “Mémoires” 15.

86

wealthier than those in Canada, China, or the Levant (Figure 2.4). There is little information on exactly what investments the Caribbean mission possessed. There are references to rentes on the

La Flèche, Lisieux, and Pignerol colleges; also an investment in state debt through a rente on the

Paris hotel de ville.322 The sudden dip in income for the 1720s implies that they and the Asian missions lost money in John Law’s scheme. An extant balance sheet for the Canada mission from 1665 provides the closest idea of what the Caribbean mission’s European investments might have looked like. Much of the Canada mission’s income came from rentes on other Jesuit institutions, with municipal income streams (specifically rentes on Paris’ water rights, wine sales, the taille collection, and the cinq gros fermes) and individual donors making up the rest

(Table 2.2). Rentes and pensions to patrons, such as Madame de la Peltrie and the Montreal merchant Jacques Le Ber reduced this income but still left a healthy profit of over 8,000 livres

(Table 2.3).

322 25 June 1685 ARSI GAL 106. Thevenot, Plaidoyner pour les Jesuites de France, contre le syndic des Créanciers des Sieurs Lioncy & Gouffre, et les Sieurs Lioncy & Gouffre (Paris : Cellot, 1761), 112. Machaut de Bellmont to Comte de Pontchartrain, 22 June 1703. ANOM COL Series C8A 15 fol. 26.

87

Metropolitan Mission Income 60000

50000

40000

30000 livres

20000

10000

0 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 Year

Canada Caribbean Middle East Asia

Figure 2.4. The catalogues lump all of the Caribbean missions together. These values have not been adjusted for inflation or cost of living. Source: ARSI FRANC 11-21.

Given the state’s salaries, the lack of a college or indigenous missions, and the Jesuits’ privileged position relative to other religious orders, were these vast reserves truly necessary?

Guillaume Moreau, superior general of the Îles du Vent mission in the late 1690s and early

1700s, thought so. In a 1710 mémoire, one of the most insightful glimpses into the realities of mission administration, Moreau defended maximizing income due to the uncertainties of living in the Caribbean. Unforeseen epidemics and shipwrecks resulted in large losses which could not be overcome without substantial reserves.323 Starting a new mission, as the Jesuits did for Saint-

Domingue in 1704, also required large financial outlays. The inter-imperial warfare which wracked the Caribbean was the most significant source of unforeseen expenses for Moreau.

323 Although Moreau did not mention them, earthquakes also wreaked havoc on the mission’s finances. The 7 Nov. 727 earthquake heavily damaged the Saint-Pierre house. Robert W Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 341.

88

Table 2.2 Income of the Canada mission, 1665 Income Source Amount (l.t.) Rente on Paris professed house 2,795 Rente on College of Louis-Le-Grand, Paris 836 Rente on College of Rouen 1,400 Rente on College de La Flèche 300 Rente on College de Compiegne 200 Rente on College de Bourges 90 Rente on Mr. Bothet, “libraire a Paris” 150 Rente on Mr. Adame Lalament, “ventes de maître des requet[e]s” 150 Rente on Mr. Taril 400 Rente on Mr. de la Meduite, “gentilhomme proche de Dieppe” 800 Rente on Paris hotel de ville 1,200 Rente on Lyon hotel de ville 163 Rente on “La Mission a proche de Dieppe des prairies” 800 Total 9,585 Source: ARSI GAL 110 I fols. 38-39.

Table 2.3 Burdens (“onera”) of the Canada mission, 1665 Burden Source Amount (l.t.) Rentes to Madame de la Peltrie 170 Rente to Madame Raillebont 150 Rente to M. Le Ber, “habitant de Montreal” 81 Rente to the Ursulines of Quebec 75 Rente to Madame Tuillet 50 Pension to Madame de la Peltrie 350 Pension of the mission procurator in Paris 400 Total 1,276 Source: ARSI GAL 110 I fols. 38-39.

When the British or Dutch pillaged the colonies, as they did frequently in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “la Mission perd la plus grande partie de son bien, parceque consistant tout en esclaves, en bestiaux, en Cuivres, et en moulins toutes choses faciles à estre enlevées,

89

tout cela une fois perdu, on est hors d[‘]etat de mettre la terre en valeur.” Merchants charged high postwar prices to replace these goods, thus compounding the initial losses.324

Even if their properties remained physically intact, war still sapped the Jesuits’ funds.

Because the Caribbean Jesuits relied on exchanging sugar for necessities, they were tied to the rollercoaster of commodity prices. Locked to the low rate at which the Domaine d’Occident purchased sugar, the Jesuits’ solvency became endangered if sugar prices fell and those of necessities rose, as they inevitably did when war closed the shipping lanes. Thus, while the mission lived comfortably within its means during peace, it struggled to feed itself during wartime. A good mission procurator in Paris, Moreau explained, knew that “faisant chaque année de grosses épargnes doit de beaucoup augmenter la masse et multiplier les revenus” would help to offset the higher costs of living during war. Island superiors likewise imposed standards of frugality on the rest of the house: Moreau refused to let lay planters eat with the Jesuits and vice versa.325 In the midst of plenty stalked the specter of dearth.

State Cutback

As Moreau penned his mémoire, administrators on Martinique and in France were also questioning the necessity for well-endowed religious orders. In the first decades of the eighteenth century, the waning government of Louis XIV and the regency which followed embarked on campaign to rationalize property ownership and bring wasteland into cultivation.

The court reformed New France’s seigneuries with 1711 the Edicts of Marly and ordered the creation of an updated papier terrier (land archive) for the region in the 1720s.326 The Marine enacted similar land reforms in the West Indies. During the initial rush of settlement, land had been granted or sold so fast that claims in Martinique’s interior often overlapped or were

324 Moreau, “Mémoire,” 19-20. 325 Moreau, “Mémoire,” 15-20. 326 Greer, Property and Dispossession, 373-75.

90

unworkable by the eighteenth-century. In 1713, the Marine ordered the confiscation of a third of the properties on the island that had not been cultivated within the first three years of ownership.

Another edict in 1722 gave buyers six years to bring two-thirds of their land into cultivation under pain of confiscation.327

State officials saw religious orders, with their large landed estates, as a brake on the island’s agricultural growth. Religious orders owned land under mainmorte title, which removed it perpetually from the real estate market and from feudal dues paid to the king. The largest landowners in the kingdom and its colonies were thus tax-exempt and locked outside the real estate market.328 The Martinique Jesuits’ exemptions from the head tax alone deprived the

Domaine of over 11,000 livres in annual revenue.329 During the budget crises of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, royal ministers had attempted various strategies to access this wealth. In 1689, the crown required all religious orders to pay droits d’amortissement, fees paid to the crown when land became mainmorte, from which they had previously been exempt. When John Law created a plan for reorganizing the state debt, the

Regency government forced the religious orders to buy shares, leading to significant losses for religious institutions when the scheme collapsed. In 1727, the crown created a commission des secours to close convents that were no longer financially secure, thus relieving their perceived burden on the kingdom’s productivity.330

327 May, Histoire économique, 74–75. 328 Claude Joseph de Ferrière and A.G. Boucher d’Argis, “Main-morte,” Dictionnaire de droit et de pratique: contenant l’explication des termes de droit, d’ordonnance, de coutumes & de pratique: avec les jurisdictions de France. (Toulouse : J. Dupliex, 1755). 329 This is a very rough estimate using temporally disparate figures. The capitation was fixed at 100 livres sugar per ensaved person in 1730. The intendant La Varenne estimated the Martinique Jesuits’ enslaved population at “au moins 130 noirs travaillants” in 1717 of which only 20 were exempt from the capitation. Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 202; C. A Banbuck, Histoire politique, économique et sociale de la Martinique sous l’ancien régime (1635-1789) (Fort-de-France, Martinique: Société de distribution et de culture, 1972), 181. La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22 fol. 118-119. 330 Clark, Masterless Mistresses, 32–33.

91

As the eighteenth century began, royal ministers began to question the usefulness of colonial religious bodies possessing large tax-exempt seigneuries and plantations, particularly since the state already provided them salaries. Instructions to colonial administrators made clear that limiting religious land acquisitions and tax exemptions would be the official policy in the future. In 1703, the crown issued an edict limiting the landholding of religious orders to land that could be worked with 100 enslaved workers. Any surplus property was to be surrendered to the state or face a supplemental tax. The new decree also limited the priests’ exemptions to 30 field slaves and three domestic slaves per priest.331 “Il y a seulement à observer, à l’égard des

Religieux, que l’intention de S.M. n’est point qu’ils puissent acquérir autant qu’ils veulent, ni

étendre leurs habitations au-de là de ce qu’il faut de terre pour employer cent Negres” Jérôme

Phélypeaux wrote to the governor of the Îles du Vent in 1705. “Elle vous charge d’y tenir la main.”332 Like the Portuguese decrees, this edict was never enforced on the ground and was repealed a decade later.

As Phélypeaux’s statement indicates, this new policy meant nothing without the ability of local administrators to provide information and enforce the new edicts on the ground. In 1717,

1720, and 1722 the Conseil de la Marine, then in 1725, 1729, and 1741 the Comte de Maurepas requested information on the missionaries’ possessions in the Isles du Vent and their state salaries. Initially, Martinique’s governors and intendants defended the Jesuits to their superiors.

“Nous devons cette justice aux Jésuites,” Blénac and Bégon wrote in 1683, “d’informer Sa

Majesté qu’ils n’ont dans les îles que de très bons sujets qui se sont distingués par leur mérite particulier et les soins qu’ils prennent pour l’instruction des peuples.” The intendant Robert was even more ebullient in his praise of the order. “On ne saurait assez louer la bonne et sage conduite des PP. jésuites depuis qu’ils sont dans cette île. J’ai pris soin de m’informer de

331 Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 68. 332 Dessalles and Vonglis, 2:340-43.

92

plusieurs habitants de ce qui les concerne [eux] et les autres religieux, tous m’ont dit que les

Pères Jésuites ont toujours vécu exemplairement et qu’il ne s’en est pas trouvé un qui ait donné le moindre scandale....Il y aurait mille sujets de faire leur éloge.”333

By the second decade of the eighteenth century their tune had changed. “Les revenus que possèdent les jésuites à la Martinique sont trop considérables….” the intendant La Varenne reported in 1717, “de tout temps ils ont esté, et sont encore actuellement d’un si grand mesnagement pour ne pas dire avarice, sur les moindre dépenses, qu’il faut absolument qu’ils ayent présentement des sommes immenses accumulées.” If something was not done to limit the land acquisitions of religious orders, “il y a tout lieu de croire qu’ils seront dans peu d’années maistres de toutes les isles françoises de l’Amerique.”334 The Marquis de Feuquières, writing in the early 1720s, likewise complained of “leur perpetuele envie d’accumuler” and overweening arrogance. “Il y a plus d’orgueil et de vanité parmy quelqu’uns des freres que chez les gens du monde,” he said of the Brothers of Charity who ran the island’s hospital.335 Unsurprisingly, both officials suggested levying a don gratuit (a forced donation ironically labeled a “free gift”) on the religious orders similar to those payed by the church in France.336

The state’s anti-clerical impetus found expression in August 1721, when the Conseil de la

Marine issued another decree cutting back the exemptions of all religious orders across the colonies. Thenceforth, only thirty enslaved field workers, twelve enslaved house servants, and three enslaved domestics for each curé would be exempted from the various taxes and labor impositions. Ecclesiastical institutions were barred from acquiring land in the colonies without

333 Quoted in Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 191–92. 334 La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22 fol. 118-119. 335 Marquis de Feuquières to Conseil de la Marine, 19 Aug. 1721. ANOM COL Series C8A 28 fol. 95. 336 La Varenne to Conseil de la Marine, 10 Apr 1717. ANOM COL Series C8A 22 fol. 120. Marquis de Feuquières and Besnard to Conseil de la Marine, 3 Jan. 1720 ANOM COL Series C8A 27 fol. 9. In La Varenne’s plan the don gratuite would have consisted of one-third to one-quarter of the orders’ incomes. They suggested using the don gratuite to pay for fortifications and to fund the hospital. Feuquières also suggested subjecting the religious orders’ slaves to the capitation.

93

express written permission. When the state did allow them to purchase land, it would be subject to the droits d’amortissement for removing it from circulation.337 The imposition of the head tax alone on the Jesuits’ enslaved men and women would have brought in around 11,000 livres annually to the Domaine’s coffers.338 This new rule did little to stop the Marine administration’s fears of ecclesiastical overreach. In 1722 and again in 1729, it requested summaries from

Martinique’s intendants of how much the Domaine was spending on priestly salaries.339 Nor did the new edict stop the Jesuits from acquiring land. Ten years after the regulation was enacted, they acquired “quelques petits morceaux de terre” on Guadeloupe.340 For two years, they pestered Maurepas for permission to acquire a house in Saint-Pierre until he finally acceded in

1741.341

The Jesuits’ request for a house, combined with a petition from the Capuchins to have their salaries raised, generated a re-evaluation of religious land ownership in the 1740s.

Martinique’s Capuchins were the closest to the state’s ideal of a property-less order. The rules set down by St. Francis forbade them from owning property, so they relied exclusively on their state salaries and payment for services rather than an income-producing plantation.

Unfortunately, their parishes around Fort-Royal were classified as “new,” thus giving each priest only 400 livres per year rather than the 500 livres the Jesuits’ received. When the Capuchins petitioned to have their salaries increased, Maurepas ordered all mission superiors to submit a list of the goods and revenues for each parish.

337 ANOM COL Series A 25 fol. 16. 338 See previous calculations. 339 This was 24,300 livres in 1722 and 27,000 livres in 1729. Besnard to Conseil de la Marine. 12 July 1722. ANOM COL Series C8A 30 fol. 348. 1729-1730 ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3. 340 Dubois to Maurepas. Sept 1733 ANOM COL Series F5A 9/1. 341 Champigny to Maurepas 21 Sept 1739 and 29 Nov 1741 ANOM COL Series C8A 50 fol. 117 and vol. 53 fol. 244. Maurepas to Champigny 18 Jan 1740 and 7 July 1741 ANOM COL Series B 70 and 72. Brisson to Maurepas 9 July 1741 ANOM COL Series F5A 9/2.

94

The accounts submitted by the superior general Bernard Prieur and summarized by the governor Champigny and the intendant de la Croix (Tables 2.4 and 2.5) give a snapshot of the

Jesuits Îles du Vent mission at the moment of Lavalette’s arrival. Prieur emphasized the variability of these revenues due to the price of sugar and vagaries of the rental markets. The numbers showed the Jesuits with a net loss of 2,755 livres in contrast to a net surplus of 2,019 livres for the Dominicans.342 Prieur’s report also revealed the Jesuits of the Îles du Vent to be severely understaffed, with only six missionaries (four on Martinique, one curé des négres on

Guadeloupe, and one on Grenada) filling roles normally filled by a complement of fourteen to twenty. The report supported the Capuchins’ claim of financial imbalance: they had more missionaries than any other order (30 priests) but their pensions and parish fees amounted to only

12,540 livres, roughly an eighth of the Jesuits’ revenue. Champigny and de la Croix recommended increasing their pensions and reducing those of the other orders, but these suggestions were never enacted.

Despite the figures showing the Capuchins to be severely underfunded and the Jesuits not breaking even, Maurepas moved to further constrict the religious orders’ ability to acquire land and rentes. His 1743 edict created a lengthy approval process for the foundation of new religious communities. The Marine Secretary would have to approve the new foundation,

Table 2.4 Revenue for the Jesuits in the îles du Vent, 1743 Revenue (l.t.) Source 50,000 Martinique plantation 30,000 Guadeloupe plantation 12,500 Urban rental houses and shops in Saint-Pierre and Fort-Royal 4,995 Royal pensions (minus 500 livres donated to the poor) 0 Fees from parish duties (given to the poor or used for church upkeep) 97,495 Total Source: Champigny and de la Croix to Maurepas, 13 Feb 1743 ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3

342 Champigny and de la Croix to Maurepas, 13 Feb 1743 ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3

95

Table 2.5 Expenses for the Jesuits in the îles du Vent, 1743 Expenses (l.t.) Source 39,000 Maintenance of their houses 8,000 Maintenance of the missionaries 38,250 Slave food and clothing 12,000 Maintenance of their establishment 100,250 Total Source: Champigny and de la Croix to Maurepas, 13 Feb 1743 ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3.

after which the local superior councils would register the approval following a comment period by local inhabitants and the other religious orders. Any land donated to the new order which did not follow these procedures would be seized and sold by the state. The new edict also barred existing religious communities from buying new rentes, although this would have had little effect on the Jesuits’ investments since the decree exempted rentes on the state and other ecclesiastical institutions.343 Thus, in the century between 1640 and 1740, the Jesuits had gone from being a perceived as a spiritual benefit to an economic burden in the eyes of the colonial administration.

In portraying the church’s wealth as excessive, the French state was following a well- worn path. Wealthy landowners in the Iberian and Spanish empires who competed with the

Jesuits complained about the size and tax-exemptions of religious landholdings alongside state officials who desired access to ecclesiastical revenue streams. When the Philippine monarchy of

Portugal became strapped for cash in the 1580s, royal ministers blamed the religious orders, particularly those in India, for their large, tax-exempt estates. The Portuguese crown barred religious orders on the subcontinent from acquiring new property in 1591, 1596, 1609, and 1612, but these rules were never enforced. When in 1680s the Portuguese crown commanded that the

343 ANOM COL Series A 24 fol. 139.

96

church assess its lands for taxation and ordered all religious orders to pay tithes, it provoked a rare display of ecclesiastical unity from the bishops and the heads of the religious orders which overwhelmed the new measure.344

Conclusion

James Pritchard claimed that “reliance upon state subsidies to build hospitals, hospices, and workhouses reduced the Church everywhere to loyal handmaiden of the state.”345 Sue

Peabody, Emily Clark, and Sophie White have since shown that far from being loyal servants, the colonial church and state were often in tension, particularly in the eighteenth century.346

They locate the source of this tension in the missionaries’ evangelization and organization of the enslaved populations, which planters and state officials in the colonies considered dangerous.

The frequent discussions of missionary property and salaries in the official correspondence, however, reveals material goods to have been a more important source of contention between the colonial church and state. No royal edicts limited the power of the curé des négres, whereas three decrees (1703, 1721, and 1743) put limits on ecclesiastical property. Marine secretaries and councils in Paris worried more about a religious stranglehold on Martinique’s economy than a missionary-backed slave uprising.

344 Alden, Enterprise, 432–60. 345 Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 110. 346 Peabody, “A Dangerous Zeal”; Clark, Masterless Mistresses.

97

Chapter 3: The Making of a Procurator

In his 1673 Le Parfait Négociant, Jacques Savary set down his ideal education for a future merchant. He instructed parents whose children showed an early predilection for trade to encourage the character traits necessary for success in commerce. These included a spirit of imagination with which to see new opportunities and a robust temperament to endure the fatigues of constant work. At age seven or eight, the children were to begin keeping account books

(double and single entry) and learning languages (specifically Italian, Spanish, and German).

Reading histories and stories set in other lands would give them a familiarity with far off cultures and their potential markets. At fifteen, they were to be apprenticed to a merchant or master guildsman for practical instruction in the various commodities, units of measure, and the best ways to make a profit from trade.

Above all, Savary specifically warned parents against sending their children to a college run by a religious order. “L’experience nous apprend,” he wrote, “que les enfans que les Peres & les Meres envoyent au College pour étudier la langue Latine, apprendre la Grammaire, la

Rhétorique & la Philosophie, jusques à l’âge de dix-sept ou dix-huit ans, ne sont jamais guères propres au Commerce, & que de trente, il n’y en aura pas quatre qui s’adonnent à cette profession.” Not only was a liberal arts education useless in the countinghouse, the social and intellectual atmosphere at a college discouraged students from entering the trades. Once a boy acquired a taste for rhetoric and philosophy “ils n’ont pas de goût que pour les belles Lettres, & croiroient être méprisés, & estimer manquer de cœur & de courage, s’ils embrassoient la profession mercantille.” The “jeunes Gentilshommes qui ont des sentimens élevés par la grandeur de leur naissance” with whom they mixed at such institutions would not only mock any

98

aspirations for living by the dint of one’s labors, but burden the child with a taste for debt-fueled debauchery.347 A Jesuit education, Savary implied, was inimical to the formation of a merchant.

Lavalette’s education was the embodiment of everything Savary warned against. Not only would Lavalette have attended a Jesuit college until the age of seventeen or eighteen, he remained in the Society’s educational system into his thirties. More than just learning grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, he taught those subjects to the sons of nobles whom Savary feared would have poisoned his mind. Rather than being given an appreciation for the “nobility” of the mercantile profession he would have been taught to belittle temporal cares in favor of spiritual contemplation. At first glance, his education would have equipped him with dead languages, theological disputations, and outdated mathematical proofs which were of little use on a sugar plantation. Yet learning Latin would give him the skills to communicate across the Society’s vast network. The mathematics could be used to calculate interest rates. Disputing theology instilled poise and the ability to think on one’s feet. His first years in the West Indies during the

1740s provided him with even more invaluable practical experience. He would have seen the rebuilding of a plantation on Guadeloupe and forged connections with his planter-parishioners at

Carbet. Four years of war (and many rumors of war) gave him a crash course in how conflict shaped Martinique’s economy. The less-than-scrupulous governor Charles de Thubières de Levy de Pestel de Grimoard, Marquis de Caylus provided a model for how to cultivate patron-client networks and conduct trade on a transatlantic scale. His appointment as the Îles du Vent mission’s procurator brought these skills together with control over thousands of livres in property and the ability to borrow thousands more. Instead of inculcating a disdain for

347 This chapter uses the 1757 Paris edition of Le parfait négociant. Jacques Savary, Le parfait negociant, ou, instruction generale pour ce qui regarde le commerce des marchandises de France, & des pays etrangeres (Paris : les freres Estienne, 1757), 2-45.

99

mercantile endeavors as Savary feared, the Society of Jesus gave Lavalette the opportunity to master the practicalities of plantation management and transatlantic trade.

Figure 3.1 Map of southeastern France with cities important to Lavalette. Background and Upbringing

The hamlet of Martrin in the province of Rouergue lies amid rolling farmland overlooking deep-cut river valleys. The nearest city of any size, Albi, is thirty miles to the west down the Tarn river. The closest seaports, on the Mediterranean coast, lie eighty miles to the south-east through the rugged landscape of western Languedoc.348 In this quiet, landlocked

348 Small towns could still have significant colonial connections, as Emma Rothschild has shown in the case of Angoulême. Emma Rothschild, “Isolation and Economic Life in Eighteenth-Century France: Isolation and Economic Life in Eighteenth-Century France,” The American Historical Review 119, no. 4 (October 1, 2014): 1055– 82.

100

hamlet, far from the busy wharves and halls of power which he would later tread, Antoine

Lavalette was born on 26 October 1708.349

We know little of his family. Near the end of his life, he described them as “une honnete famille bourgeoise.” He at least two brothers and a sister.350 The only autobiographical narrative which covers his education, Raynal and d’Heury’s procès verbal, begins with his entry into the novitiate at Toulouse at the age of fifteen.351 His most exhaustive biographer, Camille de Rochemonteix, speculates that he may have attended the Jesuit college of Rodez, forty miles north of Martrin, although there is no evidence that he did so.352 If he had, it would have been a natural move for the son of a bourgeois family in the region. The Jesuits enjoyed a special place in the heart of south-central France. The first Jesuit colleges were founded in Languedoc and

Provence half a century before Henri IV founded La Flèche. Following the Jesuits’ expulsion in

1764, letters from the region flowed into the Vatican lobbying the pope to defend the Society against the king’s ministers.353 A Jesuit education would have been a perfect start to a career in law, medicine, or state administration.

Whether he attended a Jesuit college as a student or entered straight into the novitiate, he would have developed familiarity with the Society’s universal curriculum of the Ratio Studiorum

(Plan of Study). A synthesis of the Renaissance humanism in vogue during Ignatius’ life, the program was designed to instill a polished eloquence in student’s writing and speech while

349 There is confusion in the dates which marked the beginning of Lavalette’s life. Lavalette himself would later recall that he was born in 1709. Indeed, Rochemonteix’s timeline of events is a year off from that of Lavalette. I have used Rochemonteix’s chronology since he used the triennial catalogues which would presumably have been more accurate than Lavalette’s memory. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 40. Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses;” Raynal and d’Heury, “Interogatoires.” AN AE Serie Memoires et Documents : Rome vol. 9 : fols. 186- 198 and 200-225. 350 Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses;” Raynal and d’Heury, “Interogatoires.” AN AE Serie Memoires et Documents : Rome vol. 9 : fols. 186-198 and 200-225. 351 Ibid. 352 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 40. 353 Eric Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590-1615) (Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 2. See the letters in the Archvio Segreti Vaticano, Fondo Gesuiti 11 and 49.

101

familiarizing them with the works of classical authors. The first three years of the program,

(“grammar”), taught the students fluency in Latin. By their fourth year, they would have been able to compose and deliver Latin orations.354 If Lavalette did attend a Jesuit college, these deliveries, along with the famous Jesuit theatrical performances, may have been responsible for the sense of self-confidence which contemporaries would later recall he exuded. Students then spent a fourth year (“humanities”) reading Roman authors (chiefly Cicero and Virgil) and learning introductory Greek, followed by a year of “rhetoric” which included history and geography. Those considering a year in the priesthood could take an added year of

“philosophy,” broadly interpreted to include mathematics, logic, ethics, and physics. Cutting edge at its 1599 inception, the Ratio Studiorum was showing its age by the eighteenth century.

When Lavalette would have experienced the program, the mathematics and physics components had been rendered obsolete by the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution, many of which, ironically, came from Jesuit pens. Calls to bring the Ratio Studiorum in line with the new science were defeated by decrees of the general congregations which brushed aside any contradictions between the timeworn explanations of Aristotle and those from “the more attractive and experimental physics.” “Since the Society has adopted Aristotelian philosophy as being more serviceable to theology, we must by all means remain faithful to this philosophy” a decree of the sixteenth general congregation blatantly stated in 1730.355 As Savary pointed out, an education based on the Ratio Studiorum would not have been useful in the counting-house.

The mathematics section at the college level consisted of arithmetic and the geometry of Euclid’s

Elements with monthly defenses of mathematical proofs before assembled philosophers and

354 Greer, Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits, 64–66; Brockey, The Visitor, 29–33. 355 Specifically the sixteenth (1730) and seventeenth (1751) general congregations. See O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment.

102

theologians, rather than the calculation of interest rates or keeping of double-entry accounts.356

The languages it taught were dead rather than living. Although not as practical as the upbringing which merchants received, an education at a Jesuit college did have some overlap with merchant training: the mathematics section gave students basic arithmetic skills while the rhetoric year included history and geography components helpful for understanding other cultures.

Regardless of whether he attended a Jesuit college as a youth, Lavalette entered the novitiate of Toulouse in December 1724 or 1725.357 Lavalette never explained why he joined the

Jesuits. His own narrative of his education is merely a list of the colleges he rotated through after he joined the novitiate, with no self-reflection or justification. Acceptance into the Society, with its globe-spanning presence and access to powerful patrons, must have been an enticing prospect to a teenager from the back-hills of southern France. He was probably recruited; Jesuits in the colleges were constantly on the lookout for young talent to fill the Society’s colleges and missions. Becoming a novice embodied a change of identities. He would have signed a pledge rejecting the secular world and binding himself to practices of the Society. He exchanged his blood relations for a new family of spiritual brothers and fathers. No longer was he solely under the authority of the king’s laws; now he was beholden to canon law and Loyola’s

Constitutions.358 His two years in Toulouse were a probationary period of further study, spiritual formation, and personal mortification designed to weed out those who were not called to a religious life and mold a common character into those who were. Along with a coterie of other novices, Lavalette would have gone through Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises and practiced the

356 Jesuits, Ratio studiorum: plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus, ed. Adrien Demoustier, Dominique Julia, and Marie-Madeleine Compère, trans. Léone Albrieux and Dolorès Pralon-Julia (Paris: Belin, 1997), 132; Antonella Romano, “Teaching Mathematics in Jesuit Schools: Programs, Course Content, and Classroom Practices,” in The Jesuits II: Cultures Sciences, and the Arts 1540-1773., ed. John W O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). 357 Lavalette recalled this date as December 1724, Rochemonteix lists it as 1725. Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses” AN AE, Memoires et Documents: Rome, vol. 9, fol. 186. 358 For an example of the pledge, see Brockey, The Visitor, 34–35.

103

motions of the liturgy (including preaching) under the supervision of a spiritual director. He would also have been given physically demeaning jobs (hanging laundry, cleaning floors) and frugal meals to cultivate personal humility. Those whom the head of the novitiate deemed unfit for further advancement and ordination were either gently eased out of the Society or allowed to remain as brother coadjutors.359 Lavalette successfully completed his novitiate in December

1727 with a set of simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, plus a promise to enter the

Society upon the completion of his education.360 Included in these “first vows” was a renunciation of any income from family properties, which would be used for charitable works instead.361

Now a Jesuit, Lavalette embarked on a decade of further liberal arts study beginning with a four-year program in Aristotelian philosophy in the colleges of St. Flour and Tournon. This course (also rendered obsolete by scientific discoveries) consisted of more logic, natural philosophy (including astronomy and mathematics), ethics, and metaphysics. It would have given him further grounding in mathematics, although the proofs and theorems he learned would have been less-than-useful in the counting house. All Jesuits-in-training followed their philosophy program with a “régence” of up to several years teaching the introductory courses which they themselves had taken as students, normally shepherding one class from their first

Latin lessons to their final rhetoric examinations. Lavalette split this duty, spending three years teaching grammar at Puy and Tournon, then moving to Rodez for humanities and rhetoric. Of equal importance to this intensive regimen of study and teaching would have been his spiritual formation at the hands of his directors and mentors. Unfortunately, Lavalette did not leave behind a rich interior biography such as that of Claude Chauchetière, with its emotive fears of

359 Greer, Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits, 69–70; Brockey, The Visitor, 39–42. 360 Lavalette does not provide this date. Rochemonteix estimates it as two years after his entrance into the novitiate. 361 John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 350.

104

inadequacy and accounts of mystical transports, so the aspect of his life which would have been of first importance to the Jesuits remains forever beyond us.362 That his superiors continued to advance him toward the priesthood implies that his spiritual temperament was not of serious concern.

Up through his régence, Lavalette’s track was typical of many other Jesuits: a nomadic wandering through the archipelago of colleges which dotted the province of Toulouse. Upon completing his teaching duties, however, Lavalette made a move which set him apart from his brethren: he went to Paris. Gravitating to the pull of the capital, a natural upward move for layman, was an oddity for a Jesuit in Lavalette’s position since it involved moving from the province of Toulouse to that of France. Jesuits did not ordinarily change provinces during their education. Those who never went to the missions often remained within the boundaries of their home provinces for their entire careers. The majority of the Jesuits with whom Lavalette served on Martinique were recruited directly from their home provinces.363 This repositioning may have been his idea; a strategy designed to put him closer to the corridors of power or further his education. However, Lavalette later stated that he “fut envoyé à Paris,” implying that the decision was not his.364 Whatever the reason, Lavalette completed his education at Louis-le-

Grand, the main Jesuit college in Paris. Upon arrival, his identity was further changed: initially born “Antoine Valette,” his superiors restyled him “Antoine Lavalette” to avoid confusion with another of that name. His last years of education consisted of a four-year program in theology

(two years each of moral and speculative theology) including courses in Holy Scripture and canon law.365 Upon completion of these courses in 1741 at the age of thirty-three, he was

362 Greer, Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits, 75–78. 363 See the biographies in ARSI GAL 121. Rochemonteix, writing in 1907 but familiar with Jesuit routines, states that such a move was typical of the Toulouse province’s best. “C’est là que les Provinciaux du Midi envoyaient l’élite de leur sujets.” Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 44. 364 Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses,” AN, AE Mémoires et Documents: Rome vol. 9, fol. 186-198. 365 Brockey, The Visitor, 45–47; Greer, Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits, 84.

105

ordained a priest.366 Lavalette had only one year as a novice (the “tertianship”) left before he could take the fourth vow of obedience to the pope and become a full-fledged Jesuit.

Newly ordained and with his education behind him, Lavalette applied to join the Îles du

Vent mission. In theory, the father general dispatched all missionaries through the authority of the pope, but in practice the process was more nuanced. Candidates who desired to be sent to the missions would send applications (“indipetae”) to the father general explaining their calling to a region, which he could either confirm or deny.367 Mission procurators also had a voice in the process: they recruited potential candidates and advised the father general on whom to accept.

Guillaume Moreau considered the recruitment of new priests to be a mission procurator’s most important duty. A good recruiter, he explained, must be able to judge “des qualites necessaires à un religieux qui passe d’une vie reguliere, à une vie qu[‘]il ne tient plus qu[‘]a luy de rendre libre et dissipée; qui doit Sans cesse estre au milieu des gens du monde, et traitter avec non Seulement des affaires de leur Salut, mais de quantité d[‘]autres.” He must not send “des Sujets d’un zele trop ardent, d’une conduite indiscrette d’un humeur trop libre, d’un naturel trop morne, ny mesme d’une education grossiere” but instead “des Sujets qui Sachent vivre avec toute Sorte

[sic] de personnes et sur tout [sic] qui aient de la Moderation et de la prudence pour pouvoir menager toute Sorte d’esprits, et profiter de toute [sic] les differents evenements.”368 Most likely, Lavalette was recruited in this manner. Fr. Prieur’s 1743 inventory showed the Îles du

Vent mission to have been severely undermanned with only six Jesuits filling roles usually handled by twenty. As a newly ordained priest, Lavalette would have been a prime target to fill this manpower gap. A posting to the Îles du Vent would have been attractive for Lavalette as well. With his education complete, he would have had (broadly speaking) three options:

366 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 46. 367 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 29 and 95. 368 Moreau, “Mémoire,” 27.

106

professor, administrator, or missionary. The professorial and administrative tracks would have kept him within the Jesuits’ educational system (provincials and procurators were usually chosen from college rectors), whereas the missions represented excitement and adventure.

Early Years in the West Indies

He would find excitement enough upon his arrival in the Caribbean. The War of Jenkin’s

Ear between Spain and Britain had broken out in 1739, ending the twenty-six years of peace that the Caribbean had enjoyed since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Most of the fighting between these two powers was confined to the western Caribbean basin: British forces took Porto Bello in

December 1739 and failed to take Cartagena two years later despite a costly siege. Followers of political news considered France’s entry into the war to be only a matter of time. Cardinal

Fleury, who controlled French diplomacy until his death in 1743, tread a delicate line between keeping France out of the conflict and showing solidarity with its fellow Bourbon power. In

October 1740, he sent fleets under the Marquis d’Antin and Admiral Laroche-Alart to show the flag in the Caribbean and offer support to home-bound Spanish convoys.369 This build-up in the colonies reoriented to a European conflict when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Austrian Silesia in December 1740, thus beginning the War of the Austrian Succession. By the summer of 1741,

Fleury had been forced into alliances with Spain, Prussia, and Bavaria against Austria. French troops were marching across the Holy Roman Empire in support of Frederick.370 The news of these events swirled around Paris while Lavalette was completing his theology studies at Louis- le-Grand. As he travelled to the coast and took ship for the Caribbean in the fall of 1741, he must have been aware that he was sailing into a potential war zone.

Lavalette would later recall that the superior general, Bernard Prieur, offered him the position of procurator upon his arrival. He turned it down, considering temporal affairs to be

369 Reed Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession (New York, N.Y: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008), 29 and 60–61. 370 Browning, War of the Austrian Succession; Pares, War and Trade, 164–79.

107

beneath him, an attitude which justified Savary’s worries about a liberal arts education instilling a distaste for mercantile activities.371 Lavalette’s recollection of Prieur’s offer is odd, since he would not have been eligible for the post until he took the fourth vow in 1745, if then. That

Prieur would turn aside such requirements and offer it to him right off the boat speaks to both the mission’s manpower shortage at the time and the impression of competence and trustworthiness that Lavalette created.

Lavalette was instead sent to Guadeloupe, an island recovering from crisis. Two hurricanes had hit the island in 1738 and 1740 causing major damage to the mills and fields.

Insects destroyed much of the sugar and manioc crop that remained. The disaster threatened to drag both Martinique and Guadeloupe into famine. By May of 1739, the price of manioc flour for slave rations had tripled from 10 livres per barrel to 30 livres in Saint-Pierre.372 Two years later it had increased further to 50 livres, leading the Îles du Vent’s administrators to complain of a “famine” and “disete [sic] extreme.”373 The Jesuits on Martinique avoided these higher prices by renting a neighboring plantation and planting it with manioc, but they were probably one of the few planters on the island with the means for such measures. To stem this unfolding subsistence crisis for the enslaved, the governor and intendant, the Marquis de Champigny and

César Marie de Lacroix, opened the islands to foreign ships, an action which in Guadeloupe’s case merely legalized their already flourishing contraband trade with the Dutch. By 1742, the food supply had returned to normal (or at least the official correspondence stopped discussing it), but another storm which struck the island in August of that year and destroyed the Îles du Vents’ customs boat further retarded the rebuilding of Guadeloupe’s sugar plantations. To aid

371 Lavalette maintained that he was offered the position several times throughout his first years on Guadeloupe and Martinique, turning it down each time. Antione Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 98. Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses” AN AE Mémoires et Documents: Rome vol. 9, fol. 186-198. 372 Champigny and Lacroix to Maurepas 21 May 1739 ANOM COL Series C8A 50 fol. 51. 373 Champigny and Lacroix to Maurepas 23 July 1741 ANOM COL Series C8A 53 fol. 119.

108

Guadeloupe’s recovery, Champigny and Lacroix granted planters a five-year exemption from both the capitation head tax and corvée labor.374

The Jesuits’ Guadeloupe plantation had suffered alongside the rest. Prieur’s 1743 account of the Jesuits’ finances stated that the hurricane had destroyed the plantation’s sugar mill and killed many slaves when their houses collapsed. “Il est très difficile d’en faire une juste estimation,” Prieur reported, “à cause des ouragans, et autres accidents qui sont survenus ces derniéres années dans l’habitation.”375 In normal circumstances, overseeing plantations would have been the role of a brother coadjutor or procurator, but Prieur’s report did not list one and

Lavalette may have been called on to help rebuild the plantation.376 He would have faced a steep learning curve. Lavalette would have needed to learn when and where to plant sugar cane, how to cultivate it, when to harvest it, plus the intricate steps of milling, boiling, refining, and shipping. Rebuilding the plantation would have required purchasing building materials, finding contractors, receiving estimates, paying the workers, and making sure that it was done to specification. It would also have meant purchasing new enslaved men and women to replace those who had died and managing the labor of those who had survived. Few, if any, of these demands would have drawn on his formal education in France, but the skills he learned would be invaluable for his later time as procurator, during which he would rebuild or expand two other plantations.

374 Champigny and Lacroix to Maurepas 21 May 1739, 23 July 1741, and 22 Mar 1743 ANOM COL Series C8A 50 fol. 51, 53 fol. 119, and 55 fol. 32. Lacroix to Maurepas 15 Oct 1740 ANOM COL Series C8A 52 fol. 111. Banks, “Official Duplicity,” 242. Bernard Prieur, “Etat de la Mission des P. Jesuites” ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3 1743. 375 Prieur, “Etat de la Mission des P. Jesuites,” ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3 1743. 376 Antione de Montigny later stated that Lavalette “fut employé à la Guadeloupe, comme tous les nouveaux missionaires, à precher, à confesser, à instruire les négres “ but he never went to the islands and this does not appear to have been common practice. Antoine de Montigny, “Mémoire pour les Jésuites de France....” (1760) AFSI F An 18, fol. 14. Prier’s report listed only one Jesuit on Guadeloupe, a curé des négres. Since the report was written after Lavalette was transferred to Martinique, this could not have been Lavalette. Prieur, “Etat de la Mission des P. Jesuites,” 1743 ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3. Champigny to Maurepas, 13 Feb 1743. ANOM COL Series F5A 7/3

109

Lavalette was on Guadeloupe for only one year before being transferred to the

Martinique parish of Carbet in January 1743.377 Carbet was a small village of sugar planters a few miles down the coast from Saint-Pierre. If Lavalette followed the same practices of the other Jesuits serving as parish priests, he would have spent most of his time at the Saint-Pierre residence and traveled by boat to Carbet as needed. The trip would have taken him across Saint-

Pierre’s busy harbor; a meeting point for an east-west trade across the Atlantic and north-south trade down the spine of the Lesser Antilles. Here enslaved workers transferred cargos from

Africa and France into smaller inter-island vessels and vice versa. He would have observed the arrival of the merchant fleets from France each winter bringing foodstuffs and manufactured goods to exchange for plantation produce and their departure in late spring before the onset of the hurricane season. The smell of unwashed African bodies may have drifted into his nostrils from the holds of putrid slave ships at the end of the Middle Passage. Smaller vessels connected these transatlantic voyagers to Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, and the coastal plantations of Martinique. Ships from other French colonies in Saint-Domingue, Guiana, and

Canada formed a less numerous, but still important presence. Lavalette also would have seen

Martinican ships leaving and returning from trips to the Spanish mainland to exchange plantation products for draft animals and metallic coinage; commerce which was illegal in Spanish eyes but licit in French ones.378 Lavalette would also have seen British and Dutch flags mingling amongst the fleur-de-lys in flagrant contravention of the 1717 and 1727 exclusif laws closing French colonies to foreign trade. Metropolitan merchants could not supply the Îles du Vent with the enslaved Africans, foodstuffs, wood, and other products they needed. A flourishing smuggling trade with British North America filled this gap. French slave ships also often bypassed Saint-

377 “Lavalette” ARSI GAL 121. 378 César Marie de La Croix. “Commerce du Royaume et des Colonies Françoises et Espagnolles, avec les Iles du Vent en 1742.” ANOM COL Series C8A 55 fol. 320-332.

110

Pierre for more lucrative markets on Saint-Domingue, creating an insatiable demand for enslaved men and women which the British and Dutch were happy to supply. Colonial administrators with plantations of their own turned a blind eye to this trade by allowing foreign ships entry to repair nonexistent damage from imaginary storms. After the Seven Years War, the crown would bow to the inevitable and begin opening colonial ports to foreign trade, but in Lavalette’s time contact with foreign ports remained illegal unless expressly permitted by the administration.379

During his time on Guadeloupe and first years at Carbet, he would have found the islands in a tense peace. Despite d’Antin’s maneuvers and Maria Theresa’s protests, Britain would remain out of the Austrian Succession war until 1744. The French fleets had only remained a few months in the Caribbean before returning home, leaving colonial administrators to impotently report on the movements of foreign forces. Aside from an up-tick in trade with the

Spanish mainland and the ever-present seizing of French smugglers by British and Spanish guard ships, the Îles du Vent remained islands of calm in the unfolding conflicts around them.380 Island residents expected this peace to last. Martinique’s intendants observed in 1743 and 1744 that the volume of licit trade with France, Canada, and the Spanish mainland had been increasing steadily from 1738, an observation which implies that merchants were engaging in what James Riley has termed a “compensatory trade” to stockpile colonial goods before conflict inevitably closed the shipping lanes.381 The price of commodities imported from France dropped in 1743, implying that merchants more than fulfilled the island’s demand. “Il n’y a disette,” the intendant Jean

Louis de Ranché reported to Maurepas, “que des grosses toiles [for slave clothing] dont la

379 For France’s changing mercantilist policies and an overview of the French island’s trade networks, see: May, Histoire économique; Pares, War and Trade; Banks, “Official Duplicity”; Jean Tarrade, Le Commerce Colonial de La France à La Fin de l’Ancien Régime : L’évolution Du Régime de l’Exclusif de 1763 à 1789 (Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 1972). 380 Pares, War and Trade, 229. 381 Riley, Seven Years War, 111–12.

111

consommation devient tous les Jours plus Considerable.”382 Merchants did not have to look at prices for signs that war between Britain and France was imminent: in Europe it had already begun. As would happen with the Seven Years War, the official declarations of war followed the outbreak of hostilities rather than vice versa. George II personally led a multi-national army against French forces at Dettingen in June 1743. By the end of the year, privateers from New

England were moving to the West Indies for proximity to French prey the moment war was declared and prize taking became legitimate. Bourbon navies clashed with a British force off

Toulon in February 1744.383 This tension would not have escaped Lavalette. News of these events would undoubtedly have filtered to the Jesuits in the Saint-Pierre residence from arriving ship captains and visitors. His parishioners were wealthy sugar and coffee planters, so the threat of war and its effect on commodity prices may have come up in conversation.

Lavalette as Procurator

Two years after arriving at Carbet, Lavalette took the final step in his formation as a

Jesuit. On 2 February 1745, he took his fourth and final vow of obedience to the pope at the

Saint-Pierre parish church.384 Doing so was a form of civil death. Henceforth, the law would no longer consider him to be an individual but rather one part of the corporate entity that was the

Society of Jesus. He could no longer own personal property or undertake legal cases in his own name. In the future, it was the Society’s goods that he would administer and in the Society’s name that he would enter into legal contracts (although exactly what parts of the Society that signature bound would later be a matter of hot debate). Pledging away the last of his lay life

382 Lacroix and Ranché to Maurepas, 18 Oct 1743 and 8 June 1745, ANOM COL Series C8A 55 fol. 320 and 56 fol. 331. Raché explained the drop in prices on French goods as the result of increased trade with Spanish America. Official figures should always be taken with a grain of salt due to smuggling. 383 Poinsable to Maurepas 3 Dec 1743, ANOM COL Series C8A 55 fol. 408. 384 “Lavalette” ARSI GAL 121.

112

opened doors within the Society: leadership positions such as procurator, superior, and provincial were only open to the professed with four vows.385

Lavalette stepped into just such a position when the mission’s superior general,

Guillaume Guillin, appointed him procurator in 1746 or 1747.386 The previous procurator, Fr.

Pierre-Hyacinthe Piochet, had held the office for only a year before relinquishing the job due to deteriorating eyesight.387 As procurator, Lavalette became responsible for provisioning the mission, maintaining its account books, and overseeing its legal affairs. He would receive the annual sugar salaries from the Domaine, exchange the sugar for provisions, and disburse them to the priests. He would ensure that the mission’s plantations on Martinique and Guadeloupe were producing enough sugar to justify their expenses. Finally, he would be in charge of shipping the sugar to Paris to be sold by the mission procurator on the Îles du Vent missions’ behalf. These activities would require a relationship with Saint-Pierre’s merchant community and a working knowledge of the credit networks and bills of exchange by which they operated. If the Îles du

Vent mission arranged its affairs in the same way as the New France mission, it would have had a standing relationship with one or several merchant houses to carry its goods.388

The late 1740s were an inauspicious moment to become procurator. Hostilities had commenced when the news of Versailles’ declaration of war on Britain had arrived in May

1744.389 The War of the Austrian Succession’s Caribbean theater was not a march for territorial aggrandizement. With the exception of St. Martin, from which the British expelled French settlers, no British forces invaded Louis XV’s tropical territories. Although fleets on both sides

385 O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 345–51. 386 There is disagreement on this point. His biography in ARSI GAL 121 states November 1747. In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” Lavalette recalled the date as 1746. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif, ARSI GAL 115 fol. 98. 387 Piochet returned to his native Chambery shortly thereafter and remained a confessor at the college until his death during the French Revolution. “Piochet” ARSI GAL 121. 388 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 55. 389 Champigny and Ranché to Maurepas 5 May 1744 ANOM COL Series C8A 56 fol. 13

113

moved through the Caribbean, no major naval engagements took place in the region either. The war in the Caribbean was instead a war on trade. British vessels, naval and private, patrolled the entrances to strategic harbors or lay in wait just east of Martinique, where ships coming from

Europe and Africa would make their first landfall. From 1745 onward, a system of convoys instituted by Maurepas escorted merchant ships across the ocean, but it was always hampered by the number of warships available. It collapsed completely in 1747 when the battles of Cape

Ortegal and Ouessant off France’s coast effectively eliminated the French navy’s fighting capacity. The result was a near-complete stoppage of French trade both local and transoceanic.390 “Aucun batiment” the Marquis de Caylus wrote to Maurepas near the end of the war in 1748, “n’ose aller d’un port à un autre depuis que divers qui l’ont tenté ont été interceptés.

Le cabotage a cessé de Saint-Pierre et du Fort Royal au vent de l’Isle d’où on ne peut plus retires les sucres ny les autre denreés ny y envoyer les marchandises du Royaume, ce qui ruine le commerce et les habitants.”391 The capture of British ships by French privateers mitigated these conditions somewhat, as did the ministrations of neutral Dutch and Danish ships from St.

Eustatius, Curaçao, and St. Thomas. St. Eustatius in particular became a thriving place of exchange between provisions from British North America and plantation produce from the Îles du Vent. In 1745 alone, 168 Dutch vessels from St. Eustatius set sail for Guadeloupe.392 Colonial administrators, insisting on the necessity of this trade to the island’s continued existence, persuaded a reluctant Maurepas to issue three passports for foreign ships from Europe to trade with the colonies, but British forces captured two of the ships carrying them. British and French merchants even traded directly under the pretext of prisoner exchanges.393

390 Pares, War and Trade, 313–25. 391 Caylus to Maurepas 10 Mar 1748 ANOM COL Series C8A 58 fol. 33. 392 Pares, War and Trade, 351. 393 Pares, 346–49 and 356–59.

114

This war on trade wreaked havoc on the colonial economy. It drove down plantation produce prices while driving up those of foodstuffs. Beef prices skyrocketed from 25 livres per barrel in 1742 to 450 livres per barrel in 1744.394 Ship captains who reached the island had the luxury of taking on only the most valuable produce, indigo and refined white sugar, while leaving the less valuable brown sugar and coffee to rot in Saint-Pierre’s warehouses. By June

1748, those with provisions to sell were no longer accepting sugar in payment; they required cash instead. The mechanics of Caribbean trade exacerbated this disconnect between supply and demand. As the buying power of European goods increased, metropolitan ships traveled with emptier holds outbound while still returning with full cargos of sugar or indigo, thus increasing the islands’ trade imbalance.395 In the short term, these conditions would have varied with the arrival of convoys and the power of the British privateering efforts, but the overall picture was one of French planters and their human property “starving in a sea of sugar” in the words of

Thomas Truxes.396 Within six months of the war’s outbreak, colonial administrators on

Martinique were complaining of dearth.397 By the war’s end in 1748, they were writing of a

“famine affreuse” and “disette extreme.”398 A list of prices compiled by Caylus for June 1748 reported that lard, white wine, beer, gruyere cheese, and plums, all imports from Europe for the elites, were impossible to come by.399 War also froze the island’s credit markets. As trade with

394 This sharp increase could also have been due to the Marine’s 1741 edict barring French merchants from stopping in Ireland to pick up salt beef. Mandelblatt, “A Transatlantic Commodity,” 35–36. I have used beef prices as an economic indicator rather than sugar both because they are easier to find than sugar prices and the availability of necessities drove the cost of other goods. Lacroix and Champigny to Maurepas, 18 Oct 1743 and 16 Nov 1744, ANOM COL Series C8A 55 fol. 320 and 56 fol. 73. It is useful to keep in mind that state officials were often writing about the prices offered by naval contractors and were often on the defensive against charges of embezzlement or mismanagement. Prices could have been different elsewhere. See Bompar Bompar and Hurson to Rouillé, 16 Jan 1752, ANOM COL Series C8A 59 fol. 256.

395 Pares, War and Trade; Banks, “Official Duplicity.” 396 Thomas M Truxes, Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 3. 397 Champigny to Maurepas, 16 Nov 1744, ANOM COL Series C8A 56 fol. 73. 398 Caylus to Maurepas. 10 Mar 1748. ANOM COL Series C8A 58 fol. 33. 399 Charles de Thubières, Marquis de Caylus. “Prix des Marchandises arivées en cette Isle depuis le 10 Juin 1748.” ANOM COL Series C8B 21 fol. 43.

115

the Spanish mainland ground to a halt, Martinique’s coin stock dwindled. Metropolitan merchants were unable to recoup planter’s debts due to the closed sea lanes. The collapse of sugar prices made island debts more difficult to settle. Creditors demanded payment in cash while debtors could only proffer devalued sugar. The result was a stalemate between debtors and creditors with payments being postponed until after the war.400

The Jesuits possessed two advantages which mitigated these conditions. First, they were able to return to their strategy of renting neighboring plantations to grow foodstuffs such as manioc. Second, their plantations produced refined sugar which kept its value and remained more in demand than raw, brown, or clayed sugar. Nevertheless, the Jesuits still required open sea lanes to market their sugar and acquire necessities, a point which Guillaume Moreau had observed in his 1710 mémoire. War also threatened the solvency of the merchants who served as the Jesuits’ agents. In 1745, the two merchants on whom the Canadian mission relied, C.P.

Bougine and Étienne Ranjard, went bankrupt (faillite) while still owing the Society 40,000 livres, leading to complicated negotiations with their creditors.401

Many years later, Lavalette could still recall the shock he felt when taking up the post.

“Dès que j’entrai dans le détail de mon nouvel emploi et que je voulus connaître l’état de la

Maison,” he wrote in his 1763 “Mémoire Justificatif,” “je me vis dans des embarras qui m’effrayèrent et me firent regretter mon premier emploi.” Far from being wealthy and well- provisioned, as everyone on the island assumed the Jesuits to be, he found the mission teetering on the edge of destitution. “La Maison n’avait aucune provision ni pour les Jésuites ni pour les

Nègres, la lingerie était sans toiles et sans étoffes. Des trois cases a bagasse [sugar stalks used as firewood] que nous avions, deux avaient été brulées; les incendies dans nos bâtiments et cannes

étaient devenus très fréquents, sans qu’on pût en connaître la cause, et, par conséquent, les éviter;

400 Pares, War and Trade, 329–36. 401 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 56 and 184–85.

116

la maison avait besoin d’une coûverture; une purgerie [a building where the sugar was purified] absolument nécessaire était étançonnée [propped up] en dedans et en dehors, la vinaigrerie

[building for fermenting molassas into rum] tombait en ruines, les citernes perdaient le cirop et les écumes, la gragerie [a building for grating manoic into flour] n’était pas en meilleur état.” An examination of mission’s account books revealed that far from selling manioc flour “comme tout le monde et moi-même l’avions cru,” they had been buying 15,000 to 18,000 livres worth of it annually for the past two years. The plantation rental caused by the war ate up more resources than it produced: rent and labor cost 17,000 livres per year but only produced a third of that in manioc. Two of the mission’s urban rental properties were vacant because “personne n’osant y entrer de crainte d’y être enseveli sous les ruines.” Nor did there seem much possibility of fixing them as the plantation ran a yearly deficit of 40,000 livres. By June 1748, the mission’s debts had mushroomed to 137,000 livres. 402 Prieur’s financial report of five years before had shown only a small deficit even with the added burden of the plantation rental, implying that the war, perhaps compounded by inept management, had taken its toll on the mission.403 Despite these problems, “la maison avait la réputation d’être riche, ses Jésuites le pensaient aussi; c’est ce qui augmentait mon inquiétude.” Lavalette had discovered a common feature of island plantations where vast debts hid behind opulent façades.

Lavalette threw himself into rectifying the mission’s financial imbalance. He discussed the situation with the mission’s consult (“j’ouvris les yeux aux consulteurs”) and forwarded a plan to Rome which the father general’s office approved, albeit with the telling caution to

“prenez garde de ne pas donner dans le commerce.” On its face, Lavalette’s plan followed the

Jesuits’ timeworn strategy of improving preexisting properties or acquiring new ones to produce

402 It seems unlikely that Lavalette would only discover the plantation’s ruined buildings when he was made procurator. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI. GAL 115 fol. 98-99. 403 Or Lavalette may have overemphasized the mission’s precarious position in order to

117

more revenue. He proposed an impressive campaign of rebuilding and expansion with the goal of quadrupling the mission’s annual peacetime revenue, from the current 100,000 livres to

400,000 livres within ten years.404 Using the skills acquired on Guadeloupe, he rebuilt the aging plantation infrastructure and decrepit rental houses. Twelve new rental houses on Jesuit-owned land overlooking Saint-Pierre’s rock-strewn river in the Sainte-Marthe district would add over

50,000 livres per year to the mission’s income.405 Lavalette prided himself in using prompt payments to motivate equally prompt and efficient service. “Rien ne manquait, tout était fourni à temps et à propos, les entrepreneurs, les fournisseurs, les ouvriers payés d’avance” he would later boast.406 Although Lavalette boasted of the mission’s rebuilt rental properties as a success, other evidence from one of the administrators who lodged there, Rouillé de Raucourt, implies that he had misjudged the market. Rouillé de Roucourt rented one of Lavalette’s houses in 1752 for 3,000 écus because he was unable to afford pricier accommodations. He ruefully described it as “semblable a celle de Clignancourt ou il n’y a ni cour ni jardin et fort peu de logement.”407

Lavalette’s timing (he began building in June of 1748) was ideal. On 28 July, the frigate

Favorite arrived with the news that hostilities between France and Britain had been suspended.

Although the formal terms of peace awaited the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October, the war in the Caribbean had effectively ended.408 With the sea lanes reopened, the colonial economy quickly returned to its pre-war patterns. Dutch merchants, permitted to remain in the colony by the Îles du Vent’s governor, the Marquis de Caylus, on the flimsy excuse of collecting wartime debts, re-provisioned the island and cleared the backlog of plantation produce. By October, the

404 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 99. 405 Lettres sur les opérations du P. de Lavalette, jésuite, et supérieur général des Missions des îles françaises du Vent de l’Amérique, nécessaires aux négociants…., 11-12. 406 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100. 407 Roullé de Roucourt. 20 June 1752 ANOM Series COL C8A 59 fol. 391. Quoted in Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 66–67. 408 Caylus to Maurepas. ANOM COL Series C8A 58, fol. 78. Browning, War of the Austrian Succession, 361.

118

price of Irish beef had fallen to 80 livres from its wartime high of 450 livres. Three months later, with the hurricane season over and trade fleets arriving from France, it fell further to 45 livres.409

Provisions for the mission thus would have become easier and cheaper to procure. As sugar reclaimed its value and specie once again began to flow from the Spanish mainland, wartime debts could be paid and creditors begin to lend, thus thawing Martinique’s frozen credit markets.

The centerpiece of Lavalette’s plan was a new plantation which would bring in more income than the Jesuits’ Guadeloupe and Saint-Pierre plantations. The royal edicts of 1721 and

1743, however, prohibited religious orders in the colonies from acquiring land due to fears that its mainmorte status would deprive the crown of revenue. Any such acquisitions required approval from the Marine secretary in Paris.410 The Jesuits’ request in 1739 to acquire a house in

Saint-Pierre took two years and much transatlantic correspondence to wear down Maurepas’ objections.411 Faced with these obstacles, Lavalette looked outside Louis XV’s domains to the

“neutral” island of Dominica.

Located between Martinique and Guadeloupe and within sight of both, Dominica’s small size, steep mountains, and lack of a good harbor made it less attractive to the first waves of

European settlers than its larger neighbors. As a result, it was overlooked in the seventeenth- century rush for settlement and sugar production. The 1713 treaty of Utrecht stipulated that

Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent, and Tobago would become neither French nor British colonies but instead remain as “neutral islands” reserved for the indigenous Caribs. This vision of Indian reservations avant la lettre formalized their position as water-bound borderlands where

409 These prices are for those paying sugar. Those paying with cash were slightly higher. This decline in prices was only temporary. By 1750, administrators were complaining that the price of beef had rebounded to 130 livres. Caylus to Maurepas 15 Dec 1748. ANOM COL Series C8A 58, fol. 184. Bompar and Hurson to Rouillé 31 Dec 1750 ANOM COL Series C8A 59 fol. 1. 410 Déclaration du roi qui limite les fondations d’ordres religieux et les acquisitions faites par les communautés et gens de main-morte, dans les colonies. 25 Nov 1743. ANOM COL Series A 23 fol. 139. 411 See Maurepas to Champigny and De la Croix 21 Sept 1739, 18 Jan 1740, 7 July 1741. ANOM COL Series C8A 50 fol. 117, ANOM COL Series B 70 and 72. Brisson to Maurepas 9 July 1741 ANOM COL Series F5A 9/2.

119

French woodcutters, British traders, and runaway Africans traded with the local Caribs and each other outside the formal structures of imperial rule. During the next half-century, the pressures of settler colonialism would close this borderland. Dominica’s forests became a source of wood for Martinican construction projects in the 1720s as the larger island’s own slopes were progressively denuded by coffee plantations. Small-time French planters followed the woodcutters, turning the small inlets ringing the island’s coast into producers of coffee, cotton, cacao, foodstuffs, and beasts of burden. By 1740, the Îles du Vent’s governor had commissioned a commandant to oversee the French inhabitants, the capital of Roseau had been laid out, and the

Caribs had retreated to a small enclave on the north-east coast. A census in 1749, shortly after

Lavalette would have arrived on the island, recorded over 3,000 French settlers and slaves; making it a de-facto French colony.412 Priests had been part of this process: Dominicans visited the island intermittently during the seventeenth century and founded the Roseau church of Notre

Dame du Bon Port in 1717.413

British officials on Barbados objected to this de-facto violation of theoretical neutrality.

Maurepas and his successors ordered the neutral islands to be evacuated on several occasions, but colonial officials always found excuses to ignore them. The Marquis de Caylus,

Martinique’s governor from 1744 to 1750, was especially cavalier in this regard. Rather than evacuate, he planned to expand the French settlements into full-fledged colonies by creating a formal parish structure staffed by Jesuit and Dominican priests. In a throwback to the seventeenth-century era of proprietors, he requested the island of Tobago as a personal fief in

1748 and almost re-awakened hostilities with Britain by sending soldiers to secure it with a fort.

When the diplomats at Aix-la-Chapelle confirmed the islands’ neutral status, “Caylus chicaned,

412 Joseph A. Boromé, “The French and Dominica, 1699-1763,” The Jamaican Historical Review 7, no. 1 and 2 (1967): 9–39; Lenik, “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763),” 91–95. 413 Boromé, “The French and Dominica,” 23.

120

lied, and picked an irrelevant quarrel in order to delay the evacuation” in the words of Richard

Pares. “Finally he died and the interim Governor died a fortnight later too.”414 His successors continued this foot-dragging until the Treaty of Paris formally granted Dominica to Britain in

1763.

In 1747, around the time he became procurator, Lavalette visited the enclave of Grand

Bay on Dominica’s southern coast to bless a stone cross constructed by a French settler Jeannot

Rolle in 1692. A gently sloping shoreline with the peaks of Martinique’s mountains visible just across the strait, the Grand Bay region provided easy access to Saint-Pierre while being safely outside the jurisdiction of the royal edicts barring religious orders acquiring more property.415 A year later, he purchased the land of an aging planter who wished to return to France, M. de

Crésols, in return for a rente viagère of 6,000 livres to be paid out by the mission procurator in

Paris. Lavalette boasted that the purchase had been a bargain. Plantations on Martinique could cost anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 livres; usually these sums were paid through a hefty down payment and multiple yearly installments. These payments could easily exceed the plantation’s productivity, thus rendering the buyer insolvent and forcing him or her to sell in turn.416 Using the Jesuits’ Parisian investments and transatlantic connections allowed Lavalette to acquire Crésols’ plantation for cheap.

Crésols charged such a low price in part because the land still needed much investment to bring it to full productivity: Lavalette reported that only one-thirtieth of its territory was cultivated and it possessed only 18 enslaved laborers where working it properly would have required at least 400.417 Lavalette sank 300,000 livres of borrowed money into rebuilding the

414 Pares, War and Trade, 211. 415 Lenik, “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763),” 120–23. 416 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 101. May, Histoire économique, 196. 417 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100-101.

121

Grand Bay plantation.418 Excavations by the archeologist Stephan Lenik show that Lavalette created an entire mission complex, complete with church, residence, and factory. The church’s floor of colored tiles imported from Europe demonstrate that Lavalette spared no expense in its construction.419 In this respect, he was following a broader Jesuit tradition. Large churches of magnificent workmanship comparable to those in urban centers dominated the Society’s haciendas in South America.420 The new plantation grew a carefully formulated mix of cash crops and foodstuff, thus establishing food security for the Saint-Pierre plantation and residence.

Peas and millet grew between rows of manioc and coffee trees. Grazing land supported poultry, cows, sheep, “et autre secours pour la table.” Lavalette expected the coffee, acquired in seeds or from a hothouse, to begin producing beans within three years and increase for the next six.

To work this new plantation, Lavalette acquired around 400 enslaved men and women.

Anti-Jesuit sources written during the Parisian scandal would accuse Lavalette of traveling to

Barbados disguised as a flibustier to buy cheap Africans.421 He predicted that his human investments would quickly earn back their initial cost: “Une nègre me coutait 1000#….” he explained in the “Mémoire Justificatif,” “Je payerai 75#….d’intérêt ; je mettais un autre….170# pour la viande et ses habits et sa cout [sic] part des frais de l’habitation, ce qui faisait….250#, somme que je devais d’abort trouver dans le produit de son travail, quel était-il? 500 livres de café, à 18 sols, qui faisait 450#…..- il ne restait donc de bon [200#]. La nègre devait donc se

418 Lavalette refers to the plantation as “l’habitation de la Dominique” or just “la Dominique” throughout the “Mémoire Justificatif.” Only upon its purchase does he call it “celle de M. Cresoles à la Grande Baye.” I refer to it as “the Dominica plantation” 419 Lenick states that the floor tiles matched European ones. Lavalette reported using tiles from the Tartane region on Martinique’s Atlantic coast in his Saint-Pierre constructions. Lenik, “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763),” 233–39. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100. 420 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches; Humberto Rodríguez-Camilloni, “The Rural Churches of the Jesuit Haciendas on the Southern Peruvian Coast,” in The Jesuits II, ed. John W O’Malley et al., vol. II (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 241–61. 421 See Lettres sur les opérations, 32-34 for an example of this.

122

payer dans 5 ans et fournir sa coute [sic] part des frais de l’habitation.”422 In Lavalette’s eyes,

African lives were investments little different than coffee trees or barrels of sugar.

To maximize revenue, Lavalette put the Society’s enslaved men and women to work cutting wood for his own projects and Saint-Pierre’s construction industry during quiet periods of the coffee season. He revived a 1731 plan for a Jesuit owned sawmill on Dominica. Logging required specially trained slaves who cost double the price of a field slave (4,000 livres instead of

2,000 livres) but could be rented for eighty livres per month. Their work was considered less strenuous than that of their brethren in the fields: they were given double food rations, worked shorter hours (“ils ne vont au travail qu’a six ou sept heurs du matin et le quittent au soleil couchant, et tout le monde sait que les negres employés au travail de la terre y vont avant le soleil levé et qu’ils font la veillée, jusques a huit ou neuf heurs du soir”), and absented themselves from work (petit marronage) six days each month. The eighteen enslaved workers which he had purchased from Crésols were of this type and Lavalette calculated that each would bring in 500 livres per year. Between the coffee, foodstuffs, animals, and wood, he predicted that it would cover its debts and begin earning revenue within six years.423

The late 1740s and early 1750s were thus quite busy for Lavalette. As was the custom for Jesuit haciendas, prezos, and plantations the world over, Lavalette placed the Dominica plantation’s day-to-day operations in the hands of a brother coadjutor, the Canadian-born Jean

Nicolas Le Vasseur, who had been managing the Jesuits’ plantations for over two decades.424 A consummate micro-manager, Lavalette still visited the Dominica plantation every month, leaving

Saint-Pierre after conducting Sunday mass in the parish church and returning on Wednesday morning in time for Thursday mass and confessions at the Ursuline convent, of which he was

422 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 102. 423 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 102-103. 424 Le Vasseur was born in Quebec but joined the novitiate in Paris. He arrived on Martinique in 1723 and pronounced his fourth vow in 1732. “Le Vasseur” ARSI GAL 121.

123

chaplain. “Combien de fois ai-je passé le canal de la Dominique en pirogue….!” he exclaimed breathlessly in the “Mémoire Justificatif.” “Pendant les deux premières années, je faisais ce trajet en pirogue, et souvent par un tems où les plus grands bateaux n’osaient se mettre en mer; mais animé par mon zèle je ne craignais ni la pluie, ni le soleil, ni le vent, ni la mer; je partais et j’arrivais à temps.”425 From disdaining temporal affairs, he had come to exult in them.

Lavalette paid for the new rental houses and plantation improvements on both Martinique and Dominca by borrowing. He acquired a loan for 500,000 livres payable in four years at an interest rate of 7.5%.426 Half a million livres was a spectacular, but not unheard of, sum for the

Caribbean. A sugar plantation could cost upward of 100,000 livres. The capitation revenues for all of Martinique brought only 450,000 livres to the Marine’s coffers in 1750.427 The interest rate, however, was average for colonial rates that varied between 6% and 10%.428 That he would have been able to borrow such a substantial sum for an average cost speaks to the Jesuits’ reputation as a worthy credit risk and Lavalette’s personal trustworthiness. He transmuted the

Society’s reputation for wealth, which had previously been a liability in its relationships with colonial administrators and the population at large, into an asset.

Lavalette planned to pay down this loan with the income from the new rental properties, which he expected to bring in 15% over the cost of construction. At the end of four years, the outstanding balance would be paid off with new loans, a cycle which would continue until the debt was finally amortized. He confidently predicted that he could halve the debt within twelve years.429 By paying such immense sums promptly, Lavalette would building a solid credit history and reputation for prudent money management which he could draw upon around the

425 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100. 426 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 101. 427 Bompar and Hurson to Rouillé, 31 Dec 1750 ANOM COL Series C8A 59 fol. 1 428 This was higher than both the actual interest rates being charged in France at the time (3%) and the legal ceiling on interest rates (5%). Riley, Seven Years War, 31–32; May, Histoire économique, 194–95. 429 Lavelette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100-101.

124

Atlantic rim. Although legally unable to contract debts in his own name, his position within the

Society allowed him access to more resources and greater credit than he would have had as an individual, while still allowing him to build a personal reputation with Martinique’s elite. His personal credit was implicitly backed by the Society as a whole, although to what extent was left unclear and would thus later be the source of much acrimonious debate.

Like all religious orders, the Jesuits sought to avoid debt if possible. Procurators in some regions, such as Quito, were forbidden from taking on debt. 430 The triennial catalogues listed not only the debts of each mission, but also the funds they had on hand to pay them down.431

While the Society did borrow to finance construction work, more often they did so to rebuild from the frequent earthquakes, famines, epidemics, storms, and wars that struck early modern societies. Gabriel Moreau recalled that re-establishing the Guadeloupe mission after an invasion during the War of Spanish Succession cost 20,000 livres.432 Often the loans came from other

Jesuit or church institutions such as religious houses and members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or wealthy laypersons. Due to its reputation for wealth and highly-placed connections, the

Society’s institutions and provinces were usually able to borrow cheaply and easily.433

Lavalette’s position, charm and facile confidence ingratiated him among the island’s elite.

As the procurator in France Montigny later recalled: “Bientôt, par ses manières et ses bons offices, il gagna la multitude, et s’acquit même une grande considération auprès du gouverneur, de l’intendant et des principaux habitants de l’ile. Chacun avait recours à lui et personne n’avait lieu de se repentir de lui avoir donné sa confiance.”434 Lavalette shared a similar character with the Îles du Vent’s governor, Charles de Thubières, Marquis de Caylus, who may have served as a

430 Cushner, Farm and Factory, 84–86. 431 ARSI FRANC 11-21. 432 Moreau, “Mémoire,” 19-20. 433 Alden, Enterprise, 533; Cushner, Lords of the Land, 76. 434 Montigny, “Mémoire,” AFSI F An 18, fol. 19.

125

model for the newly appointed procurator. A naval officer and client of Maurepas’ mother-in-law the Marquise de la Villière, Caylus took charge of the islands in 1745 and steered them through much of the Austrian Succession War and its aftermath. Caylus was flamboyant and ambitious.

He had a flair for recognizing opportunities and maneuvering around inconvenient rules. “There was never a Governor, English or French, who devised so many methods of enriching himself,” the historian Richard Pares stated wryly of him, “and that is saying a great deal.”435 While in office, he maintained flourishing connections to Marseille merchants, specifically the Roux family. To avoid British privateers, Caylus shipped his cargos to Marseille via St. Eustatius using the Dutch merchant Abraham Teminck and the commissionnaire firm Rachon et Cartier, both of which would become key nodes in Lavalette’s network. His policies during the war, such as opening the islands’ trade to Dutch merchants and allowing colonial firms to ransom their captured ships with plantation produce, showed a marked disregard for the trade laws he was tasked with enforcing. “Few officials engaged so enthusiastically in illicit trade” notes

Kenneth Banks, “That Caylus was personally corrupt is clear.”436 When the Comte de Bompar and Charles Marin Hurson replaced Caylus and the intendant Ranché in 1749/50, Lavalette cultivated their influence as well. These connections subverted the Marine’s administration in the colonies to his own ends. Where previous administrations had worked more-or-less willingly with the Marine Secretary to oversee and regulate the islands’ missionaries, Bompar and Hurson would later use their positions to defend Lavalette from metropolitan interventions. Both

Bompar and Hurson would also invest in his transatlantic currency network. Lavalette was building a power base on Martinique.

435 Pares, War and Trade, 208. 436 Banks, “Official Duplicity,” 238–39; Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea, 169.Banks, “Official Duplicity,” 238-239. See also Kenneth J. Banks, Chasing empire across the sea: communications and the state in the French Atlantic, 1713-1763 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 169.

126

These connections gave Lavalette an entrée into the world of military supply with a contract for wood to make cannon mounts. “J’examine si je puis suivant l’esprit de tous les jésuites être utile a mon Roy” he remarked coyly, drawing on the Society’s long history of assisting state operations throughout the world. Lavalette acquired the contract for the mission, worth 160,000 livres, at the beginning 1752, just as his earlier loans were coming due. Bompar and Hurson justified their choice of Lavalette by noting that he already possessed the necessary equipment on Dominica and arguing that the Jesuits’ wealth diminished the possibility of their bilking the state.437 In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” Lavalette used the wood contract as proof of his sound management strategies. He intentionally underbid, promising to deliver the wood at half the going rate of 9 livres per foot. “On Crie que je ruine la mission,” he recalled with theatrical flair “et que je donne le bois pour la moitié de sa valeur, et que je veux faire ma cour

Aux respectables, général et intendant, que nous avions, je laisse tout le monde dans l’erreur, excepté mon supérieur.” Lavalette then used the state’s cash advance of 75,000 livres to buy forty field slaves from a neighbor on Dominica, M. de Bontemps, thirty of which he set to work logging under the tutelage of those purchased from Crésols. After delivering the contract,

Lavalette sold the remaining enslaved Africans (“je n’en ait pas perdu quinze” he remarked offhandedly) at triple their purchase price since they were now experienced woodcutters. “Par conséquent on fait plus que compenser ma perte” he elated, “et les travaux de l’habitation n’en ont pas du souffrir, puis que j’y avais mis dix negres de plus aux dépens de l’argent que le Roy m’avait avancé.”438 The contract did not go quite as smoothly as Lavalette described; the official correspondence shows that in 1756 he was still haggling with Bompar and Hurson over transport costs.439 Nevertheless, the wood contract shows Lavalette at his entrepreneurial best. He

437 Bompar and Hurson to Rouillé, 15 Jan 1752. ANOM COL Series C8A 59 fol. 252. 438 “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 103. 439 Machault to Givry, 12 Mar 1756 ANOM COL Series B 103.

127

brought together multiple price differentials to make a profit from temporary resources, a strategy which he would next employ on a transatlantic scale. In just four short years as procurator, he had mastered the complex dynamics of Caribbean plantations and had begun to innovate.

Conclusion

Until the early 1750s, Lavalette’s activities had remained within the Society’s modus procedendi. Urban rental properties and rural plantations were the established methods for supporting Jesuit missions and colleges from New France to Macao. Jesuits the world over were renowned (and reviled) for their ability to ingratiate themselves with local elites. His borrowing of large sums was not unprecedented for large building projects. Even Lavalette’s venture into military contracting paled in comparison to the Goa provinces’ administration of fortresses in

India’s northern province, or the forced loans from which the Iberian provinces had profited.

Improving lands for greater revenue or improving goods for resale at a higher value were both acceptable practices according canon law. Most importantly, Lavalette’s plans had the official sanction of his local consult and the father general’s office in Rome. His plans were akin to those of Marstrilli Durán, the Peru province’s equally zealous procurator in the 1630s. Like

Lavalette, Durán had an intuitive sense for investment opportunities and was willing to take financial risks to bring them to fruition. He purchased the hacienda of Jesús María near Potosí in

1637 from a wealthy donor, predicting that higher prices for the hacienda’s corn, sugar, wine, and cacao in the mining town would offset its mountainous location. In a move similar to

Lavalette at Grand Bay, Durán invested 270,000 pesos in buying and rebuilding the Villa sugar plantation with the expectation that its profits would lift the province out of debt. His plan worked and both properties ultimately became steady income producers.440 Durán and Lavalette

440 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 37-38 and 41-42.

128

differed, however, in the Society’s reception to their activities: Durán’s superiors accused him of ruining the province whereas Lavalette brought praise until his trade network collapsed in 1756.

If Lavalette had confined himself to running the new plantation, paying down the mission’s debts, and taking occasional state contracts, he would be known today as one of the Society’s best, but still forgettable, procurators. Unfortunately for the Jesuits, he did not.

129

Chapter 4: Sugar and Gold

In 1751, Jacques Cazotte had a problem. He was returning to France after several years on Martinique to recuperate from an illness. Cazotte needed to transfer funds to cover his costs in the metropole but faced the hazardous prospect of transporting them across the Atlantic.

Lavalette provided the solution.

Jacques Cazotte was no stranger to the Jesuits or to the dangers of transatlantic shipments. He had been educated in the Jesuit college at Dijon. His uncle was a member of the

Society and his brother, the Abbé Cazotte, served as Grand-Vicaire of the diocese of Châlons- sur-Marne. Having entered the naval bureaucracy as an écrivain ordinaire through the patronage of Maurepas, he served at sea during the War of Austrian Succession before being transferred into the “détail des aprovisionnemens des colonies” at Rochefort in 1746.441

Appointed contrôleur aux Îles du Vent in September 1747, he departed aboard Le Tonnant as part of a squadron under the Marquis de l’Étanduère convoying merchant ships to the Caribbean.

When a superior British force attacked the squadron, Le Tonnant successfully fought its way back to Brest but the luggage which Cazotte had divided among several vessels for security was captured. Most of his baggage was repatriated, but a trunk which he had entrusted to Beaumont, the écrivain of Le Terrible, containing his most important personal effects valued at 4,000-4,500 livres disappeared. Following inquiries by Cazotte and his family in France, Beaumont admitted to having sold the trunk and its contents for personal gain. Cazotte had Beaumont discharged from the navy but never received restitution for the appropriated goods.

Cazotte’s decade on Martinique was a further litany of misfortunes. His punctilious nature set him at odds with the more flexible mindset of his superiors. Cazotte’s letters to

Maurepas and Rouillé contain, in the words of Georges Décote, a “mésentente plus ou moins

441 E. P. Shaw, Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1942), 6.

130

ouverte avec ses chefs hiérarchiques, ton désabusé et pessimiste, impression que ses compétences sont mal utilisées et que sa valeur n’est pas reconnue.”442 Like other members of the navy’s administration, he complained about his insufficient and erratic pay. Cazotte oversaw the removal of fortifications on St. Lucia at the War of the Austrian Succession’s conclusion

(financed by his personal credit) only to find upon his return to Martinique that the intendant

Hurson had taken his lodgings. Despite these setbacks, he was a competent, if thorny, administrator, rising steadily through the ranks to contrôleur de la marine in 1749 and commissaire ordinaire in 1750. After two years in the islands, a fever which had dogged him from Rochefort flared up, for which Cazotte received permission to spend six-months in France recuperating.

With the memories of his previous disastrous transatlantic crossing still fresh, Cazotte turned to Lavalette to fund his leave. Cazotte probably knew Lavalette beforehand, since he had moved into one of Lavalette’s newly built houses with Rouillé de Raucourt (cousin of the Marine

Secretary Antoine-Louis Rouillé, Comte de Jouy) following his expulsion by Hurson.

Lavalette’s reputation for money management and the Jesuits’ globe-spanning financial network would have made Lavalette a logical choice to move money across the Atlantic. Cazotte’s Jesuit education in Dijon would have given him familiarity with the order. In 1751, Cazotte gave

Lavalette 33,000 livres and received a bill of exchange for the same sum drawn on the mission’s funds in Paris. Cazotte was in a position to return the favor: as contrôleur and commissaire, he would have been responsible for the administration’s financial affairs and may have granted

Lavalette his wood contract. The mission procurator in Paris, Dominique de Sacy, honored the bill upon Cazotte’s arrival, allowing him to spend his time debating the merits of French over

442 Georges Décote, L’itinéraire de Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792 (Geneva: Droz, 1984), 48.

131

Italian operas (the famed querelle des bouffons) and writing a mémoire on colonial administration for the Marine Secretary Rouillé.443

Cazotte’s experience reveals both the problems facing colonial administrators and how

Lavalette offered them solutions. Governors and intendants, along with their subordinates, were repositioned frequently, rarely staying in any position for more than a decade. As Alexandre

Dubé has noted, they formed a distinct class connected to but separate from other colonial elites.444 This transient existence brought problems finding housing and transporting goods across the Atlantic, as Cazotte’s eviction and missing trunk demonstrate. Lavalette saw opportunities to solve these problems and in doing so build relationships with the island’s power brokers. His residences provided cheap, if spartan, housing. His money transfer system would fill the market niche for colonists transporting their funds to France.

Behind Cazotte’s bills of exchange lay a complicated system of currency arbitrage which would be Lavalette’s most ambitious creation. Remitting funds over long distances and between multiple currencies was quite complicated, as Guy Rowlands has shown for the French state during the War of the Spanish Succession. Those who mastered its intricacies could make significant fortunes.445 Between 1750 and 1762, millions of livres tournois would pass through

Lavalette’s hands on their way to France. His system rose quickly and would collapse just as suddenly. Despite its size and importance, the details of how his system functioned are sparse.

Lavalette’s “Mémoire Justificatif,” so effusive in its descriptions of his plantation work, brushes over his transatlantic activities in a single paragraph which hides as much as it reveals. Most scholars regurgitate a thumbnail description written during the scandal which does not capture its

443 Shaw, Jacques Cazotte ; Décote, Itinéraire ; Jacques Cazotte and Georges Décote, Correspondance de Jacques Cazotte : Édition Critique (Paris : Klincksieck, 1982). 444 Dubé, “Les Biens Publics.” 445 Guy Rowlands, Dangerous and Dishonest Men : The International Bankers of Louis XIV’s France (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

132

many twists and turns.446 Sifting through the excerpts from his letters published by his creditors during the scandal, combined with previously unused records from one of his agents, Abraham

Gradis of Bordeaux, provide a more fine-grained glimpse into how his money transfer system functioned. This chapter will describe the nuts and bolts of how this system operated and the flows of goods which contributed to its success. The following chapter will explain how

Lavalette cultivated the credit and trust within the merchant community which allowed him to borrow such large sums.

Money History

Much of Martinique’s economy, like that of France, functioned without physical money.

From their beginnings in the 1630s, France’s West Indian colonies subsisted on a mixture of barter and the credit markets emblematic of early modern proto-capitalism. “Tout le négoce ou commerce de nos habitants se fait par le troc,” Jean Baptiste Du Tertre wrote in his 1667 Histoire

Générale.447 These were not priceless markets: the amounts were recorded in livres but the objects which exchanged hands were plantation produce rather than coins. Caribbean planters paid for slaves and European merchandise with loaves of sugar and carrots of tobacco.448 “La monnoye ordinaire du pays est le pétun et le sucre,” Pelleprat recorded in 1655.449 When de

Tracy arrived on Martinique in 1664, he ordered taxes to be paid in tobacco.450 The Domaine paid the Jesuits’ salaries in sugar. Since perishable plantation produce was available only for a short time between harvest and export (and was always in short supply) much of Martinique’s economy relied on credit. Merchant ledgers and bills of exchange, demarcated in livres,

446 See Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette; Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors”; Van Kley, Jansenists. 447 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 1:470. 448 E Zay, Histoire monétaire des colonies françaises d’après les documents officiels (Paris: Typ. de J. Montorier, 1892), 5. 449 Pierre Pelleprat, Relation des missions des PP. de la Compagnie de Iesus dans les isles, & dans la terre ferme de l’Amerique Meridionale.:, vol. 1 (Paris : Sebastien Cramoisy, & Gabriel Cramoisy, 1655), 9. 450 Du Tertre, Histoire Generale, 3:179.

133

recorded the cost of slaves, foodstuffs, or goods to be paid for at a later date. Plantations changed hands against their future produce. Planters purchased slaves on the promise of next year’s crop.451

Louis XV’s subjects in North America and the Caribbean would have had limited contact with coins displaying his Most Christian Majesty’s visage. Specie tended to pool amongst merchants, financiers, and court officials in Paris, London, Amsterdam, and other large European cities. From the establishment of direct royal control over the colonies in 1670, the Marine administration dreamed of creating a colonial currency on the same footing as metropolitan coins but were never able to bring them into fruition. Runs of silver and copper coins created in 1670,

1717, 1721, and 1730 for use solely in his majesty’s American colonies never lasted long, as the money was refused or circulated out of the colonies and into foreign markets just as rapidly.452

One observer in 1783 reported that French coins were so rare in the islands as to be a curiosity.453

Due to specie’s rarity and relative solidity, sellers offered significant discounts, sometimes as much as 50%, for those able to pay with coin rather than credit or goods.454 Coins became even more valuable during wartime, when closed sea lanes blocked the specie supply and government contracting sapped the local credit markets. In 1744 Saint-Pierre, with British privateering driving up prices, a barrel of imported beef which cost 450 livres in credit or goods could be had for only 300 livres in ready cash.455 By the end of the war, Martinique’s wholesalers were refusing to sell provisions for goods or credit, insisting on payment with specie instead.456 Lavalette understood this dynamic. Living through the War of the Austrian

451 May, Histoire économique, 193–96. 452 Zay, Histoire monétaire; Alain Buffon, Monnaie et crédit en économie coloniale: contribution à l’histoire économique de la Guadeloupe, 1635-1919 (Basse-Terre: Société d’histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1979), 51–52. 453 Buffon, Monnaie et crédit, 53. 454 Pares, War and Trade, 328. 455 Champigny to Maurepas, 16 Nov 1744 ANOM COL Series C8A 56 fol. 73. 456 Caylus’ list of prices for June 1748 carries prices solely in “livres argent.” “Prix des Marchandises arivées en cette Isle depuis le 10 Juin 1748.” ANOM COL Series C8B 21 fol. 43.

134

Succession’s conclusion and buying construction materials instilled an appreciation for the power of coin over credit. In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” he boasted that his use of immediate cash payments cut the cost of stone and tile for his building regime:

“Je me voyai déjà à mon but le bon marché que j’eux de la chance pour bâtir et

des tuilles pour couvrir, qui coutaient à St. Pierre, la chaule 3 livres 10 sols le

baril, et qui au moyen de mon argent d’avance ne me coutait que 2 livres 5 sols.

prie à la tantan (quartier de la Martinique) et rendue à St. Pierre, la tuille qui

coutait 120#. la mission à St. Pierre, au moyen de mon argent d’avance, ne me

coutait que 90#. ainsi le bois prie à St. Lucie ou à la Martinique ou acheté ou gros

des prises faits par les Anglais, la pierre de taille brute pour un pied droit coutait à

St. Pierre 6#, prise la Dominique ou fouillée chez nous ne me revenait que 3#.”457

Adding more complication was the fact that European states and empires used two currencies: a “fictive” currency or unit of account in which all transactions were calculated and a

“real” currency of the coins people carried in their pockets.458 France’s unit of account was the livre tournois, divided into 20 sols and 240 deniers.459 “Real” currency consisted of silver coins called écus supplemented by gold louis d’or for large-scale international trade and copper coins for small transactions. These coins did not have fixed values in livres tournois. Instead, royal decrees changed the number of livres in each écu to track with the market price of silver, prevent counterfeiting, and balance royal budgets. The value of the écu relative to the livre tournois fluctuated significantly in the last decades of the seventeenth century and first decades of the

457 Antoine Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 100. My apologies for the errors in this quote, which I have twice checked against my transcription. Lavalette’s handwriting is terrible. 458 Negotiable paper, such as bills of exchange, formed a third currency. 459 French units of account remained unstandardized until the French Revolution, leading to multiple livres in different regions. See Guy Rowlands, The Financial Decline of a Great Power War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIV’s France (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012); Spang, Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution, 11.

135

eighteenth. Between 1689 and 1715, Louis XIV’s ministers devalued the livre tournois forty- three times in an effort to fund the king’s wars, followed by the chaos of John Law’s attempt to put France on a paper currency.460 Stability came in 1726, as Lavalette was starting the second year of his novitiate in Toulouse, with royal decrees fixing the large écu at six livres tournois, and the small écu at three livres, where they would remain through the French Revolution. The royal fiat also extended to foreign coins which circulated in the king’s dominions. In 1722, a royal edict reducing the Spanish silver dollar’s value in livres tournois pushed colonists on Saint-

Domingue to revolt.461 The same decrees which stabilized the value of French coins four years later put the Spanish silver dollar at six livres tournois.462

What coins Louis XV’s subjects on Martinique did see tended to be either counterfeit, foreign or both. Most coins in the Atlantic world were either Portuguese or Spanish from the gold fields of Brazil and the silver mines in Peru. Martinique’s flourishing, if illicit, trade with

South America brought in a flow of the Spanish silver dollars ubiquitous from Cartagena to

Charleston to Copenhagen. Marseille merchants short on cargo stopped in Cadiz and Lisbon for

Portuguese gold coins on their way across the Atlantic, many of which found their way to

Spanish American markets just as quickly.463 The rivers of precious metal which flowed from

Mexico and Brazil to Europe and China beyond thus lapped at the shores of Martinique. The rarity of specie in the Caribbean made it a dumping ground for debased or clipped coinage. A

Rhode Island counterfeit ring flooded Saint-Domingue and Jamaica with bad Portuguese coins in

460 For more specifics on Louis XIV’s disastrous monetary policy, see Rowlands, The Financial Decline of a Great Power War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIV’s France. 461 Pritchard, In Search of Empire, 258–59. 462 Ordonnonce du Roi 11 June and 9 Sept 1726, in Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 3 :171. The louis d’or was revalued in 1785. Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920 (London: NLB ; Atlantic Highlands, 1976), 243. 463 French administrators on Saint Domingue complained that Spanish ranchers on Sainto Domingo would only accept gold in payment for their cattle. Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen, 9.

136

the 1770s, prompting Saint-Domingue’s officials to order the inspection of all coin imports.464

To maintain specie in the islands and prevent its fleeing to France, coins which crossed from

Europe to Martinique received a sharp increase in value. Following the currency reforms of

1726, the crown made the large écus and Spanish dollars worth six livres tournois in France and nine livres coloniales in the colonies, a 50% mark up.465 This exchange rate extended to intangible fund transfers as well. Merchant ledgers and bills of exchange carefully specified whether the amounts notated were “argent de France” or “argent des colonies,” livres tournois or livres coloniales, thus effectively putting the colonies on a different currency from the metropole.466 Merchants also raised the prices of their goods in the colonies to combat this devaluation of the livre.467 The steep gradient made transporting specie westward cost effective, but it also penalized inhabitants of the islands who wished to transfer funds in the reverse direction. Not only did they face the danger of losing their money during the crossing, any funds which did arrive in France automatically lost one-third of their value, a serious handicap for administrators like Cazotte on a fixed salary.

Arbitrage Network

Financing his projects furnished Lavalette an introduction into the mechanics and potentials of transatlantic money transfer, since his initial loans took the forms of bills of exchange drawn on de Sacy in Paris. Conversations with administrators such as Cazotte would have made him aware of a potential opportunity to both pay down his loans (which came due in

1752) and ingratiate himself into Martinique’s corridors of power. By 1751 he was accepting

464 Katherine Smoak, “The Weight of Necessity: Counterfeit Coins in the British Atlantic World, circa 1760–1800,” The William and Mary Quarterly 74, no. 3 (2017): 467–502. 465 John J McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., by the University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 280–88. 466 Lavalette’s lettres de change for 1753 and 1754 in the Gradis papers specify “argent de France.” Archives Nationales (AN) 181 AQ/76 48. 467 Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen.

137

Cazotte’s deposits for payment in Paris. Lavalette would have found a marked demand for this transfer service in the aftermath of the War of the Austrians Succession. The midcentury wars ruined many planters, who cut their losses by liquidating their plantations and returning to

France. Martinique’s white population fell from 16,000 people in 1742 to 12,500 people in

1763.468 Lavalette was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this market. What made his service so attractive to Cazotte and others was his promise to pay out the same amount in France that he had received in Martinique, thus avoiding the 1/3 loss in value which other merchants charged.469 Being able to transport money at par was an exceptional service, which made him instantly in demand amongst the island’s planter and administrative elite. By 1755, seven years after his appointment as procurator and four years after Cazotte’s bill, his primary agents in

France, the Marseille merchants Lioncy frères et Gouffre, held obligations of over a million livres in his name.

A mémoire written during the scandal described how Lavalette’s system functioned with a hypothetical example: A client would give 6,000 livres coloniales worth of sugar to Lavalette on Martinique. In return, Lavalette would then provide the client with a bill of exchange for

6,000 livres tournois drawn on de Sacy or a metropolitan merchant house at a term of two or three years. Lavalette would then dispatch the sugar to France where one of his agents would sell it for 4,800 livres tournois; a short-term loss of 1/5 the original value plus shipping costs.

The merchant house would use the proceeds to procure 117 Portuguese gold moëdas, probably by stopping in Cadiz on their way to the West Indies, at the rate of forty-one livres tournois per coin. Upon the gold’s arrival in the Caribbean, the official rate of sixty-six livres coloniales per coin put its value at 7,725 livres coloniales. This represented a profit of 1,725 livres coloniales

468 May, Histoire économique, 57. 469 Charlemagne Lalourcé and Jean Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour Jean Lioncy, créancier, de la masse de la raison de commerce, établie à Marseilles sous le nom de Lioncy frères et Gouffre, contre le corps et société des P.P. Jésuites (Paris: P. Alex. Le Prieur, 1761), 3-9.

138

over the original 6,000 livre coloniale investment, or a thirty-percent return on investment (ROI).

Lavalette did not stop there. Since the bills were drawn for several years, he could repeat the cycle four to six times before their owner collected the funds. By the time the bearer of a two- year bill requested their 6,000 livres tournois in France, their investment would have earned a further 6,900 livres tournois above the original capital (116% ROI). A three-year bill could go even further, earning 10,350 livres tournois (160% ROI).470 Such profits were far in excess of the highest returns of 40% to 60% that merchants could expect from trade with the West

Indies.471 Through careful arbitrage, Lavalette promised to replace significant losses with spectacular profits.

Every part of the system was designed to minimize losses and maximize returns. The exchange rate for the moëda was noticeably steeper than that of écus or bills of exchange. Silver

écus worth 100 livres tournois in France would have been worth 150 livres coloniales, when transported to Martinique, whereas 100 livres tournois in moëdas was worth 161 livres coloniales. Lavalette bought sugar during the hurricane season, when the lack of shipping dropped prices. “Les sucres ont baissé ici de dix pour cent,” he wrote in August 1753, “voilà pourquoi je fais acheter à force,” meaning that he was buying aggressively.472 When the sugar reached Europe he arranged for it to be sold for 18 to 20% reduction of their value on

Martinique, far better than the monetary exchange rate of a 33% reduction.473

The bills of exchange which Lavalette gave his clients were the standard means for moving funds around the early modern Atlantic. They would be drawn on a merchant in France

470 Lalourcé and Lioncy, 3-9. In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” Lavalette stated that he wrote bills of exchange for four- year terms, although these were most likely only his original borrowings to fund his building project. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 104. 471 Guillaume Daudin, Commerce et Prospérité : La France Au XVIIIe Siècle (Paris : Presses de l’Université Paris- Sorbonne, 2005), 280–88. 472 Lavalette to Lioncy frères et Gouffre, 1 Aug 1753. Quoted in Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target, Second mémoire pour le sieur Cazotte, et la demoiselle Fouque, contre le général et la société des Jésuites (Paris : s.n., 1761), 83-84. 473 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 104.

139

to whom the client would go to redeem the bill and receive their cash. Lavalette would send a letter to the merchant informing him of the obligation followed by the sugar to cover the bill.

When the sugar arrived, the merchant would accept the obligation and pay the amount out to the client. The client would be required to wait for a period specified on the bill (the term for which the bill was drawn) before presenting it to the merchant, thus giving Lavalette the time to send the sugar to the merchant. Bills of exchange also operated as short-term loans from the client and merchant to Lavalette. He had the use of the client’s sugar and the merchant’s credit for the specified term of the bill. By writing bills of exchange to transfer money long distance,

Lavalette was performing a common service of many merchants around the Atlantic.

Lavalette was unique, however, in that he wrote bills for the same amount in France that he had received on Martinique, rather than the normal practice of discounting the bill by two- thirds to reflect the currency differential. Lavalette also drew more bills for longer periods and for larger amounts than the customary norm. The account books of the Bordeaux merchant

Abraham Gradis, which offer the best insight into Lavalette’s operations, show that he regularly drew sums of 20,000-30,000 livres for thirty to thirty-six-month terms whereas the other planters for whom Gradis served as an agent rarely drew more than 10,000 livres for between six and twenty-four months.474 As will be discussed in the next chapter, Gradis was uncomfortable with these unusually large sums and long terms, issuing several demands for proof that Lavalette’s superiors approved of his actions. As a result, Lavalette anchored his network with smaller, less established merchant houses who were more willing to take on the greater risk with the implied understanding that it was guaranteed by the Society’s collective wealth.

474 Pierre Gervais, e-mail message to the author, 2 Sept. 2015. Many thanks to Pierre Gervais for providing me access to the Marprof database http://marprof-base.univ-paris1.fr which records this data. It is unclear who bore the freight and insurance costs for these shipments. Most likely the mission itself paid the shipping fees with the expectation that they would be covered with the potential profits.

140

Bills of exchange were also negotiable, meaning that if the client had more pressing debts, they could turn the bill over to their creditor by signing the back. The creditor could then either redeem it themselves or pass it on to their own creditors. This negotiability meant that

Lavalette’s bills would circulate around France’s Atlantic ports and come into the possession of people he had never met. Fourteen bills of exchange written by Lavalette on Abraham Gradis, whose relationship with Lavalette will be examined more fully in the following chapter, provide a glimpse into this circulation of commercial paper between the Caribbean and France (Table

4.1). All but two were not cashed by their initial recipients but instead signed over to third or fourth parties before leaving Martinique. Two bills written to the planter Du Pradel on August

20, for example, left Du Pradel’s hands the same day. Women feature prominently in this network, as do the state officials who used Lavalette’s services. The route of several bills through the major Nantes slave trading families of Drouin, de Luynes, Le Comte, and

Montaudouin suggests that they were used in payment for shipments of enslaved Africans.475

The full list of obligations for which Lavalette engaged Gradis (Table 4.2) provides a cross section of those involved in his network.476 Most noticeable are the state officials, including governors, intendants, lesser members of the naval administration like Cazotte, navy captains, and a conseiller. Plantation owners such as Du Pradel, Descoudrelles, and La Porte, who had their own independent accounts with Gradis, used Lavalette’s services too.477 He also did favors for the Society’s patrons. When Mademoiselle Dupoget de Cresols, possibly a relation of the Dominica plantation’s previous owner, returned to France for her health in July

475 For more on these families, see Jean Meyer, L’armement nantais dans la deuxième moiti ́du XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1969). 476 Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors,” 233–37. 477 Pierre Gervais, e-mail message to the author, 2 Sept. 2015. See also the Marprof database.

141

Table 4.1 Path of Bills of Exchange written on David Gradis et Fils Date Drawn Amount Term Recipient 2nd Recipient Date signed Location 3rd Recipient Date signed Location 4th Recipient Date (l.t) (Mon.) over over

5 Mar 1753 10,000 7 M. L’Artigue M. Jacques Boyer et fils, 14 Apr 1754 Saint- Gradis 9 Nov 1753 Negociant à Bordeaux Pierre, Martinique 16 Apr 1753 6,000 24 De la Touche Le Vassor de la Touche 17 Apr 1753 Martinique “Jauve le Jeune 1 July 1753 Gradis 2 Mar 1754 “capitaine des vaisseaux du á Rochefort” roy” 16 Apr 1753 16,000 8 M. Dominique M. Tennet, “conseiller 17 Apr 1753 Saint- Gradis 24 Dec 1753 Tessinier Secretaire du Roy” Pierre, Martinique 6 May 1753 20,000 30 M. Pierre La Pierre Desclaux 16 May 1753 Saint- Gradis 13 Mar 1754 Porte Pierre, Martinique 22 Jun 1753 1,011 36 Jacques Bathomé Gradis 10 Nov 1753 4 July 1753 4,000 3 Madame la veuve M. Augustin de Luynes 6 July 1753 Martinique Marchais 5 Dec 1753 Gradis 21 Dec 1753 Droüin 10 July 1753 9,483 François Trophe Berard 18 Nov 1753 Gradis 21 Mar 1754 9 sols 20 July 1753 1,225 3 Chaussé et Pierre le Comte, Negociant 10 Aug 1753 Martinique DI et fils 21 Jan 1754 Feger Frères 30 Jan 1754 Besson à Nantes Montaudoien 20 Aug 1753 700 24 M. Du Pradel Godeau 20 Aug 1753 Martinique Gradis 24 Dec 1753

20 Aug 1753 2,500 24 M. Du Pradel Madame la veuve Pain 20 Aug 1753 Saint- Mlle. Valeur 4 Jan 1754 Nantes Gradis 22 Jan 1754 Pierre, Martinique 20 Aug 1753 1,500 24 M. Du Pradel Mlle Harderome 21 Aug 1753 Saint- Pierre, Martinique 20 Aug 1753 1,500 24 M. Du Pradel Mlle. Charderoine 21 Aug 1753 Saint- Gradis 2 Feb 1754 Pierre, Martinique 21 Aug 1753 10,000 4 Descoudrelles M Verdier 22 Aug 1753 Veuve Policard 22 Oct 1753 Gradis 10 Jan 1754 “inspecteur général” et fils

22 Apr 1754 18,000 36 M. Mendes Gradis 22 Apr 1753 Frères

Table 4.1. Source: AN 181 AQ/76 51. The 6,000 livre bill was probably passed between members of the de la Touche family. 1753, Lavalette asked Gradis to provide her with 6,000 livres.478

In his correspondence with Gradis, Lavalette referred to his network as “le commerce en

monnoie d’or.” The high value of gold coins confined them to international trade rather than

day-to-day transactions. While French mints did produce a gold coin called the louis d’or, worth

24 livres from 1726 onward, colonists in the French West Indies would have been more familiar

with Portuguese coins. In the 1690s, Brazilians discovered gold in the back country of São Paulo

above Rio de Janiero, touching off a gold rush. By mid-century, Lisbon was receiving an

estimated 21,000 kilograms of gold per year from Brazilian mines.479 “In terms of sheer value of

478 It is unclear why she only received 720 livres. Lavalette to Gradis 13 July 1753 AFSI F An 16. 479 Gold production is difficult to quantify because the mines were decentralized and its high value per weight made it easy to smuggle. C.R. Boxer estimates that between two-thirds and ninety percent of gold production went unrecorded. Priests were known to smuggle gold nuggets out in hollowed out images of saints, leading to the banishment of the religious orders from the Minas Gerias region in 1711. Harry E. Cross, “South American Bullion Production and Export 1550-1750,” in Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, ed. J.F.

142

Table 4.2 Bills of Exchange drawn on David Gradis et fils. Apr. 1753-Jan. 1754 Person Amount (l.t.) Duration (Months) Payment to Veronique Vincent 2,000 -* Bill to M. La Touche 6,000 24 Bill to Dominique Tessinier 16,000 8* Two Bills to L’Artigue 30,000 7*,19 Bill to Truman du Pignon 12,394 24 Payment to Madmoiselle Cresol 720 -* Four bills to du Pradel 7,200 24 Bill by Descoudrelles to Verdier 10,000 4* Bill to Chaussé et Besson 1,225 3* Bill to Pierre Simon 11,500 36 Four bills to Bernard du Luy, Thurnette Souverbie, and 45,000 30 Pierre La Porte Bill to François Trophe 9,483 livres 9 12 sols Three bills to Jacques Berthomé 10,111 36 Bill to M. Lussy 50,000 36 Two bills to M. Lussy 23,409 livres 8 36 sols Bill to Pierre La Porte 12,000 30 Bill to Veuve Drouin 4,000 3* Table 4.2. Stars indicate loans on which Gradis charged interest. Source: AN 181 AQ/76 51. Le Reverand Pere Lavalette Superieur General de la Mission des Reverends Peres Jesuites du fort Saint pierre de la Martinique son compte courant chez Messieur david Gradis fils production,” writes Harry E. Cross, “the Brazilian gold boom of 1700-1760 equaled if not surpassed for a few decades the brilliant output of Potosí and Peru during 1580-1640.”480 When refined, gold from Brazil made an exceptionally pure metal which the Portuguese crown minted into high-quality coins difficult to counterfeit or adulterate. Over eighty percent of Brazil’s gold

Richards (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), 416; C. R. Boxer, “Brazilian Gold and British Traders in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 49, no. 3 (1969): 460. 480 Cross, “South American Bullion Production,” 418.

143

flowed directly from Lisbon to Britain in exchange for manufactured goods. This abundance made gold coins so common in Portugal and Britain that they could be used for everyday transactions, turning those countries into islands of gold in an ocean of silver. In 1774, the

British Parliament cemented this gold standard by ruling that creditors with debts above fifty pounds could demand payment in gold.481 Whether as dust, bars, or struck into moëdas, guineas, and louis d’or, “Portuguese gold” was a known and trustworthy commodity which merchants around the Atlantic rim could rely upon.482

Gold moëdas and cruzados from Portugal arrived on Martinique from three sources.

First, the Marine made regular specie shipments via merchants to pay troops and cover its debts.

Gradis’ account books listed transactions on 10 Sept. 1751 and 21 Aug. 1753 for Martinique’s intendant, Hurson, involving “monnoyes d’or de Portugal.”483 Second, counterfeiters in Britain and British North America produced clipped or underweight Portuguese gold coins which merchants introduced into the Caribbean’s circulation patterns.484 Third, under-loaded ships from Marseille would occasionally stop off in Lisbon to top up their cargos with gold pieces.485

Lavalette tapped into this last flow of coinage by using Marseille merchants as his agents.

With a stream of specie running through Lisbon providing plentiful European supply,

Martinique’s constant specie starvation and the state-mandated exchange valuation which put the moëda at 66 livres on the island provided a market. A quirk of British colonial monetary policy created further Caribbean demand. British colonies, like their French counterparts, overvalued their coinage by fiat to attract specie. In 1704, a royal proclamation (confirmed by an act of

481 Vilar, Gold and Money, 235. 482 This international standard was confined to the Atlantic. Portuguese gold did not penetrate into the Mediterranean where the Venetian sequin had reigned supreme since the Middle Ages and would continue to do so through the French Revolution. Charles Carrière, Négociants marseillais au XVIIIe siècle; contribution à l’étude des économies maritimes. (Marseille: Institut historique de Provence, 1973), 286. 483 Registre de comptabilité, Entries for 10 Sept. 1751 and 21 Aug. 1753. AN 181 AQ/6. 484 Smoak, “The Weight of Necessity.” 485 Buffon, Monnaie et crédit, 54–55; Carrière, Négotians marseillais, 825–26.

144

Parliament in 1708) stifled this tactic by capping the value of colonial coins at 133.33 colonial pounds per 100 pounds sterling. The proclamation, however, only mentioned silver, creating a loophole by which gold could remain at the pre-proclamation levels of 150 pounds or more.

Gold was thus undervalued in Lisbon and overvalued in Martinique and Barbados, creating the perfect conditions for arbitrage.486

Lavalette’s timing allowed him to take further advantage of broader macroeconomic trends in France and the Caribbean. As James Riley, Paul Cheney, and Guillaume Daudin have described, the eighteenth-century was a period of economic growth for France. The French economy grew 0.3-0.7% per year on average, with much of it clustering between the 1720s and

1750s. French farmers experienced good harvests and overseas trade flourished despite the momentary disruption of the Austrian Succession war. Despite the temporary dislocations of the major wars, French trade grew by a minimum of 2.09% per year between 1716 and 1788.487 The flow of precious metals from South America increased France’s coin stock by 0.9% per year, providing a specie pool for arbitrage. Interest rates remained low at 3-4%, below the legal maximum of 5%, making loans cheaper and allowing lenders take more risks with their funds.

Although a temporary deflation (average price change of -0.7% per year between 1749/50 and

1755/56) counteracted these factors, it did not create hoarding or substantially change interest rates.488 These favorable conditions allowed the Marine secretary Rouillé, to rebuild the navy after the War of the Austrian Succession and reduce its outstanding debts by one third.489 The

French Caribbean enjoyed similar economic health. Between 1716 and 1754, the value of goods

486 McCusker, Money and Exchange, 126 and 235. 487 Daudin, Commerce et Prospérité, 210. 488 Riley, Seven Years War, 25–36. 489 The issuance of annual extraordinary funds during peacetime also helped pay down the navy’s debts. James S Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy, 1748-1762 a Study of Organization and Administration (Kingston, Ont.: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1987), 191–93.

145

exported from France to the West Indies increased seventeen-fold.490 In 1750, around the time

Lavalette began his money transfer system, Martinique alone exported 420,000 quintals of sugar,

11,000 quintals of cotton, and 7,000 quintals of cacao collectively worth over 27 million livres.491 Lavalette’s money transfer network could thus draw on ready supplies of plantation products, cheap credit, plentiful infusions of gold, and a steady stream of clients.

Lavalette ran his network through Martinique’s most powerful merchant firms: the commissionnaires. In Le Parfait Négociant, Jacques Savary described commissionnaires as common features in French commercial towns, where they transferred goods between modes of transportation and offered basic financial services such as writing or paying out of bills of exchange. They handled domestic trade in contrast to a true négociant who operated on an international scale. The seventeenth-century nun Marie de l’Incarnation waxed nostalgic of her youth in Tours helping to load horses onto ships with her commissionnaire brother-in-law.492

Martinique’s commissionnaires held a much more specialized role as commodity wholesalers and intermediaries between outside merchants and island planters. Rural planters kept accounts with commissionnaire houses in St. Pierre who would sell their sugar for necessary supplies, charging a 5% commission on their transactions. They controlled Martinique’s economy to an extent unique in the French Caribbean. Their warehouses edging the gentle curve of Saint-Pierre’s bay gave the town its position as the Îles du Vent’s the commercial hub and the transit point between transatlantic and inter-island trade networks. The clustering of the commissionnaires in one location provided captains bound for the region with a one-stop shop for their cargoes, in contrast to those bound for Saint-Domingue who cruised the coast bartering at every village and coastal plantation. Planters on Guadeloupe, Dominica, or the Atlantic side

490 Cheney, Revolutionary Commerce, 22. 491 May, Histoire économique, 135. 492 Henri Hauser, “Le ‘Parfait négociant’ de Jacques Savary,” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale, 1925, 14–16.

146

of Martinique would ship their produce to Saint-Pierre, extending the commissionnaires’ influence across the Lesser Antilles. The commissionnaires’ central location thus considerably shortened turn-around times. Planters likewise did not have to wait for the arrival of merchant ships each winter to restock with necessities but could instead buy from the commissionnaires year-round. Commissionnaires also augmented the colony’s money supply by acquiring cheap coins in Europe and transporting them to the specie-starved islands, making them ideal operators for Lavalette’s arbitrage system. Commissionnaires thus made colonial trade more efficient and created flexibility in the supply of goods to both planters and merchants.493

These benefits came with downsides. Their position at the center of the islands’ geographically centralized economy gave the commissionnaires a strangle-hold over the island’s credit market. In 1754, 4 million livres rested on their books and 25 to 30 million livres went through their hands annually. Planters who lived away from Saint-Pierre had little choice but to buy their goods from the commissionnaires, thus racking up debts which could never be paid.

Planters and colonial officials alike often complained that everyone on the island was in debt to them. Commissionnaires also marked up the goods they handled, usually by fifteen percent.

These tactics earned them a reputation similar to that of Parisian financiers: parasites who jacked up prices and profited from the debts of others. The Marquis de Caylus colorfully described them as “a species of bloodsucker” and “fellows of bad faith.” Despite this importance to

Martinique’s economy, Richard Pares and Kenneth Banks have observed that we know little about these firms individually, or even how many there were, since the complaints which appear in the archival record are levied against the commissionnaires as a faceless mass. 494 Lavalette

493 Historians of Martinique have portrayed the commissionnaires as unique to the island. They must not have read Savary or the literature on other port towns. Pares, War and Trade, 187 and 336–37; Banks, “Official Duplicity,” 237–38; Harms, The Diligent, 237–38; Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen, 92 and 99; May, Histoire économique, 205–11; Marion, L’administration des finances, 70–79. 494 Historians of Martinique have portrayed the commissionnaires as unique to the island. They must not have read Savary or the literature on other port towns. Pares, War and Trade, 187 and 336–37; Banks, “Official Duplicity,”

147

would use multiple commissionnaire firms to handle his dealings around the Caribbean and across the Atlantic. His relationships with them provide a useful window into who these important figures were and how they operated.

Lavalette began his network with the commissionnaire firm Grasson, Bourdeaux, &

Compagnie on Martinique (who may also have supplied the loans for his building project) and the mission procurator in Paris, Dominique de Sacy.495 Tasked with handling the affairs of the

Jesuits’ missions in Canada, China, and the Levant in addition to the Caribbean, de Sacy was unable to keep up with the flow of commercial paper coming from Martinique for payment even while the network was in its early stages. In 1752 he suggested that Lavalette transfer his

European affairs to the merchant house of Lioncy frères et Gouffre in Marseille.496 Having a merchant house handle the Society’s large transactions was standard operating procedure in

Canada, where several merchant firms provisioned the Quebec college.497 France’s second city was a logical place to anchor a currency exchange network, since ships bound from Marseille were a key source of specie for the French Caribbean. Captains often stopped in Cadiz and

Lisbon on their way across the Atlantic to top off their cargoes with coins. They already possessed a ship, the St. Pierre, which could be dedicated to the sugar and gold route. This move thus placed Lavalette’s network in hands more suited for large commercial transactions, but also removed his activities from direct Jesuit oversight.

Lavalette expanded the system further in the spring of 1753 by cultivating Abraham

Gradis to be his agent in Bordeaux. Gradis’ location would allow him to send sugar to Lioncy frères et Gouffre via the Canal du Midi, thus shortening travel times and permitting more than

237–38; Harms, The Diligent, 237–38; Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen, 92 and 99; May, Histoire économique, 205–11; Marion, L’administration des finances, 70–79. 495 Lavalette never explicitly calls Grasson, Bourdeaux & Compagnie as commissionnaires, but given the commissionnaires monopoly of Saint-Pierre’s trade it is difficult to imagine them being anything else. 496 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 84. 497 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 55.

148

one trip per year. Lavalette expected to send two thousand barriques of sugar annually along this route.498 The Gradis papers in the Archives Nationales de France show that he drew 250,000 livres on Gradis during 1753 and 1754, mostly by bills of exchange backed by his signature and the promise of future sugar shipments (Table 2). As will be discussed more fully in the next chapter, Gradis never expressed interest at Lavalette’s proposal to serve as a node in his network.

Instead, Gradis stopped accepting Lavalette’s obligations in July 1753, calling his credit into question and sending him into a rage. At Gradis insistence, Lavalette stopped by Bordeaux the following year to settle his overdrawn account.

Gradis’ questioning of Lavalette’s credit caught the priest at a difficult moment. Excerpts from Lavalette’s letters published during the scandal show the firm of Grasson, Bourdeaux, &

Compagnie to have been crumbling. In August 1753, with Grasson on a trip to Europe,

Bourdeaux became incapacitated, throwing Lavalette into fits of worry. “Bourdeaux est indisposé depuis quinze jours. Toutes les affaires languissent,” Lavalette wrote to Lioncy frères et Gouffre, “La santé de Bourdeaux est si délabrée qu’il ne peut veiller qu’à la caisse, dans laquelle il y a, malgré deux cent barriques de sucre achetées & payées, 158000 liv. Je suis sur les

épines. Avertissez Grasson, que s’il n’est pas ici en Novembre, je forme une autre Société.”499

Lavalette turned words into actions, transferring his affairs to the Protestant and Jewish commissionnaire firm of Gautier & Coën a few months later.

When Lavalette himself travelled to France in 1754 and 1755, he relied on Gautier &

Cohen to handle the Martinique side of the network. “Je laisse ici 200000 livres entre les mains de MM. Gautier & Coen,” he wrote to Lioncy frères et Gouffre on the eve of his departure, “pour

498 Lavalette to Lioncy frères et Gouffre 12 Aug 1753. Quoted in Target, Second Mémoire, 84. This amount would have worked out to 300,000-400,000 livres per year. Lavalette listed a price of 156.25 l.t. per barrique on 17 June. Descoudrelles listed a price of 200 l.t. per barrique on 21 Aug, Gradis sold Lavalette’s sugar for 181.6 l.t. per barrique in November. 499 Lavalette to Lioncy frères et Gouffre 22 Aug. 1753. Quoted in Target, 84-85.

149

vous les faire passer.” Some of these funds were earmarked to buy a ship, the Reine des Anges, which would join the St. Pierre on the sugar and gold circuit. With two ships, Lavalette expected to increase the volume and speed of transactions. “Le S. Pierre partira d’ici vers le 20

Novembre;” Lavalette predicted in October 1753, “il y aura pour le compte de la maison 300 barriques de sucre, & plus, s’il y a de a place. J’en chargerai autant sur le navire des Diant [the

Reine des Anges]. Comptez qu’il ne tiendra qu’à vous que vos navires fassent deux voyages sous les 15 mois.”500 Historians have portrayed credit relationships between merchants as being long- term and semi-permanent. Creating trust and building credit took time and effort. Moving one’s business to a different merchant house or agent was difficult.501 Lavalette, however, frequently switched commissionnaire firms and merchant houses as they became unable to serve his needs.

The value of merchandise which flowed through the arbitrage network could be astonishing. In November 1754, Lavalette wrote that Lioncy frères et Gouffre had 1.4 million livres tied up in the scheme.502 The Lioncy brothers themselves would later claim to have accepted 3.5 million livres unbacked by merchandise; trusting that the Society’s wealth made him a good credit risk.503 In 1754, Lavalette also persuaded a wealthy aristocrat, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, to invest her own money into the circuit to the tune of 300,000 livres.504 By 1755,

Lioncy frères et Gouffre had the system down to a science. Lavalette bragged to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt that they bought specie at a ten percent profit and their ships made fast enough turnaround times to allow two voyages per year.505

500 It is unclear whether the maison was the Martinique mission, Gautier & Coën, or Lioncy frères et Gouffre. Lavalette to Lioncy frères et Gouffre 23 Oct 1753 Quoted in Target, 86. 501 Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Fontaine, L’économie morale. 502 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 27 Nov. 1754. AFSI F An 17. 503 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 3-9. 504 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 14 Jan. 1755. AFSI F An 17. 505 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 27 Nov. 1754. AFSI F An 17.

150

As Lavalette’s network grew, Jesuits throughout the French Caribbean became involved as their patrons asked local missions to transfer their money to France. In 1755, Fr. Desmartez, the superior general of the Saint-Domingue mission agreed to transfer 30,000 livres for the Sieur de Kervegan of Nantes using Lavalette’s network. Desmaretz gave him bills of exchange drawn on Lavalette, which Lavalette and de Sacy arranged to have paid out by Lioncy frères et

Gouffre.506 By 1756, the Guiana and Saint-Domingue missions each had their own accounts with Lioncy frères et Gouffre.507 The other Jesuit provinces within the French assistancy also tried to dip their hands in the apparent stream of wealth flowing from Martinique. In 1672, the province of France had proposed joint responsibility for the overseas missions, but the other provinces had been unwilling to take on what they considered to be a financial drain. Once

Lavalette demonstrated that the missions could be a boon rather than a burden, they changed their tune, arguing that since all the provinces contributed missionaries, then all should share in the financial surplus. Eighteenth and nineteenth General Congregations of 1755 and 1758 discussed the question but never produced a definitive conclusion.508

Lavalette’s system in a Jesuit context

Scholars have unanimously concluded that Lavalette’s network was a form of negotiatio or “profane commerce,” citing the prohibitions against selling a good for a higher price without changing it.509 Yet as chapter 1 has argued, the Jesuits’ interpretation of this deceptively simple rule was never unified and contingent on external factors. The Roman Catholic church had long provided financial services to laymen. In places spatially or temporally outside the reach of banking institutions, the church’s sprawling networks provided a trustworthy means to transport

506 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consluter et consultation, 22-32. 507 Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres et Gouffre, 19 Feb. 1756, Archives Departementales des Bouches du Rhone (ABDR) 533 U 19. 508 Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors,” 222–23. 509 Thompson, 214–15; Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 80–81; Van Kley, Jansenists, 91–92.

151

funds across long distances. The archbishop of Red River in what would later be Manitoba,

Alexandre Taché, transferred and invested funds for the town’s residents in similar ways as

Lavalette but on a much smaller scale.510

A survey of the Society’s global economic activities likewise shows as much continuity with Lavalette’s currency transfer system as discontinuity. Provincials and procurators considered transporting the produce of Jesuit lands and herds to where they would fetch the highest prices to be shrewd business practice rather than profane commerce. In 1548, Francis

Xavier proposed to support the Moluccas mission by transporting cloth to India where its price would increase five-fold.511 The Paraguay reductions were operating well within the modus procedendi when they transported yerba mate across the Andes by mule train for sale in Chile.

The Argentine college of Córdoba even maintained agents in Salta and Potosí who would send for mules from the college’s herds when the price in those towns went up.512 Although legal in the judgement of canon law, such activities could still generate controversy. Wealthy donors in

Africa often gifted slaves to the Society. One visitor to Angola in the 1590s proposed transporting them to Brazil where they could be sold for more than their worth Africa but father general Aquaviva rejected this plan to create a Jesuit Middle Passage.513

Acting on behalf of externs (non-Jesuits) put Lavalette on shaky ground. Loyola had cautioned his followers to keep their distance from figures of authority, ordering them in the

Constitutions not to regularly visit them except for spiritual purposes.514 General congregations expounded this warning, specifically banning the Society’s members from overseeing outsiders’

510 Raymond Joseph Armand Huel, Archbishop A.-A. Taché of St. Boniface: The “Good Fight” and the Illusive Vision (Edmonton, Alta., Canada: University of Alberta Press, 2003), 55–57. 511 Alden, Enterprise, 528–29. 512 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 165-70. 513 Alden, Enterprise, 544–45. 514 Jesuits, Ignatius, and George E Ganss, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), Part VI Chapter 2 Section 9.

152

legal and financial affairs. “Ours are not to cultivate familiarity with princes to the detriment of spiritual welfare and religious discipline” the fifth General Congregation decreed in 1594, “and they should not become engaged in other secular matters, even though connected with the particular affairs of relatives, friends, or anyone else, unless perchance in the judgement of superiors charity might occasionally dictate otherwise.”515 This decree must not have been followed, since twenty years later the seventh General Congregation saw fit to reiterate “that

Ours are to be emphatically and strongly forbidden to become involved, under any pretext, in legal transactions involving the businesses of relatives or any externs; and they are not to take on any responsibility for administering the possessions of such people.”516 Fathers general interpreted exchanging, transporting, or investing money on behalf of externs as falling squarely within these prohibitions. Such activities were considered unfitting for those of a religious state and opened the Society up to potential scandal. Rome banned Jesuits in Asia from buying pearls or diamonds on behalf of outsiders and frowned upon sending gifts back to European patrons.517

Those in Goa were barred from exchanging Spanish reales for local currency or accepting deposits for third parties despite arguments that such services constituted charity to those burned by local bankers and loan sharks.518 Lavalette’s currency exchange network was a breach of these prohibitions.

In practice, however, the Society’s members and institutions developed close connections to powerful patrons and were not averse to offering financial and legal services. Jesuits in the

Portuguese empire operated as trustees, paying out crown stipends to colonial beneficiaries and executing the wills of those who died overseas.519 The rector of Daman college in India acted as

515 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 201. 516 O’Keefe et al., 252.. 517 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 61–66. 518 Borges, 58. 519 Alden, Enterprise, 336.

153

royal treasurer, accepting deposits on the crown’s behalf.520 The college of Santo Antão in

Lisbon held deposits worth 3 million reals for six people.521 Alexander Crookshanks, the

English province’s procurator, served as the Paris agent and correspondent for Maryland’s

Carroll family until the Jesuits’ expulsion from France in the 1760s.522 Lavalette’s compatriots in the French Caribbean provided similar services without raising eyebrows. When Îles du Vent’s intendant, the sieur d’Orgeville, died in 1739, the superiors general of Martinique and Saint-

Domingue assisted in settling the estate for his widow at Maurepas’s behest. They met with the merchants and state officials, handled paperwork, and arranged to have d’Orgeville’s successor,

César-Marie de la Croix, send what funds the Jesuits could procure across the Atlantic via bills of exchange. Like Lavalette, they attempted to get the best exchange rate they could for Madame d’Orgeville, who wanted the money to be transferred at par. De la Croix, however, insisted that he could only do so at a twenty-five percent loss, which was close to what Lavalette received for sugar.523

Jesuits across the world also transported specie on behalf of laymen in ways similar to

Lavalette’s network. Argentine Jesuits sent silver to Europe from Buenos Aires and Córdoba in exchange for goods that could be sold for a profit in Buenos Aires; a system which was always controversial. Father general Claudio Aquaviva had initially prohibited the transportation of

American silver to Europe, requiring specie shipments be approved by the superior general and a list of the metal’s owners be forwarded to Rome. His successors reversed this decision at the end

520 Borges, Goa Jesuits, 61. 521 Alden, Enterprise, 544–55. 522 Ronald Hoffman, Sally D. Mason, and Darcy, eds., Dear Papa, Dear Charley : The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with Sundry Observations on Bastardy, Child-Rearing, Romance, Matrimony, Commerce, Tobacco, Slavery, and the Politics of Revolutionary America, vol. 1 (Chapel Hill : Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, and the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis; University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 304. 523 de Larnage and Maillart to Maurepas, 5 Oct 1741 ANOM COL Series C9A 54. Maurepas to Champigny and de la Croix, 11 Feb. 1740, ANOM COL Series B 70. Champigny and de la Croix to Maurepas, 25 May 1741 and 22 Apr. 1742, ANOM COL Series C8A 53 fol. 89 and 54 fol. 47.

154

of the seventeenth century, however, when the province argued that it required regular infusions of American silver to maintain its European investments. In 1697, Fr. Nicolás de Mirabel caused much embarrassment in Rome and Madrid when he attempted to send 347,000 pesos in silver from Peru to Spain as a favor to friendly merchants. More daring than Lavalette, Mirabel had the audacity to place the silver-laden chest in the personal luggage of a returning viceroy to avoid customs duties. Authorities confiscated the chest upon its discovery in Portobello and threw

Mirabel into a Cadiz prison. The provincial in Peru attempted to find the names of the merchants in order to return the money but the death of the provincial procurator who had made the initial arrangements prevented restitution.524 Father general Franz Retz once again banned the

American silver shipments in 1736 when he received word that two Argentine Jesuits had made a considerable profit selling 35,000 pesos worth of goods in Buenos Aires which they had acquired in Europe for silver. “I am saddened and I am not surprised at the reputation we have.” he wrote,

“To see two Jesuits leave for Europe in order to collect missionaries to convert the heathen, and have them return as merchants loaded with goods brought in Europe!”525

While the transatlantic silver trade aroused Rome’s ire, the fathers general maintained a more benevolent attitude towards the Macao silver trade which flourished in the decades before and after 1600. Jesuits in China and Japan were quick to take advantage of the Chinese demand for silver from Japan’s mines, profitably transporting it from Nagasaki to Macao in exchange for silk. Always controversial, this trade was nevertheless sanctioned by the papacy and the

Portuguese crown as a pragmatic funding solution for the Society’s East Asian provinces.526

Like Lavalette, the Jesuits in Macao transported specie as a favor to Christian daimyos

(noblemen). The priests involved considered the exchange as necessary for maintaining the

524 Cushner, Lords of the Land, 178. 525 Quoted in Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 150-51. 526 Alden, Enterprise, 531–38; Brockey, The Visitor, 328.

155

loyalty of Japanese converts, but local provincials and procurators worried that it destroyed discipline and opened the Society up to scandal. “It is indeed true that we have been investing silver on behalf of laymen,” procurator Carlo Spinola complained in 1613, “and that they in turn have been investing our silver. The padres are engaged in this type of trade so that they can arbitrarily spend the money...disregarding the procurator as if it were game they killed with their own spear. The padres came to be immersed in moneymaking.”527 Aquaviva and his successors, however, do not appear to have spoken against this trade.

Lavalette was thus not alone in ignoring the prohibitions of Loyola and the general congregations regarding the affairs of outsiders. Fathers general had occasionally permitted, or at least turned a blind eye to, similar activities in Argentina and Macao. Rome’s formal approval made the otherwise illicit Maconese and Argentine silver trades licit. Lavalette sought similar legitimacy. He received Rome’s stamp of approval for his plans in 1748, yet this would have been for his plantation expansion program rather than the currency network which was still at least two years in the future. For the next several years, his European superiors would continue to give their tacit support to his undertakings, yet their surprise when his system collapsed imply that he kept his European superiors in the dark about the full scope of his activities. Lavalette’s

“Mémoire Justificatif” makes no mention of the money transfer system but portrays him as a planter whose debts came from his infrastructural improvements; a silence which shows his actions would not have been well received. But as long as he brought new monies into the mission without hurting the Society’s reputation, they showed little interest in scrutinizing his actions.

527 Quoted in Alden, Enterprise, 536–37.

156

The Long-Term Viability of Lavalette’s Network

Despite the paucity of sources, there is much evidence that the arbitrage network absorbed people’s funds, but precious few examples of it paying out. The most successful transaction, Jacques Cazotte’s 33,000 livres tournois, drawn in 1751, is also the earliest for which we have records. Lavalette’s bills on Gradis drawn in 1752 and 1753 were paid out to their recipients only after much wrangling and negotiation. Following these transactions, there are no other examples of Lavalette’s creditors being satisfied without extraordinary borrowing on the part of the Paris Jesuits. Writing bills of exchange was easy; supplying the sugar to back them was difficult. Lavalette promised Gradis 60,000 livres in sugar but only delivered 77 barriques worth less than a quarter of the amount owed.528 Lioncy frères et Gouffre, who should have been the closest to the stream of profits, instead found themselves dangerously overextended when the war hit. Since Lavalette’s account books do not exist, we will never know what he did with the gold, sugar, animals, and human beings that his clients gave him. The glimpses we do have imply that he was constantly borrowing to discharge other debts, constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Instead of paying out returns, Lavalette tapped every source of credit he could find in an ever-expanding search for fresh infusions of cash: various Jesuit provinces, the notaries of Paris, and wealthy friends all made gifts or loans to him between 1750 and 1755. While in France during 1754, Lavalette drew 200,000 livres on Lioncy frères et Gouffre and visited Mlle.

Beuvron d’Harcourt, who deeded 110,000 livres to him from her account with Gradis and granted him a pension of 1,200 livres. 529 A further 200,000 livres came from the notaries of Paris

528 About 14,000 livres reached Gradis. See Lavalette to Gradis, 17 June 1753 AN 181 AQ/76 48 and the balance sheets in AN 181 AQ/76 51. 529 The pension is referred to in Lavalette to Le Forestier 29 Oct 1754. ARSI GAL 114 fol. 14. The deed can be found in AN AQ 181/76 46.

157

at three percent interest.530 In the absence of banks or venture capitalists, notaries functioned as intermediaries who brokered loans and matched borrowers to lenders. Some of the larger notaries even began illicitly lending out the deposits given to them by clients, leading to several spectacular mid-century bankruptcies and a crackdown by the Châtelet court in the 1760s.531 “F.

Lavalette departed Marseille and then afterwards Bordeaux, everywhere accepting money to exchange….” Fr. Griffet recalled to father general Ricci in 1761.”532

According to Gillian Thompson, who has reconstructed much of Lavalette’s finances, the

Jesuits themselves provided the bulk of his funds, between 600,000 and 1 million livres. These came from Lavalette’s home province of Toulouse, the neighboring province of Champagne, and the English province of the Jesuits. Lavalette negotiated this last transfer of 80,000 livres with

Alexander Crookshanks, a Scot newly arrived in Paris as the procurator of the English and

Scottish missions. Britain’s flourishing stock exchange provided the English province with a wider array of investment opportunities than the government income which most provinces used.

During the eighteenth century, it had lost money in the South Sea Company and placed what funds it recovered in the Royal Exchange Assurance. To avoid Britain’s anti-Catholic legislation, wealthy Catholic families handled the funds on the province’s behalf, an arrangement rife with opportunities for embezzlement or mismanagement.533 The successful trade network of a fellow

Jesuit must have appeared a god-sent investment opportunity. By 1762, the English province would invest 1,740,000 livres or around 80,000 pounds sterling in Lavalette’s debt at an interest

530 Lavalette to Gradis, 7 Jan 1754. AFSI F An 16. 531 Notaries sold three types of financial instruments: obligations (short term loans with fixed timetables), rentes perpétuelles (roughly equivalent to our perpetual annuity), and rentes viagères (roughly equivalent to a life annuity). Although it is unclear what types of loans Lavalette received, it was most likely a series of rentes, as they could be bought and sold over long distances where obligations’ short terms limited their geographic scope. Philip T Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Priceless Markets: The Political Economy of Credit in Paris, 1660-1870 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 532 “P. Lavalette profectus est Massiliam ac deinde Burdigalam, ubique pecuniam mutuo accipiens... Deindè triumphans in Martinicam rediit” Griffet to Ricci 7 July 1761. Quoted on Rochemonteix 114. 533 Holt, English Jesuits, 146–49.

158

rate of five percent.534 Lavalette also leveraged connections from his home province of

Toulouse. The provincial, Fr. St. Martin, loaned him 300,000 livres from the province and

90,000 livres from the college of Montpellier in return for “Service à un college.”535

Jesuits frowned on moving funds across provincial lines. Decrees of the second (1565) and third (1573) general congregations barred the Society’s provincials from using the donations collected in one province for projects in another, but the sixth general congregation (1608) removed this requirement when the Roman College became dependent on extra-Roman support.536 In rare instances, provinces acquired funds from another assistancy, such as when the

Procurator of the vice-province of China in the Portuguese assistancy acquired alms from Manila and New Spain in the Spanish assistancy.537 Eventually, these internal and external sources would have been exhausted. Where these sums went is still a mystery. Some of the funds must have gone to the costs of shipping and insurance. Others went to gifts and favors, such as a new story for the professed house in Rome, which Lavalette’s reputation for wealth forced him to provide in order to maintain his crédit amongst his superiors. These outlays would have eaten further into his bottom line. In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” Lavalette blamed his losses on the hurricanes, British privateers, and epidemics which ravaged the mission during the Seven Years’

War. He promised everyone that their payment was just over the horizon, but as the early 1750s moved to their midpoint, that horizon receded further and further into the future.

534 For a more thorough analysis of Lavalette’s borrowing while in France, see Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors”; Holt, “Fatal Mortgage.” 535 Lavalette to Le Forestier, 29 Oct. 1754 ARSI GAL 114 fol. 14 536 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 118, 141, 149–50, 219–20. 537 Alden, Enterprise, 644.

159

Chapter 5: Cultivating Crédit

The years 1753 through 1755 were Lavalette’s apogee. His success as procurator had become, in the words of a later Jesuit writer, “la source de cette haute réputation qui a rendu son nom & son crédit si célèbre dans l’Europe & le Nouveau Monde.”538 His network reached the largest extent during this period, with the Reine des Anges and the St. Pierre making regular trips across the Atlantic and his bills of exchange circulating through France’s port cities. The father general, Ignazio Visconti, promoted him to superior general of the Îles du Vent mission in the spring of 1753, giving him complete control over the mission’s affairs and removing him from local oversight. His direct superior was now the provincial in Paris, Fr. Germain Mathurin Le

Forestier. Where the previous chapter described the growth of Lavalette’s network in concrete terms of sugar and gold, this chapter will look at Lavalette’s mastery of ancien régime credit.

The 1762 Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française defined “crédit” in both economic

(“Réputation où l’on est d’être solvable & de bien payer, qui est cause qu’on trouve aisément à emprunter”) and courtly (“autorité, pouvoir, considération”) terms.539 Lavalette mastered both of these aspects of credit, leveraging his reputation to generate thousands of livres in loans and utilizing powerful connections in both the Society and the state to confound an investigation by the Marine secretary into his activities.

Laurence Fontaine has argued that “une certaine manière de se présenter physiquement et une certaine construction morale de la personnalité” were vital to appearing trustworthy and securing credit within early modern merchant communities.540 Lavalette possessed these qualities in spades. The provincial procurator in Paris, Antoine de Montigny, who never met

Lavalette but knew members of his circle, described him as being “d’un caractère actif,

538 Lettres sur les opérations, 9. 539 Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française Accessed 29 June 2016. http://dvlf.uchicago.edu/mot/cr%C3%A9dit 540 Fontaine, L’économie morale, 281.

160

insinuant, porté naturellement à obliger.”541 De Sacy recalled that he was as one of “ces hommes rares avec qui l’on vit volontiers, qu’on goûte toujours de plus en plus, & dont on ne se sépare jamais qu’avec un extrême regret.”542 One of Lavalette’s fellow missionaries on Martinique,

François Marchal, described him to Rome as being “very strong in character….clever, industrious and observant in managing business. He thrives with a robust bodily constitution.

He has much zeal of spirit….”543 This magnetic personality worked wonders amongst

Martinique’s merchant community and administrative elite but was less useful on a transatlantic scale where vast distances precluded face-to-face interactions.

The vagaries and risks of oceanic trade forced merchants took great care when extending credit entrusting goods. Pierre Gervais has likened the early modern merchant networks to carefully constructed cartels or “trading rings” bound by links of information exchange and mutual usefulness.544 Membership in the merchant community, and access to its reputation- based credit, meant earning the confiance of the group, a word which Fontaine has parsed as

“s’assurer, face à la violence des crises du crédit, du soutien bienveillant de ceux avec lesquels on partage des relations d’affaires.”545 Merchants secured this confiance by trading with people they knew; usually family members and coreligionists. Reputation, Fontaine argues, was the most effective way in which merchants policed the community, with a negative reputation serving as a punishment that ostracized dangerous elements. Forming recognized partnerships and companies (sociétés) not only allowed merchants to pool capital, but further created trust

541 Antoine de Montigny. “Mémoire pour les Jésuites de France condamnes solidairement par une sentence des juges et consuls de Paris du 30 Janvier 1760, a payer la somme de 30,000 l. dues en vertu d’une lettre de change tirée par le P. Lavalette, supérieur des Missions aux Îles du Vent,” Archives de la Province de France de la Société de Jesus (AFSI) F AN 18, 19. 542 Quoted in Jean-Baptiste Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer pour le syndic des créanciers des sieurs Lioncy freres & Gouffre, négocians à Marseille…. (Paris : Charles Maurice d’Houry, 1761), 119-21. 543 ARSI GAL 114 I f. 1-4. 544 Gervais, “Mercantile Credit.” 545 Fontaine, L’économie morale, 292.

161

through the promise that their actions would be legally enforceable by the ancien régime’s courts.546

Lavalette’s relationship with the Bordeaux merchant, Abraham Gradis provides the best window into how he secured trust from a merchant on the other side of the ocean. As Francesca

Trivellato and others have studied, connections across religious and cultural divides were ubiquitous in the early modern world.547 The Jewish Gradis and Jesuit Lavalette were an example of this cross-cultural transaction since they shared neither religion nor kinship ties.

They never entered into a formal partnership and only met face-to-face once to settle their accounts before parting ways. His relationship with Gradis would only last for eighteen months, yet it is disproportionately well documented relative to the fragments left behind by Lioncy frères et Gouffre.548 These sources have not been used for previous studies of the “Lavalette affair.” Due to his position as head of a large Bordeaux merchant house and the vast cache of papers he left behind, Gradis is the most studied merchant in eighteenth-century France and is often taken as representative of the larger merchant community, giving a case study of his relationship with Lavalette added relevance.549

In contrast to the horizontal “trading rings” among the merchants described by Gervais, the patron-client chains among state officials and courtiers examined by Sharon Kettering, Sarah

Chapman, and Kenneth Banks were distinctly hierarchical constructions in which strategically placed patrons used their crédit to procure favors (usually positions) for lower-level clients in

546 See Forestier, “Commercial Organization”; Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Hancock, Citizens of the World; Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers. 547 Francesca Trivellato et al., Religion and Trade: Cross-Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 548 Gradis account book, balance sheets from the settling of his accounts with Lavalette, and ten letters from Lavalette are located in the Fonds Gradis 181 AQ in Pierrefit-sur-Seine. A further 23 letters from Lavalette, Descoudrelles, Du Pradel, and Guillin at the Archives Provinciales de la Société de Jésus (AFSI) in Vanves, Series F An 16. The letters in the AFSI collection were discovered in Spain in 1899 and sent to Vanves. 549 Maupassant, Abraham Gradis; Richard Menkis, “The Gradis Family of Eighteenth-Century Boreaux: A Social and Economic Study” (Brandeis University, 1988); Gervais, “Mercantile Credit.”

162

exchange for loyalty and a secure powerbase.550 Determined by an individual’s “reputation, rank, title and family name, wealth, officeholding, clients, and patrons” crédit was a form of social capital which could be lost, won, traded, or extended to others.551 Access to powerful patrons in France allowed colonial officials to influence decisions in France on behalf of themselves or their clients in the colonies. These competing client chains also impaired the metropolitan state’s ability to present a united front and shape colonial policy. By co-opting the impersonal institutions of the state through interpersonal connections, they undermined the ideal of a smooth-functioning bureaucracy.552 Lavalette’s close connections with Martinique’s administrators, and the Society’s connections at court, created just such an alternative power block and gave him the crédit to confound the Marine secretary’s investigation into his activities.

Promotion

Lavalette’s reputation received a boost when in May 1753, the newly elected (1751) father general, Ignazio Visconti, appointed Lavalette as the new superior general and apostolic prefect of the Îles du Vent mission. This position made him the mission’s spiritual and temporal head, reporting only to his superiors in France. Lavalette would replace Guillaume Guillin, the sixty–five-year-old superior general of the Îles du Vent missions, who had served faithfully in the post for eighteen years. Age and ill health finally drove him to divest himself of this responsibility. Jesuit practice required superiors general to be appointed by the father general with the recommendation of the provincial in Paris, Mathurin Germain Le Forestier. Lavalette was one of several candidates whose names Guillin and another Martinican priest, Fr. François

550 Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients; Chapman, Private Ambition and Political Alliances; Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea. 551 Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients, 43. 552 The position and influence of the maitresse en titre is exemplary in creating a center of power and influence nominally outside the state. See Crowston’s overview of eighteenth-century critiques of credit in Credit, fashion, sex, and Banks’ chapter “Authority’s Fragmented Voice” in Chasing Empire Across the Sea.

163

Marchal, forwarded to Rome for consideration. Their notes on Lavalette reveal their respect for his potential but also prescient worries about his flaws.

Guillin emphasized Lavalette’s business acumen. He had “vigilance and fortitude in managing business, certainly it seems he would govern by humane and political reason and would care more for temporal things than spiritual [things].” However, his impetuousness was cause for alarm. “Whatever thing is taken up, add that he is more confident than right, and so by nature he would arrange things so that each day he would take up new things unless a prudent superior provides a limitation through admonitions.” Even if Lavalette’s impulsive and opportunistic leadership benefited the mission financially, “nevertheless,” he prophesied “it would always be involved in foreign moneys.”553 By this point, Lavalette’s currency system had been operational for at least a year and the other members of the mission had begun to notice his close relationships with the island’s elites. Marchal’s judgment was more rounded, considering these connections with the authorities to be an asset. “He is beloved by the secular powers, from whom he often solicits help to happy success in various calamities.” However, “maturity in those qualities [necessary for a superior] somehow seems to be somewhat wanting. He is clever, but excessively lively, and sometimes somewhat harsh. He is industrious and wise when doing things, but sometimes quite turbulent. He seems to me to plan excessively, nor is he always restrained by just limits.”554 Both Guillin and Marchal ultimately recommended against

Lavalette’s immediate advancement. Instead, they called for a seasoning period of several years which would allow him to gain the maturity necessary for such an office. Le Forestier, however, recommended Lavalette for the post based on his renown as savior of the mission’s finances, a recommendation which Visconti endorsed.555 Lavalette’s reputation thus opened doors for him

553 ARSI GAL 114 I f. 5-8. 554 ARSI GAL 114 I f. 1-4. That Lavalette’s wanting in maturity at age 45 speaks volumes about his character. 555 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 57–58.

164

within the Jesuit hierarchy. The promotion enhanced his credit overseas by providing firm evidence that the Society backed his activities. “Son crédit augmenta prodigieusement par cette nouvelle dignité” a Jesuit in Paris reported after the scandal.556 The post of superior general also gave him more freedom to maneuver, since the nearest oversight was now across the Atlantic in

Paris.

Abraham Gradis

At mid-century, David Gradis et fils was one of the most powerful merchant firms in

Bordeaux. The beneficiary of two generations in Atlantic trade, the Jewish Abraham Gradis (the fils in David Gradis et fils) maintained a sterling reputation for probity and connections with members of the Marine bureaucracy. Relatives in the West Indies, most notably the Mendez family, anchored a lively trade in Caribbean sugar and coffee.557 Carefully cultivated contacts in the Marine administration produced naval supply contracts which allowed him to ride out the mid-eighteenth century wars.558 During the 1750s, over a million livres per year flowed across the firm’s books.559

A key node in Gradis’ network of Parisian contacts was Louise-Angélique-de-la-Croix,

Madmoiselle de Beuvron, a member of the aristocratic d’Harcourt family. Aged fifty-five in

1754, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt defies historiographical expectations. She was a member of the noblesse de robe, yet never married or entered a convent. She involved herself in Atlantic trade networks yet was not a merchant’s widow, as most female merchants were. Her nephew, Anne-

François d’Harcourt had married Marie-Catherine Rouillé, the only daughter of the newly appointed Secretary of State for the Marine, in 1749, making her family a strategic avenue of

556 Lettres sur les operations, 12. 557 Richard Menkis, “Patriarchs and Patricians: The Gradis Family of Eighteenth-Century Bordeaux,” in From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750-1870, by Frances Malino and David Jan Sorkin (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA: B. Blackwell, 1991), 173–75; Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 21. 558 Menkis, “Patriarchs and Patricians,” 183–87; Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 26–27. 559 For an analysis of Gradis’ trade during the 1750s, see Gervais, “Mercantile Credit.”

165

contact between Gradis and the Marine.560 From 1751 onwards, Gradis stayed at her house on the Rue du Bac during his trips to Paris and the two maintained a near-daily correspondence until her death in 1762. She must have quickly won his confiance, since Gradis let her manage his vineyard of Capet and oversee the sale of its wines.561 She appears in Gradis’ registre de comptabilité forty-one times between September 1751 and November 1754.562 Gradis sent her wholesale shipments of wine and mineral water through the firm of Horutener & fils in Rouen and arranged the shipment of stationary, medicine, and a “hospital d’Etain” to her from his contacts in Holland.563 At least once he signed over his share in a voyage to her.564 They regularly exchanged payments of between 5,000 and 10,000 livres tournois through accounts with the Paris firm of Tourton & Baur and a “Mr. La Salle.”565 Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt also maintained relationships with colonial officials. In 1751, Gradis billed her for the transport of

295 “monnaie de Portugal” to Hurson on Martinique, indicating that she was involved in state specie shipments to the Caribbean.566 She may have been a prête-nom or accommodation party who lent their name and credit to the transactions of colonial or state officials.567 Aged fifty-four in 1753, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt suffered from toothaches and “fluxions naissantes” and would die eight years later in 1762.568

560 François-Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye Des Bois, Dictionnaire de la noblesse, contenant les généalogies, l’histoire et la chronologie des familles nobles de France,.... (Schlesinger Frères, 1866), 319–22. 561 Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 45–46. 562 For comparison, Lavalette has 31 entries during the same period (excluding the 18 June 1754 settling of accounts, which consisted of 10 entries). 563 Stationary: 25 Feb 1752. Hospital: 4 June 1753. Medicine: 2 Aug 1753. AN 181 AQ/6. 564 This was a “Grosse Aventure” to Cadiz in partnership with Joseph Masson & Cie. Entries for 19 Jan 1753 and 29 May 1754. AN 181 AQ/6. 565 Possibly Gradis’s Paris correspondents Salles & Cie. Payments occurred five times with Tourton & Baur and four with Mr. La Salle during the above mentioned period. For typical entries, see 24 Nov 1751 and 27 Mar 1752. AN 181 AQ/6. For more on Gradis’s relationship with Salle & Cie, see Gervais, “Mercantile Credit.” 566 Entry 10 Sept 1751. AN 181 AQ/6. 567 Accomodation parties signed bills of exchange for less creditworthy parties in order to make the bills more marketable. The less credit worthy party was expected to handle the actual payment of the bill but the accommodation party could be held liable if the bill failed. Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 217–19. 568 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 30 Nov 1754. AFSI F An 17. Bois, Dictionnaire de la noblesse, contenant les généalogies, l’histoire et la chronologie des familles nobles de France,...., 320.

166

Lavalette used intermediaries to make the initial connection and win Gradis’ confiance.

Charles Grasson, one of the commissionnaires who handled Lavalette’s commercial affairs on

Martinique, contacted Gradis while on a voyage to France. “Vous avez sans doutte conferé avec

Charles Grasson,” Lavalette wrote to Gradis on 17 June 1753, “Il vous aura dit ma façon d’operer- j’ai agi en consequence et j’ai tiré sur vous a termes eloignés. Il est inutile de vous dire ici quel sont les avantages que je trouve dans cette façon de travailler. Grasson vous les aura fait sentir et l’experience que j’en ay me la fait coutumer.”569 Lavalette also shared acquaintances with Gradis, making him less of a stranger upon contact. Lioncy frères et Gouffre appears in

Gradis’ account book three times during 1752 and there is evidence that Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt knew Lavalette while he was studying theology at Louis-le-Grand.570

With the introduction made, Lavalette wrote a flurry of bills on Gradis in early 1753.

The common merchant practice was to send sugar first followed by the bills of exchanged drawn on it. Lioncy frères et Gouffre would later claim that they initially only accepting bills of exchange for which Lavalette had sent them sugar in advance. However, as Lavalette demonstrated his trustworthiness by quickly paying off small sums, they began to accept ever larger obligations and pay out bills in advance of sugar shipments. They later explained that the constant flow of sugar and gold through the system provided security against whatever debts fell due.571 With Gradis, however, Lavalette sent the bills first with promises that sugar would follow. During his first six months of corresponding with Gradis (January to June 1753)

Lavalette drew fourteen bills of exchange totaling over 100,000 livres; six of which were for

569 Lavalette to Gradis 17 June 1753. AN 181 AQ /76 46. 570 Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 44. Jean de Maupassant states that they were acquianted during his theology training but does not provide evidence. Lavalette also corresponded with Bordeaux merchants named Jaque and Verdier prior to contacting Gradis, although it is unlikely that the connection came through them. 571 They may have been overemphasizing their conservatism to make themselves sound prudent following the collapse of Lavalette’s network. Jean Lioncy and Charlemagne La Lourcé, Mémoire à consulter pour Jean Lioncy...., 3-9.

167

more than two years (Table 4.1).572 In contrast, the Dominican house on Martinique, which also maintained an account with Gradis, drew only one bill of exchange for 10,000 livres on Gradis in the two years between October of 1752 and October of 1754. The Dominicans’ other transactions (they appear in his account book seven times) never exceed 4,000 livres, demonstrating just how far Lavalette’s commercial activities were outside the norm for

Martinique’s religious houses. The notation in Gradis’ account book implies that he conceived of his relationship as being with Lavalette individually rather than the Martinique mission or the

Society of Jesus as a whole. Lavalette’s account was listed under his name as “RP LaValette” while the Dominicans’ account was held in the collective name of “Les RP de la Mission des

Precheurs [sic] de St Pierre a la Martinique” or “Les RP Jacobins” with individuals only being named in the notes on each transaction.

As his unredeemed bills mounted, Lavalette attempted to placate Gradis with declarations of loyalty (“Vous pouvez être persuadé que nous y répondrons et que votre confiance ne sera jamais trompé”) and grounded himself in the mission (“Vous avez confiance en moy et dans notre maison a la tete du temporel de la quelle je me trouve”).573 He also named references who would vouch for his trustworthiness. These included Descoudrelles, a Martinican planter who also had accounts with Gradis, and Martinique’s governor and intendant, Bompar and Hurson.574

Lavalette’s words were not enough to mollify Gradis. In mid-June, he sent letters of his own to

Descoudrelles and Hurson asking after Lavalette’s creditworthiness.575 A month later, Gradis asked Lavalette for proof that the mission’s consult, which was supposed to approve all large

572 Not all of these were bills of exchange. Lavalette instructed Gradis to pay 2000 livres to a “Veronique Vincent” and 220 livres to a “Mademoiselle Cresols” (possibly related to the Cresols from whom he bought the Grand Bay plantation) without writing bills of exchange. AN 181 AQ/76 48. 573 Lavalette to Gradis, 17 June 1753, AN 181 AQ/76 46. Lavalette to Gradis, 19 May 1753. AN 181 AQ/76 46. 574 Lavalette to Gradis, 16 July 1753, AFSI F AN 16. 575 They have not survived. Descoudrelles lists these letters in his 30 Aug letter to Gradis. AFSI, F AN 16.

168

transactions, had signed off on their procurator’s activities.576 Gradis was beginning to doubt whether the Society stood behind Lavalette’s debts.

By mid-July Lavalette’s obligations upon Gradis were reaching 150,000 livres. Pierre

Gervais has noted that accounts with outstanding negative balances, even extremely large ones, were not uncommon in early-modern merchant account books. The accounts of Gradis’ notary,

Jean Perrens, and the intendant of New France, François Bigot, carried negative balances of nearly 80,000 livres and 43,000 livres respectively during the summer of 1755. That Gradis would advance them such sums bespeaks Gradis’ confiance and their utility to him. Both

Perrens and Bigot formed vital links in his state commissions for provisioning Canada (Perrens also functioned as a local supplier of dry goods). Each had a successful history of trading with

Gradis (since 1748 in the case of Bigot) and handling large sums. The negative balances in their accounts represented temporary interruptions and were paid off before the end of the year.577

Lavalette’s debt was much larger than those of Perrens and Bigot. He was not a vital part of

Gradis’ larger networks in Canada or the Caribbean. He could not draw upon a history of successful transactions with Gradis and offered little prospect of payment except words. As a result, sometime in mid-July of 1753 Gradis stopped accepting and paying out Lavalette’s bills of exchange. Lavalette’s reputation had initially been worth significant sums, but his credit with

Gradis had reached its limit.

This cutting off of Lavalette’s credit ironically occurred as news of his promotion to superior general augmented his reputation within the merchant community. With this news in hand (de Sacy sent it at the beginning of June) and while news of Gradis’ doubts was still filtering across the Atlantic, Lavalette spent the months of July and August writing bills of

576 Gradis refered to the consult as a chapter. Lavalette to Gradis, 28 Aug. 1753, AN 181AFSI F AN 16. 577 Since Bigot and Perrens’ accounts remained open during the period examined, these figures represent the balance compared to the start of 1755, rather than each account’s total balance. Gervais, “Mercantile Credit,” 709-710.

169

exchange for a further 103,000 livres on Gradis and trying to cash in on a downturn in Caribbean sugar prices.578 Lavalette also informed Gradis that he had earmarked 60,000 livres in sugar to be put onboard Gradis’ ships Les Deux Soeurs and the Superb as payment for his bills of exchange.579 Beginning in mid-June, Lavalette continually reminded Gradis of this waiting payment and complained that the two vessels were late in arriving.580

When Lavalette heard that Gradis had denied his bills of exchange he went on the defensive. The promotion to superior general, he wrote, gave him greater power than he had previously enjoyed as procurator and no Jesuit procurator or superior general had ever been disowned.581 He rejected Gradis’ request for proof that the consult had signed off on his actions, saying that the consult was beholden to him not vice versa. “Je ne ferai pas changer la forme de notre gouvernement pour vous donner une sécurité dont il n’y a pas d’exemples chez nous.”582

Using the language of injured honor, Lavalette decried Gradis’ actions as “[un] affront à une maison la plus solide du pays et qui a toujours fait honneur a ses engagements” and claimed that

“votre crédit est trop bien établis” to treat his clients so rudely.583 Lavalette’s arguments attempted to awaken both fear and sympathy in Gradis. He threatened to divert other merchants away from Gradis, thus launching a retaliatory attack on the Jewish merchant’s reputation, while pleading that some of his bills of exchange’s beneficiaries needed the money to support their children.

Lavalette worked around Gradis’ credit freeze by using a mutual connection, the planter

Descoudrelles, as an accommodation partner or prête-nom. A prête-nom lent their name rather

578 “Les sucres on baissé ici de dix pour cent; voilà pourquoi je fais acheter à force.” he wrote to Lioncy frères et Gouffre in Marseille, ”Il y a déja plus de trois cent barriques de sucre qui attendent votre S. Pierre.” Lavalette to Lioncy frères et Gouffre, 1 Aug 1753. Quoted in Target, Second Mémoire, 83-84. 579 See Lavalette to Gradis 17 June 1753 AN 181 AQ/76 48. 580 Lavalette to Gradis 17 June 1753. AN AQ/76 46. 581 This was false although Lavalette may not have known it. Spanish procurators had been disowned on several occasions. Their debts, however, were still paid out. Lavalette to Gradis 22 and 28 Aug 1753. AFSI F An 16. 582 Lavalette to Gradis 30 Aug 1753, AFSI, F AN 16. 583 Lavalette to Gradis. 28 and 29 August 1753, AFSI, F AN 16.

170

than capital to a person or business to increase its creditworthiness.584 Descoudrelles had an established relationship with Gradis and his name appears throughout the latter’s account book.

Like Lavalette, Descoudrelles was also waiting on the Superbe to send Gradis forty barriques of sugar to pay down a balance of 8,000 livres.585 Lavalette needed to pay off his account to another Bordeaux merchant, a M. Verdier, whom he was leaving because Verdier was not as

“opulent et de credit” (Descoudrelles’ words) as Gradis.586 Descoudrelles drew a bill of exchange on his own account with Gradis for 10,000 livres payable to Verdier, but asked that the money be drawn from Lavalette’s account instead. By doing so, Descoudrelles lent his name, which Gradis was less likely to refuse, to the transaction without taking on any of the financial burden. Descoudrelles also defended Lavalette to Gradis. In a 30 August letter, he expressed himself to be angered that Gradis had asked about a house chapter and presented Lavalette’s promotion as evidence that the Society at large supported his actions. “Oui, Messieurs,”

Descoudrelles wrote, “Le R.P. Lavalette, est nommé pour remplir cette digne, grande, et respectable place, [….] La Société est contente de ses services puisqu’on la récompense de cette façon.”587

More tangible reinforcement of Lavalette’s credit arrived in November in the form of 77 barriques of sugar and two bills of exchange drawn on Lioncy frères et Gouffre together totaling almost 60,000 livres. While this sum did not come close to covering the 250,000 livres which

Lavalette had drawn by that point, the payments not only convinced Gradis to accept the rest of his bills of exchange, but to make “nouveaux offres de services.”588 To Gradis, at least,

584 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 217–19. 585 Descoudrelles further relied on a letter sent by Hurson to explain why the delay in payment was not his fault. Descoudrelles to Gradis, 21 Aug 1753 AFSI. 586 Ibid. 587 Descoudrelles to Gradis, 30 Aug 1753, AFSI, F AN 16. 588 Guillin to Gradis, 4 Mar 1754 AFSI F AN 16.

171

reputation and promises could initiate and smooth a relationship, but only material resources would maintain it.

State Investigation and Recall

Lavalette did not just use his connections on Martinique to maintain his credit with

Gradis. He also leveraged his acquaintances on Martinique to fend off an investigation by the

Secretary of State for the Marine, Antoine-Louis Rouillé, comte de Jouy. As shown in chapter 2, various Marine secretaries maintained close oversight over the temporal and spiritual activities of

Martinique’s missionaries. Rouillé was a competent administrator (James Pritchard characterizes his tenure as “a valuable period when administrative control was largely reestablished and the navy rebuilt”) and had become adroit at managing the shifting small conflicts which flared up between the missionary orders in the colonies. In 1751 and 1752, he skillfully avoided a potential clash between the Jesuits, Capuchins, and Dominicans over competing rights to perform confirmation in the islands and efficiently resolved a dispute between the Jesuits and the Brothers Hospitallers (Religieux de la Charité) on Martinique before it spread to Saint-Domingue.589

Rouillé already had his eye on misbehaving missionaries. Reports of priests engaging in commerce unfitting to their clerical state had been filtering into the Marine Secretary’s office since the 1720s. After having caught the Jesuit Fr. Boutin engaging in trade (the records are silent on the details), Saint-Domingue’s Superior Council ordered the colony’s residents “d’avoir aucune affaire temporelle avec ledit R.P. Boutin, sous peine de nullité de tous actes ou écrits.”590

589 Jean-Philippe Zanco, Dictionnaire des ministres de la marine (1689-1958) (Paris: Harmattan, 2011), 471–73; Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy, 7–8; Jonathan R Dull, The French Navy and the Seven Years’ War (Lincoln [Neb.]: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 11–12. For the altercation over confirmation, see Rouillé to Bompar and Hurson 13 and 15 Sept 1752 ANOM COL Series B 95 For the dispute with the Brothers Hospitallers see Rouillé to Comte de Conflans and de la Lane and Rouillé to Bompar and Hurson, both 12 May 1751. ANOM COL Series B 95. 590 “Arrêt du Conseil du Cap, portant que le Supérieur des Missions n’est pas responsable des faits de ses Religieux, et qui défend de faire aucune affaire avec le Pere Boutin” 2 Sept 1721, in Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, 2 :773.

172

“Je ne dois point passer sous silence dans cette Lettre,” Martinique’s intendant wrote to

Maurepas in 1725, “les Entreprises de chaque ordre de Religieux dans ces Isles qui sont des chose peu communes en Europe, et je croirois Monseigneur qu’il seroit bon d’y mettre un frein, car ils se prévalent infiniment de l’attention que l’on a pour inspirer au Peuple le respect qu’ils doivent a la Religion en leurs personnes.” The intendant Blondel de Jouvancourt observed in

1723 that paying sugar salaries directly to the priests, rather than to the order’s central

Martinique residence for distribution as was the Jesuits’ practice, led the Dominican and the

Capuchin clergy into trade. “Ils se trouvent par la” he wrote “souvent exposé dans le Commerce du monde.”591 Two years later he complained again: “Je ne dois point passer sous silence dans cette Lettre les Entreprises de chaque ordre de Religieux dans ces Isles qui sont des choses peu communes en Europe....je vous suplie de leur faire ordonner par leurs Superieurs defance d’estre dans la suite un peu moins Entreprenans.”592 Another case of clerical trade surfaced soon after

Rouillé took office. In 1751, a Dominican on Saint-Domingue, P. Jouin, requested an edict barring the colony’s missionaries “plus occupés d’amasser de l’argent que de remplir les fonctions de leur ministere” from forming “des sociétés particulieres avec des Habitans, pour des entreprises de commerce ou pour d’autres objets également contraires à la pureté & à la décence de leur état.” Rouillé decided that such a measure was unnecessary but ordered Saint-

Domingue’s governor and intendant to return priests found engaging in commerce to France.

Some visible examples of disciplinary action, he wrote, “joints aux soins que les Supérieurs doivent se donner, pourront remettre la regle, et étendre cet ésprit de cupidité qui a causé du scandale en tant d’occasions.”593 Lavalette would be that example.

591 Blondel de Jouvancourt to Conseil de la Marine. 28 June 1723. ANOM COL Series C8A 32 fol. 123. 592 Blondel de Jouvancourt to Maurepas. 15 June 1725. ANOM COL Series C8A 34 fol. 233. 593 Rouillé to Conflans and de la Lane, 29 Jan 1751. Quoted in Morau de St. Méry, Loix et Constitutions, 4:45-46

173

It is unclear what aroused Rouillé’s interest in Lavalette. When Lavalette’s commercial dealings became a public scandal in the 1760s, the Jesuits’ enemies would claim that he had been recognized buying slaves on Barbados dressed as a flibustier; a clear violation of the prohibitions against inter-imperial trade laid down the Lettres Patentes of 1717 and 1724, among other prohibitions.594 Pro-Jesuit writings blamed jealous Martinican planters threatened by Lavalette’s expanding control of the sugar and credit market.595 The official correspondence in the Archives

Nationales d’Outre Mer points to complaints of the Jesuits stealing Carib land on St. Vincent.596

Worried that possible Jesuit settlements in the ostensibly neutral islands would aggravate the already-strained tensions with the British, Rouillé ordered Martinique’s governor, the Comte de

Bompar, and intendant, Charles-Marie Hurson to report whether the Jesuits had more settlements in the disputed islands.597 Their report may have alerted him to the presence of the Dominica plantation and Lavalette’s other commercial dealings. Whatever the proximate cause, on July 20, around the same time Gradis stopped payment on Lavalette’s bills of exchange, Rouillé recalled the wayward missionary to France for investigation.

Rouillé handled Lavalette’s recall poorly from the beginning. His orders to Bompar and

Hurson arrived without explanation, context, or even the charges against Lavalette. Rather than publicize the disciplining of Lavalette as a public warning to other missionaries, as his earlier

Saint-Domingue correspondence had implied, Rouillé emphasized discretion by allowing

Lavalette’s superior (Rouillé had yet to hear of Lavalette’s promotion) to fabricate a cover story for his sudden return.598 Rouillé expected the Jesuit provincial in Paris, Fr. Germain Mathurin Le

594 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 11-12 ; Lettres sur les opérations, 33-34. 595 Antoine de Montigny, “Mémoire pour les Jésuites de France....” (1760) AFSI F An 18, fol. 29. “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette”, AFSI F An 22, fol. 4. 596 I have not found other evidence that Lavalette claimed land on Saint Vincent. It is possible that Rouillé mistook Dominica for St. Vincent. It is also unclear whether inhabitants who sent the complaint were Carib or French settlers. 597 Rouillé to Bompar and Hurson 23 May 1753 ANOM COL Series B 97. 598 Rouillé to Bompar and Hurson 20 July 1753 ANOM COL Series B 97.

174

Forestier, to handle the investigation upon Lavalette’s arrival in France, thus keeping the matter internal to the Society and avoiding scandal, but was equally vague in his instructions to Le

Forestier. This confusion resulted in resistance rather than smooth obedience.

Instead of putting Lavalette on a Europe-bound ship, Bompar and Hurson defended

Lavalette to Rouillé while awakening the Jesuits to what they saw was a miscarriage of justice.

Hurson wrote directly to Le Forestier in Paris and Visconti in Rome.599 In his letter to the father general, Hurson portrayed the investigation as motivated by “la jalousie naturelle qu’on a dans ces pays pour ceux qui méritent par leur conduite la confiance des chefs et des honnêtes gens.”

It was a threat to both Lavalette’s reputation (since “personne n’est à l’abri d’une imputation calomnieuse”) and the reputation of the Society as a whole (“Si l’on souffre tranquillement un pareil événement, vous devez vous attendre à être attaqués de même dans toutes vos Missions, et sous le même prétexte”).600 Jesuits’ reputation was linked to that of Lavalette, making an attack against one an attack against all. The commissaire aux îles, de Brande, also wrote a glowing reference letter to Le Forestier.601 This resistance was the fruit of the connections which

Lavalette had cultivated within Martinique’s administration. When Maurepas and the Marine

Council had investigated and regulated missionary land ownership in the colony during the

1720s and 1740s, they had found obedient subordinates in the colony’s governors and intendants who shared their fears of ecclesiastical overreach. Bompar and Hurson showed more loyalty to the Society than to their own superiors.

Lavalette’s superiors in Paris were already aware of the charges and had already begun defending him. As soon as he was informed of Lavalette’s recall, de Sacy warned Rouillé that

Lavalette’s promotion to superior general (a promotion based on the recommendations of

599 Bompar’s letter to Rouillé is not extant. Rouillé to Bompar 11 Jan 1754. ANOM COL Series B 99. 600 Hurson to Visconti, 29 Sept 1753, Quoted in Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 62-64. Hurson to Le Forestier 4 Oct 1753, quoted in “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette”, AFSI F An 22 fols. 6-7. 601 Hurson to Le Forestier 4 Oct 1753, Quoted in Ibid. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 101.

175

Bompar, Hurson, and “Plusieurs autres personnes distinguées dans la Colonie, en particulier de plusieurs officiers respectables de la Marine”) made him too visible to be recalled so peremptorily. Doing so would invariably lead to scandal and a blow to the Society’s credit

“…Vous jugez aisément, Monseigneur, l’éclat que fera infailliblement le rappel d’un homme qui ne fait que d’être mis à la tête de nos missionaires, et le discredit on nous mettera sous un pareil coup.” Without the position or crédit to influence Rouillé, De Sacy instead called on the king’s patronage with a scene of physical prostration. “Je me jette, à corps perdu, entre ses [the king’s] bras, pour la gloire de Dieu, et le soutien d’une Mission, qui vous est chere, et qui tomberait dans une affreuse désolation, par la perte de son chef.”602

The administrators’ letter writing and De Sacy’s verbal prostration provoked responses from Rouillé. The information that Lavalette had been appointed to superior general necessitated a new dispatch to Bomper and Hurson clarifying that Lavalette’s recall did not constitute the withdrawal of royal patronage from the Jesuits’ Îles du Vent mission: “Elle [“sa majesté” the king] desire toujours que vous protégiez particulièrement celle [the mission] des Isles du Vent et que vous procuriez aux Religieux qui la desservent tous les secours et toutes les facilités dont ils auront besoin dans l’exercice de leur ministère, avec les agréments et la consideration personnelle qu’ils mériteront par leurs conduite.”603 The administrators’ lobbying to Rouilllé on

Lavalette’s behalf, however, had been counterproductive. In a strongly worded letter sent as

Lavalette was arriving in France, he rejected Bompar’s defense of Lavalette as confirming his own suspicions of the priest’s involvement in “operations de commerce.”604

602 De Sacy to Rouillé 22 July 1753. Series F5A 9/3. De Sacy to Rouillé 25 July 1753 ANOM COL Series F5A 9/3. 603 Rouillé to Bompar and Hurson. 31 July 1753. ANOM COL Series B 97. 604 Rouillé to Bompar 11 Jan 1754 ANOM COL Series B 99.

176

Lavalette in Paris

Lavalette departed from Martinique in November 1753 and arrived in Paris in January of

1754, justifying the transatlantic voyage as a fundraising endeavor. Once he arrived in France it became unclear whether Rouillé or the Paris Jesuits had authority over his case or what rules

Lavalette had broken. Both thought the other needed to be convinced of his innocence or wrong doing. Le Forestier’s first question upon receiving Lavalette in Paris was whether he knew the reason for his recall. Lavalette answered that he was being accused of “commerce etranger defendu dans les isles.”605 To Bompar and Hurson, Rouillé stated that Lavalette had done

“opérations de commerce” and violated the spirit of the 1743 edict against increasing their estates.606

The “Mémoire sur le Pere Lavalette,” an internal Jesuit manuscript dissecting the

“Lavalette affair” for Rome, provides a vignette of Lavalette’s arrival in France. Producing “les attestations authentiques et legalisées des personnes les plus considerables de l’isle et en particulier de M. le Commandant et de M. l’Intendant” as proof of his innocence, Lavalette successfully defended himself to Le Forestier, who instructed him to write a mémoire which would be presented to Rouillé.607 Le Forestier met with Rouillé twice, once to hand over

Lavalette’s mémoire and again several weeks later to receive Rouillé’s verdict. The Marine secretary pronounced himself satisfied with Lavalette’s defense and assured Le Forestier that he would secure permission for Lavalette to return to Martinique by the spring of 1755.608

This timetable was not quick enough for Visconti in Rome. In April 1754, he ordered Le

Forestier to send Fr. Henri Griffet, a renowned preacher with influence at Versailles, to intercede with Rouillé for Lavalette’s immediate return. Visconti clearly hoped that Griffet’s crédit at

605 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” F An 22 fols. 4. 606 Rouillé to Bompar 11 Jan 1754 ANOM COL Series B 99. 607 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” F An 22 fols. 4. 608 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” F An 22 fols. 5-6.

177

court would persuade Rouillé to release Lavalette, but the court preacher found himself being persuaded instead. New evidence against Lavalette must have been brought to Rouillé’s attention, for “he clearly demonstrated to me that the Father [Lavalette] himself had conducted commerce [commercium] prohibited under gravest punishment not only with all religious, but with seculars themselves” Griffet recalled to the father general in 1761.609 Lavalette was thus stuck between the competing forces of church and state, informal crédit and formal bureaucracy.

The Jesuits, convinced of his innocence, would continue to press for his release while Rouillé, convinced of his guilt, continued to delay his departure.

While he awaited the resolution of this tension, Lavalette went on the borrowing spree discussed in the previous chapter. He traded on his reputation, comportment, and expertise to acquire loans from Paris notaries, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, and other Jesuit institutions. As part of his plan to return Lavalette to Martinique, Le Forestier “extolled him everywhere with all praises,” an act which would have raised his reputation-based credit.610 Borrowing funds was simple, he wrote to Gradis: “il est question d’agir noblement vis à vis des gens qui en agissent de même avec moi.”611 Acting like a wealthy aristocrat could open purses. He secured Mlle.

Beuvron d’Harcourt’s trust by demonstrating that he was an expert on commercial affairs and advising her on how to best acquire a Caribbean plantation.612

In an unfortunately neglected section of her seminal work, Sharon Kettering noted that acquiring and maintaining crédit required large expenses for favors, gifts, dowries, and supporting the lifestyle expected of an influential patron. “Favors and gifts were expensive, time-consuming, and a nuisance,” she observes “but they helped a provincial client to establish a

609 Griffet to Ricci 7 July 1761. Quoted in Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 104. 610 Griffet to Ricci 7 July 1761. Quoted in Rochemonteix, Lavalette, 111. 611 Lavalette to Gradis, 7 Jan 1754, AFSI F AN 16. 612 See the last section of this chapter.

178

close relationship with a Paris patron.”613 The same could be said of Lavalette. As his reputation grew within the Society, Lavalette began promising expensive favors for his superiors. He offered to cover the debts of Le Forestier’s sister (30,000 livres) and add a new story to the forever debt-ridden professed house in Rome (20,000 livres).614 Such gifts came in handy for securing allies among the Society’s hierarchy, but they also would have hurt his bottom line.

Settling Accounts with Gradis

Gradis remained skeptical of Lavalette’s long-term creditworthiness despite these successes and the previous payments. Lavalette made travel plans for Bordeaux, probably at

Gradis’ behest “pour avoir le plaisir de vous y voir, de confèrer avec vous, et de ranger nos affaires passès et avenir” while waiting on Rouillé’s permission to return to Martinique.615

Lavalette pressed Gradis to accept his remaining bills of exchange and offered to pay six percent interest, the standard rate between merchants. Gradis would thus be doing him “un avantage considerable et un credit inestimable.”616 By March of 1754, word had arrived on Martinique that Gradis had acquiesced to paying out his bills but requested that de Sacy authorize

Lavalette’s future bills of exchange. Once again, Lavalette responded with anger and criticism for Gradis’ misreading of the Jesuits’ organizational structure. “Quand à la procuration que vous demandés du pere de Sacy elle est inutile et meme contre les regles. Je suis son superieur.

[C’]est moy qui doit l’authoriser et non pas lui moy.”617 Lavalette also attempted to flatter

Gradis with a rosy picture of their future together once the current disagreements were behind them. “Je le suis tres fort de vous et vous pourrais être persuadé que vous le serez de plus en

613 Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients, 52. 614 Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors,” 211–12. Ricci would later claim that Le Forestier was “seduced” by this favor into trusting Lavalette. Lorenzo Ricci, Istoria dell’accaduto in Francia ai PP della Compagia di Gesù nel 1761 e 1762, ARSI Hist Soc 237 fol. 12. 615 Lavalette to Gradis, 21 Jan. 1754 AFSI, F AN 16. 616 Lavalette to Gradis, 21 Jan. 1754 AFSI, F AN 16. 617 Lavalette to Gradis, 8 Mar. 1754 AFSI, F AN 16.

179

plus de moy. Nous nous sommes connus un peu tard mais il sera encore temps pour vous prouver mon zele et mon sincere devouement.”618

Despite the increasing distrust in its leader, Gradis maintained confidence in the mission itself. At the end of March, he wrote to Bigot in New France “Je regarde cette mission comme tout ce qu’il y a de plus solide. Elle a à la Martinique aux environs de 200,000 livres de revenus tant par les bâtisses ou magasins qu’ils possèdent que par l’habitation où ils ont près de 400 nègres.”619 Gradis considered the mission to be a good credit risk not because of Lavalette’s reputation, connections, and loyalty, as its superior general had been arguing, but by virtue of its tangible resources which could be repossessed if necessary.620

The two men finally met in person on 18 June 1754, during Lavalette’s whirlwind tour of

Bordeaux: “Il ne m’a pas été possible de le retenir un jour de plus et moins encore d’obtenir qu’il me fît l’honneur de manger ma soupe.” Gradis wrote to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt. “Je n’ai su son arrivée que le Dimanche après-midi. Il était engagé pour le Lundi et le Mardi. Il est reparti pour Marseille le Mercredi matin après être resté une heure et demie chez moi. Nous avons réglé nos comptes de la façon qu’il a jugée à propos.”621

Lavalette’s account had run up debts of 275,626 livres 18 sols in loans, interest payments, insurance charges, and Gradis’ two percent commission. Gradis had already received seventy- seven barriques of sugar worth 13,984 livres (a far cry from the hundreds of barrels of sugar

Lavalette had promised) and 47,000 livres in bills of exchange drawn on Lioncy frères et

Gouffre. Lavalette applied Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt’s gift of 110,000 livres to the remaining

618 Lavalette to Gradis 16 Mar 1754, AFSI, F AN 16. 619 Gradis to Bigot 25 March 1754, quoted in Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 49. 620 Gradis would repossess several plantations on Martinique and Saint-Domingue over the course of his life; representing an investment of over 1.8 million livres in Caribbean plantations. By 1788, real estate (capital immobilier) represented sixty-one percent of the firm’s net assets, compared to one-third at his father’s death in 1751. Paul Butel, Les négociants bordelais, l’Europe et les Iles au XVIIIe siècle, Collection historique (Paris: Aubier, 1974), 318–19. 621 Gradis to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 22 June 1754. Quoted in Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 49.

180

balance, bringing it down to 86,645 livres 13 sols 9 derniers. He agreed to pay this sum in three years.

In a document summarizing their agreement, Lavalette placed “tous les biens appartenants à la dite [mission] soit dans l’Amérique soit en France” under hypothèque to

Gradis.622 An hypothèque was a claim on the debtor’s estate which could be enforced in court.

They were a common way of securing debt by pledging the debtor’s immovable property as collateral. An hypothèque also served to defend one creditor’s claim against those of other creditors, since in the case of multiple hypothèques precedence would be given to the oldest claim first.623 The post-suppression inventory of the Society’s French creditors listed 487 créanciers hypothécaires, including one drawn up by both Lavalette and Guillin to a beneficiary on Martinique, Jacques Papin Dumoulin.624 Albane Forestier has noted that merchants initially relied on “informal mechanisms” of family networks and personal negotiation during disputes before turning to “formal mechanisms” of courts and legal procedures.625 Gradis’ insistence that the mission’s goods be placed under hypothèque represented a move away from these “informal mechanisms” toward a “formal mechanism” enforceable by a court.

Although Gradis’ stopping of payment and settling of accounts were not instances of faillite, they did represent a crisis of credit and confiance for Lavalette. With social and economic bonds being so closely connected, one would expect this parting of ways to have damaged Lavalette’s relationship with Gradis, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, and the larger merchant community. Yet the parting of ways did not produce bad blood between the parties involved. “Il m’a paru content de moi et je le suis beaucoup de lui.” Gradis wrote to Mlle.

622 Fonds Gradis AN 181 AQ/76 48. 623 De la Ferrière and d’Argis, “Hypothéque,” Dictionnnaire de droit et de pratique. 624 Ordre général et définitif de tous les Créanciers des Ci-devant soi-disans Jésuites, tant en France que dans Les colonies…. (Paris : Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1772), 91. 625 Forestier, “Commercial Organization.”

181

Beuvron d’Harcourt, “C’est un homme très respectable et je suis enchanté d’avoir fait sa connaissance.”626 Upon his return to Marseille, where he would stay until his departure for

Martinique, Lavalette boasted to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt that “a Bordeaux les Mrs. Gradis m’ont offert tout ce dont j’aurais besoin et se sont contentés de ma seule obligation pour ce que je dois, payable en trois ans, et les plus honnets gens m’ont offert leur bourse et leur credit.”627

Lavalette retained this respect for Gradis throughout his stay in France. “Je suis encore enchanté que vous donniez un appartement a Mr. Gradis.” Lavalette wrote to her near the end of 1754.

“C’est un honnete homme et qui n’a de Juif que la croyance....” Lavalette’s network may have been cross confessional, but he bought into the anti-semitic stereotypes common across early modern Europe. In one way only did Gradis earn Lavalette’s mistrust: he warned Lavalette against Lioncy frères et Gouffre. Lavalette interpreted this as jealousy between merchants, writing that “il est pourtant negociant et par consequent jaloux de la confiance qu’on peut donner d’autres negociants. C’est le deffaut de la profession.”628

The effects of Lavalette’s settlement with Gradis on his reputation within the merchant community indicates that a successfully resolved credit crisis could actually enhance a merchant’s reputation. One of Lavalette’s later detractors recorded this effect. By stopping payment on his loans to Lavalette, Gradis had “firent éclater des murmures sur les différerentes places où il avait travaillé: son crédit touchait à sa fin.” Gradis had thus endangered the reputation upon which Lavalette’s success had been founded. Yet following their settlement,

Lavalette’s credit within the merchant community skyrocketed:

“le voyage qu’il fit exprès de Paris à Bordeaux, pour faire acquiter & les papiers

échus & ceux á écheoir, lui acquit une si grande confiance de la part des

626 Gradis to Mlle Beuvron d’Harcourt 22 June 1754, quoted in Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 49. 627 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 9 July 1754, AFSI F An 17. 628 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 8 Nov 1754, AFSI F An 17.

182

négociants d’Europe & de l’Amérique, qu’il se trouva dans le cas de refuser des

milions que lui offroient differens porteurs; & la préférence qu’il voulut bien

donner à quelques-uns, fut dès–lors acceptée comme une preuve de sa

bienveillance & de son estime singuliere.”629

Settling his accounts with Gradis thus had a theatrical dimension designed to enhance his reputation and credit on the Atlantic stage. By successfully paying off the majority of a 300,000 livre debt (the published accounts rounded up), Lavalette demonstrated that he was able to run up large debts without defaulting. Although Gradis was no longer willing to trust him with thousands, Lavalette had shown himself worthy to handle millions.

Correspondence with Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt

Lavalette would stay in Marseille for the better part of a year, between June 1754 and

February of 1755. During this time, he struck up a correspondence with Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt which is preserved in the Archives de la Province Française de la Société de Jésus.

After he left Paris, Lavalette accused shadowing figures of poisoning his relationship with her.

“On a allarmé Madelle de Beuvron,” he wrote to le Forestier in a 29 October letter, “on m’a voulu faire passer pour un avanturier.”630 This attack against his most valuable possession, his reputation, could not go unchallenged. He assured Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt that he was too well known for rumors that he was a con artist (banqueroutier) or soundrel (coquin) to be found credible and claimed that the Society’s missions had a history of becoming indebted without facing difficulties from their European superiors.631

Lavalette set himself up as her investment advisor by recommending potentially profitable commodities and merchant houses. He promised that 100,000 livres invested under

629 Lettres sur les operations du P. Lavalette, 12-13. 630 Lavalette had a paranoid streak a mile wide and saw enemies around every corner. Lavalette to Le Forestier 29 Oct 1754, ARSI Gal 114 fol. 14. 631 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 9 July 1754, AFSI F An 17.

183

his direction would provide her with “40,000 livres de rente bien assurée.”632 His advice showed a clear preference for Mediterranean products, specifically wines from Cyprus, soap from

Marseille, and dry goods from Italy.633 Lavalette warned against investing in the slave trade (“le commerce de guinée”) suggesting instead that she pick trade routes “dont tous les trois mois en peut scavoir des Nouvelles et dans le quel [sic] on ne court pas de si gros risques.” If she did invest in the Middle Passage, he directed her not to put all her eggs in one basket: “au nom de

Dieu prenés moins d’interest sur un navire de cette espece; partagés vos risques sur plusieurs.”634

Lavalette steered her to invest in his Marseille agents Lioncy frères et Gouffre whom he assured her were “prudents et honnetes gens.” Their rapid turn around times and investment in specie, he claimed, would provide returns of ten percent per year.635 By March of 1755, she had invested

300,000 livres with them in the form of pacotilles on board their ships marked with the letter

“E.”636

Key to her investment portfolio would be a plantation on Dominica, which Lavalette promised to assist her in acquiring. He had arranged for her to gain favor with the state officials necessary for the transaction, specifically the commissaire aux îles de Brande, and Martinique’s consuls. Although she would provide the start-up cost, the plantation would be shared between her and a “Mr. de G,” possibly Martinique’s new intendant, Antoine Lefebvre de Givry, until her death. She may have been serving as a prête-nom for Givry’s investments. The first several years’ revenue would go to reimbursing her for the initial investment, after which it would be split between herself and Mr. de G.637 When the plantation was up and running, Lavalette

632 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 27 Nov 1754, AFSI F An 17. 633 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 20 Aug 1755, AFSI F An 17. 634 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 2 Feb 1755, AFSI F An 17. 635 Pacotilles were collections of goods which crewman traded on their own account rather than the merchant’s account. Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 14 Jan 1755 AFSI F An 17. 636 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 14 Jan. 1755 AFSI F An 17. 637 “il faut la passer en faveur de Brande qui l’aautorise a acheter pour vous une habitation a la Dominique le tous par les consuls et l’avis de la personne que vous lui denotez dans votre lettre.” Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’ Harcourt, 23 Dec 1754 AFSI F An 17.

184

promised that it would provide her with 60-70,000 livres coloniales and could be sold in seven years for 100,000 livres coloniales.638 Lavalette may have provided this land himself as a field from the Dominica plantation. When the Jesuits sold the Dominica plantation in 1763, the surveyors listed a piece of land called “l’habitation de Madmoiselle Beuvron” which contained a few hundred square feet of coffee trees.639

In addition to financial news, Lavalette in Marseille and Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt in

Paris kept each other informed of the goings on within the Jesuit order and the Marine administration. Their letters reveal a dense web of connections and influence in which both served as brokers. Despite his distance from Versailles, Lavalette remained remarkably informed of the changes in the Marine administration. Lavalette reported that Gradis had shown him a letter indicating that Rouillé had appointed de Givry to an intendancy in “un pais chaud” but the exact location was being kept secret (he would replace the recalled Hurson on Martinique).640 In return, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt kept Lavalette informed of Givry’s departure for the

Caribbean. Lavalette also served as broker between Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt and the Paris

Jesuits by arranging a meeting between her and Le Forestier whom he described as having “zele pour moi et bon ami.”641

Lavalette maintained a close eye on the Society’s efforts to procure his departure for

Martinique, providing a window onto the Jesuits’ use of their crédit at court. Rouillé had been moved from the Marine to Foreign Affairs at the end of July 1754 and had been replaced by

Jean-Baptiste Machault d’Arnaudville, the former Garde des Sceaux and Contrôleur général des

Finances. In the fall of 1754, Le Forestier tasked Onuphre Desmaretz and Simon de la Tour with

638 It is unclear whether she followed through on purchasing the plantation. In a later from Martinique, Lavalette would mention “her slaves,” which implies that she did. Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 8 Nov 1754. AFSI F An 17. 639 Vente de la habitation de les RR. PP. Jésuites, 2 Feb. 1763, AFSI Brotier 189 VI fol. 69. 640 Ibid. 641 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 30 Nov. 1754 AFSI F An 17.

185

convincing the new secretary to permit Lavalette’s return. Both had close connections to

Versailles: Desmaretz had recently been chosen as confessor to Louis XV. De la Tour knew

Rouillé and Machault as mission procurator for the Asia missions. Desmaretz wrung a promise from Machault to discuss the matter with Rouillé.642 De la Tour met with two unnamed ministers, of whom “Mr. R” stated that the king had fixed his departure for January and “Mr. C” promised to wage a guerre a l’oeil to speed up the process.643 By December 1754, Lavalette was beginning to worry that the change in administration would delay his departure, as Machault had little reason to speak to the king on his behalf.644

Lavalette’s fears of further administrative delay would be unfounded. In early January,

Machault permitted him to return to Martinique. “Vous avéz appris avec plaisir Madmoiselle que j’étais en liberté de partir” he wrote happily to to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt.645 This return came with restrictions. Machault wrote ahead to Bompar and Givry that Lavalette was allowed to return to his post on the condition that “il ne se melera plus d’aucune sorte de commerce.” The

Jesuits were specifically restricted to selling the produce of their plantations in return for buying provisions “suivant l’usage ordinaire de tous les habitants” and barred from “des entreprises de l’espèce de celles que l’on a reprochées au P. Lavalette.”646

Conclusion

Lavalette’s letters are rife with the language of credit: he appealed consistently to people’s “confiance” and jealously responded to any attack on his “crédit.” Lavalette’s references to other merchants, such as Grasson, Descoudrelles, and Hurson demonstrate a clear comprehension that merchant credit was relational in ways outlined by Laurence Fontaine and

642 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 109–11. 643 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 8 Nov. 1754 AFSI F An 17. 644 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 2 Feb. 1755 AFSI F An 17. 645 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 14 Jan. 1755 AFSI F An 17. 646 Machault to Bompar. 5 Jan 1755 ANOM COL Series B 101. Machault to Givry. 5 Jan 1755 ANOM COL Series B 101.

186

Pierre Gervais.647 His declarations of loyalty to Gradis and Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, during which the word “confiance” appears prominently, underscored his devotion to them and to the community. Lavalette took evidence of mistrust, such as Gradis’ attempts to circumvent him through the mission consult and de Sacy, as serious personal insults. Lavalette understood that his reputation was his most valuable commodity and guarded it zealously. It could be transmuted into material goods, as he did in Paris, and could maintain his standing within the merchant community through temporary setbacks in cash flow. His account in Gradis ledger was listed under his name (in contrast to the faceless Dominicans) implying that he possessed personal credit independent of the Society at large despite his personal inability to own property.

Lavalette defended his reputation-based credit against Gradis’ doubts and slandering “enemies”

(which seemed to spring up at every turn). This linking of reputations and credit came with the downside, as Hurson explicitly stated, that Lavalette’s actions could reflect back negatively on the Society.

The ways in which Gradis evaluated Lavalette’s creditworthiness reveal that while reputation was a central component of credit, tangible resources were of upmost importance. He first asked trustworthy acquaintances, specifically Descoudrelles and Hurson for their evaluations of Lavalette’s creditworthiness. The approval of the Jesuit hierarchy provided assurance that Lavalette’s debts would be honored even if he failed to send the promised sugar.

Gradis evaluated Lavalette’s creditworthiness based on the tangible assets he controlled, specifically the Dominica plantation and its income, which could be repossessed if necessary.

He resumed paying out Lavalette’s bills of exchange only after he had received Lavalette’s sugar.

Informal promises could not secure Lavalette’s debts to Gradis’ satisfaction. Only an hypothèque backed by ancien régime courts could assure Gradis that he would be repaid. Lavalette’s

647 Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Fontaine, L’économie morale.

187

reputation, references, and connection to the Jesuits could initially secure large sums and long terms, but plantation buildings, barrels of sugar, and bills of exchange were what mattered on balance sheets and hypothèques.

Lavalette, and the Society more broadly, excelled at the patron-client relationships which structured the French court and society. He understood that gifts and favors to the provincial Le

Forestier and father general Visconti, despite producing financial losses in the short term, earned him friends and influence which would be invaluable in the long run. In paying off Le

Forestier’s debts, Lavalette was building a power bloc among his superiors which could open doors or defend his interests in the future. The Jesuits, likewise, used Griffet, Le Tour, and

Desmaretz’s personal crédit with Rouillé, Machault, and other individuals to advance Lavalette’s return to Martinique. Hurson’s letters to Visconti and Le Forestier carried weight not because he had met the father general and provincial, but because his rank as intendant made him a trustworthy figure.

Lavalette’s relationships with Bompar, Hurson, Gradis, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt and Le

Forestier were personal. He met them face to face or corresponded with them regularly. In cultivating their confiance, he created trust with those whom he would never meet. Rippling outward from Martinique, bills of exchange backed by Lavalette’s signature circulated through

France’s mercantile cities during the early 1750s. Passed on by his original clients, they reached

Parisian bankers, Bayonne merchants, and Nantais widows before being presented to his agents for payment. Most of those who handled his bills had never met Martinique’s superior general, or anyone whose names graced the bills’ front, yet they trusted the short strokes of his penmanship as sufficient to make the commercial paper worth its promise of sugar or gold. As long as Lavalette’s reputation lasted, his agents continued to accept his bills of exchange, and the

Society supported his actions, this chain of belief spiraling from his hands remained intact.

188

Chapter 6: How not to respond to a faillite

Ancien régime legal texts used the term compagnie to encompass both religious and secular organizations. “Nom collectif,” stated one much reprinted legal dictionary, “qui se dit de plusieurs personnes assemblées dans un même lieu, & avec même dessein.” The authors used

“Sociétés des Maisons religieuses & des Colleges,” as an example of compagnies since they were assembled in the same place for the same intent. Almost as an afterthought, the dictionary mentioned that a compagnie could have a specialized commercial dimension. “En termes de négoce & d’affaires,” it noted “Compagnie signifie une société de Marchands qui se fait pour

établir un grand négoce ou une grande manufacture; ou de gens d’affaires, pour se faire adjuger les Fermes du Roi, ou faire autres partis ou traités.”648 Although the authors did not mention either organization, a line could thus be drawn connecting the Compagnie de Jésus (the Jesuits) and the Compagnie Perpétuelle des Indes.

There has been a new interest in trading companies and corporations. Scholars such as

Philip Stern, Helen Dewar, and others have discussed the centrality of companies in early modern state formation and colonization.649 Amalia Kessler has described how new, more complicated forms of company governance forced judges in the merchant court of Paris to alter the way they dispensed justice.650 Religious organizations have remained outside these discussions, despite the truism of the Roman Catholic Church being the first corporation.

Similar to the Compagnie Perpetuelle des Indes, the Compagnie de Jésus possessed a formal organizational structure, collective ownership of assets, and a collective liability for debts. That

648 The word “société,” in contrast, encompassed only commercial activities: “un contrat, par laquel deux ou plusieurs personnes entrent en communication de tous leurs biens, ou d’une partie, ou de quelque négoce & trafic, pour être participantes du gain ou de perte qui en peut provenir à proportion de ce que chacun d’eux a contribué dans la société.” De la Ferrière and d’Argis, “Compagnie” and “Société,” Dictionnaire de droit et de pratique. 649 Dewar, “‘Y Establir Nostre Auctorite’”; Philip J. Stern, The Company-State : Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (New York : Oxford University Press, 2011). 650 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce.

189

Ignatius created the latter for the care of souls and barred them from engaging in “commerce” did not stop the Jesuits from carrying on long-distance trade and operating profitable plantations.

The following two chapters trace the fight over Lavalette’s debts as a struggle over corporate liability. The 1756 collapse of Lavalette’s currency network from British privateering triggered debates both inside and outside the Society over responsibility for his debts. Ignatius had never specified where in the Jesuits’ organizational structure ultimate financial liability rested. Was the mission responsible for Lavalette’s debts? The province? The father general?

For their part, Lavalette’s clients and agents would treat the Society as a société, or merchant house, by suing the Jesuits in the kingdom’s merchant courts.

The Onset of War

James Riley has argued that French merchants were able to predict the onset of mid- eighteenth-century wars, allowing them time to engage in a “compensatory trade” that lessened their effects on France’s overseas trade. Like the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven

Years’ War began gradually, with signs highly visible to those who knew how to read them.

Growing tensions in the Ohio country, plus a steadily increasing troop buildup in North America during the early 1750s broadcast the possibility of an approaching conflict.651 In 1753 and 1754, while Rouillé recalled and investigated Lavalette, the Marquis Duquesne was expelling

Pennsylvanian and Virginian merchants from the Ohio valley, reinforcing the loyalties of local

Indian groups, and building forts to deter future British incursions. Lavalette settled his account with Gradis (18 June 1754) as Washington was struggling through the Alleghenies to attack Fort

Duquesne following Jumonville’s death (May 28). Washington would surrender Fort Necessity a month later (July 4).652 The confusion evident in the way Rouillé and Machault investigated

651 Riley, Seven Years War, 113–14. Riley also mentions that merchants could looked for upticks in government purchases of war matériel. 652 Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754- 1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 50-65.

190

Lavalette may have stemmed in part from their attention being focused on the unfolding events in North America.

Lavalette heard of these developments through Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, whose connections with Gradis, the Marine, and Versailles would have kept her abreast of international affairs. In the “Mémoire Justificaf,” Lavalette would later write that he took the possibility of war in stride. “La guerre ne m’alarmait pas,” he declared, “mes mesures était bien prises.”653

His letters to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt tell a different story. Her news from Canada

“m’inquiete” he wrote in December 1754. He still held out hope for peace but worried that he would not be able to get back to Martinique before British privateers closed the shipping lanes.

“La France et l’Angleterre n’ont pas besoin de guerre” he opined, “et surement s’ils peuvent ils l’eviteront.”654 His optimism was not entirely misplaced. To the end of 1754, the French government still hoped for peace through negotiating colonial borders, making war a distinct possibility, but not a certainty.655 “Je souhaite que nous n’ayans pas de guerre,” he wrote again on 26 January 1755 just before leaving France, “car en verite les isles ne sont faites que pour la tranquille paix.”656 Having experienced the War of the Austrian Succession firsthand, he would have seen how a privateering war brought hunger and dearth.

His worries of the war’s effects on the French islands would be proven correct. The

Seven Years War would be longer and more destructive to France’s Caribbean possessions than the War of the Austrian Succession. The British and French had been in conflict for only four years (1744-1748) during the War of the Austrian Succession, whereas the warfare of the 1750s and 1760s would last for double that time, further crimping food supplies and causing economic

653 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 105. 654 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, 30 Nov. 1754. AFSI F An 17. 655 Dull, French Navy, 25. 656 “Je souhaite que nous n’ayans pas de guerre, car on verite les isles ne sont faites que pour la tranquille paix.” Jan 26, 1755, AFSI F An 17.

191

havoc on the island. Neither side attempted to conquer Caribbean territory in the War of the

Austrian Succession but instead fought a privateering war preying on each other’s commerce.

During the Seven Years War, the British would invade and conquer all of France’s colonies in the

Lesser Antilles, including Martinique and Dominica. In a microcosm of the war’s effects on

France’s imperial fortunes, it would bring about the end of Lavalette’s currency exchange network, cripple the Martinique mission, and bog the province of France down in serious financial and legal wrangling.

Lavalette returned to Martinique in the spring of 1755 as the French government gave up hope for negotiation in the face of increased British activity. In January, Major-General Edward

Braddock departed from Ireland with orders to raise a colonial army and attack French forts the

Hudson and Ohio river valleys.657 In April, British and French fleets began a race to reinforce their respective armies and control the North American waters.658 That summer, with France and

Britain still formally at peace, British forces expelled the Acadians and Braddock’s push to capture the forks of the Ohio ended in disaster.659

As the threat of war became a certainty, Lavalette turned from predicting wartime destruction to calculating wartime profit. As the news of conflict drove up prices for West Indian goods in France and metropolitan goods in the islands, the potential profit margins on each crossing increased. In August 1755, he informed Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt that the Reine des

Anges and the St. Pierre would be heading back to France. Onboard the Reine des Anges he had placed cargo expected to sell for 25-30,000 livres, plus a further 600 barriques of sugar worth

30,000 livres for Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt’s account. The St. Pierre was similarly laden. With

657 Matt Schumann and Karl W. Schweizer, The Seven Years War: A Transatlantic History, War, History and Politics Series (London ; New York: Routledge, 2008), 21. 658 Dull, French Navy, 25–30. 659 Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754- 1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 94–107; Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth- Century History (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

192

luck they would be able to make one more circuit before the war on trade closed down the sea lanes. “J’ai conseillé aux Mrs. Lioncy et Gouffre de renvoyer les memes [sic] navires afin qu’ils soient ici en janvier ou fevrier,” he wrote “l’occurance sera tres favorable sur tout si nous avons la guerre, ces navires auront passé avant la declaration et l’avantage sera tres considerable.”660

Lavalette’s read of the market forces drove him into Riley’s “compensatory trade.”

If the war at sea had begun with the official declarations of war in May and June 1756,

Lavalette might have won his bet. The two ships would have made a successful crossing during the fall of 1755 and been back in the Caribbean during the spring of 1756. Lavalette could have paid down part of the bills he had written on Lioncy frères et Gouffre, possibly giving them the stability to ride out the war as a case study of Riley’s model. Unfortunately for Lavalette, the violence began a year before war was officially declared. Boscawen’s fleet took the French ships of the line Alcide and Lys in June, beginning the conflict at sea.661 As Lavalette saw to the departure of the Reine des Anges and the St. Pierre, the British cabinet expanded their attacks on the French navy to include merchant shipping. In August, they ordered Vice Admiral Edward

Hawke and a fleet of sixteen ships of the line to the Bay of Biscay to intercept returning French warships and shipping from North America. Further orders extending the prize war to non-naval vessels followed at the end of the month. Over the next several months, with both governments still formally at peace, Hawke and the privateers played havoc with France’s coastal and transoceanic commerce, taking over 300 ships worth 30 million livres and making prisoners of

7,500 sailors and apprentices.662 The St. Pierre and the Reine des Anges were among those captured.663

660 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt. 25 Aug 1755. AFSI F An 17. 661 Dull, French Navy, 31. 662 As no one has run the numbers, Dull qualifies these figures as estimates. Dull, French Navy, 39. 663 Despite an exhaustive search, I have been unable to find a Reine des Anges and Saint-Pierre in the British National Archives’ prize papers (HCA 32) that matches the qualifications of Lavalette’s ships. MS B.V.5 Stonyhurst in the Jesuits in Britain Archive states that the Reine des Anges was taken into Port Mahon on Minorca.

193

Despite Lavalette’s promises of profits, Lioncy frères et Gouffre were poorly positioned for the start of the war. The balance sheet (bilan) which they submitted as part of their 1756 bankruptcy proceedings provides a snapshot of the firm’s finances. It listed two-thirds of the firm’s assets as debts the Jesuits owed to the firm, giving the Society an outsized control over the its financial wellbeing (Table 6.3).664 As Table 6.1 shows, all of the Caribbean missions had accounts with Lioncy frères et Gouffre, with Lavalette’s debts representing 98% of the total

Jesuit obligations. As with the Lavalette entries in Gradis’ ledger, the accounts were listed to individuals rather than to the missions.

The Society’s obligations to the firm consisted of three amounts. First, the 30,000 livres drawn by Lavalette as a favor to Fr. Desmarets on Saint-Domingue to be paid out to the sieur de

Kervegan. Neither Lavalette nor Desmarets had sent the funds or commodities to cover the debt, leaving it still outstanding. Second, 93,463 livres 9 sols in book debt which Lavalette’s account and the other Jesuit missions had generated.665 Lavalette’s own account, denoted by the letter

“S,” constituted the vast majority of this Jesuit book debt: 85,746 livres. Last and most consequential were the 1,502,276 livres in Lavalette’s bills of exchange. This figure represented the entirety of the outstanding bills of exchange owed to Lioncy frères et Gouffre, implying that the firm had become completely reliant on Lavalette’s business. As with Lavalette’s outsized presence in the book debt, two-thirds of this total or 970,883 livres, were bills of exchange made out to Lavalette’s account, probably intended for plantation improvements or to pay down debts

The British Commodore Thomas Frankland brought a sugar-laden ship called the St. Pierre bound from Martinique to Marseille into Antigua sometime in the fall of 1755. This was almost certainly Lavalette’s St. Pierre. Lloyd’s List, No. 2083, 26 Dec. 1755. 664 The bilan listed assets of 2,473,903 livres and liabilities of 757,436 livres. “Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres & Gouffre negts. de cette ville.” 19 Feb. 1756. ADBR 533 U 19. 665 There are discrepancies between the amounts listed on the bilan and the amounts for which the firm’s creditors described as suing the Society in the Mémoire á consulter. The bilan lists Kervegan’s debts as 30,300 livres while the Mémoire puts them at 30,000 livres. The bilan lists his book debt as 85,746 livres while the Mémoire puts them at 93,463 livres 9 sols. I have tried to reconcile the accounts.

194

with other merchant houses. The rest were bills owed to his clients.666 When sums for the book debt and the bills of exchange are combined, they reveal that 1,056,629 livres, or slightly under half the firm’s assets, were loans to the Martinique mission itself, with a further 500,000 livres being drawn by Lavalette on behalf of his clients. Although listed as assets on the balance sheets, these funds were liabilities in practice until Lavalette or the Jesuits provided the funds to pay them. Enumerated among the firm’s assets were accounts for several persons created “sous le cautionnment de P. La Valette,” including the planter Descoudrelles (21,658 livres) and the intendant Hurson (30,142 livres). Finally, Lioncy frères et Gouffre owed Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt’s account, under the letter “E,” 144,105 livres.667

Table 6.1 Funds Lioncy frères et Gouffre owed to the Jesuits Name Amount Fr. Fabry, “Jesuit à Cayenne” 464 livres 18 sols 4 deniers Fr. de Sacy 59,448 livres 9 sols 6 deniers “Le Sieur E au Cte. du Pere La Valette” 114,105 livres 12 sols 7 deniers 2 bills written to Lavalette 6,000 livres 3 bills written by Lavalette to D’Antoine 15,000 livres Total 195,019 livres 5 deniers Table 6.1 Source: “Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres & Gouffre ngts. de cette ville.” 19 Feb. 1756. ADBR 533 U 19.

Table 6.2 Funds the Society owed to Lioncy frères et Gouffre Name Amount Fr. D’Huberland, Superior, Cayenne 209 livres 12 sols F. Magloire, Superior, Guadeloupe 204 livres 1 sol Fr. Desmarets, Superior, Saint Domingue 30,300 livres Fr. Spy, “Syndic du College de Tournon” 227 livres 2 sols Lavalette “son Compte Lettre S” 85,746 livres 8 sols 4 deniers Bills accepted for Lavalette and his clients 1,502,276 livres 2 sols 1 denier Total 1,618,963 livres 5 sols 5 deniers Table 6.2 Source: “Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres & Gouffre ngts. de cette ville.” 19 Feb. 1756. ADBR 533 U 19.

666 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 34-35. I have not found a single account or group of accounts in the balance sheet which make up the 93,000 livres. I am uncertain how this was calculated. 667 “Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres & Gouffre negts. de cette ville.” 19 Feb. 1756. ADBR 533 U 19.

195

Table 6.3 Share of Jesuit debt in Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s assets and liabilities Total Lioncy frères et Gouffre assets 2,473,903 livres 15s 5d Jesuit debt (percentage of total LfG assets) 1,618,963 livres 5s 5d (65%) Total LfG liabilities 757,436 livres 11s 6d Jesuit debt (percentage of total LfG liabilites) 195,019 livres 5 d (25%) Table 6.3 Source: “Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres & Gouffre ngts. de cette ville.” 19 Feb. 1756. ADBR 533 U 19. Where other eighteenth-century merchants, such as Abraham Gradis and Georges Roux, diversified their businesses to spread the inevitable risk of transatlantic trade, the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre had concentrated on serving Lavalette and his clients. Lavalette’s reputation and the

Society’s wealth may have initially made such specialization appear to be a sound decision.

Lavalette may also have written so many bills of exchange on them that they could not service any other clients. In either case, by putting all their financial eggs in the Society’s metaphorical basket the firm limited their flexibility, making them less able to respond to instabilities caused by the outbreak of war. Their dangerous overextension became apparent just as the threat of war put the possibility of payment in doubt. The first bills of exchange which Lavalette had written in 1752/53 for two- and three-year terms would have begun coming due in 1754/55. During his visit to Marseille in 1754, the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre must have pressed him for collateral, which he supplied in the form of a silver chalice likely intended for the mission. Desperate for cash, the partners pawned it at a mont de piété.668 They gave their own silver, worth 7,900 livres, to a relative as collateral for other loans.669

Laurence Fontaine has argued that bankruptcies (faillite) and credit crises were caused by the rupture of social, familial, and communal bonds rather than just a loss of funds. Because the bonds between merchants were so tight, start-ups with smaller support networks were more likely to become insolvent than long established members of the merchant community. When

668 “Scritte et Concordat passe entre Les frères Lioncy et Gouffre negotiants de la ville de Marseille et Leurs Créanciers.” 3 Feb. 1759. ADBR B 3428 fol. 45-69. It is unclear whether they pawned the cup before or after the loss of the ships. 669 See the bilan for Jean Lioncy. 19 Feb. 1756, ADBR 533 U 19.

196

credit crises occurred they were more often due to a shortage of confiance and friends rather than a shortage of liquidity.670 James Riley has observed that the eighteenth-century wars did not generate corresponding spikes in faillite filings in France’s port cities, implying that the war had little effect on international credit networks and did not threaten the merchant community. 671

Merchants adjusted to the war by acquiring state contracts, commissioning privateers, and sending shipments through neutral merchants.672 Locked as they were to the Jesuits, Lioncy frères et Gouffre did not have the flexibility to take advantage of the opportunities presented by wartime. Nor could the limited credit of family and friends redress the balance of their obligations to Lavalette’s clients. The news of the St. Pierre and the Reine des Anges’ seizure was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “La nouvelle de la capture des marchandises envoyées par le P. de la Valette,” Jean Lioncy, the syndic of the firm’s creditors, wrote in a

Mémoire years later, “étant répandue, & à Marseille, & dans les autres Places du Royaume, le crédit des sieurs Lioncy freres & Gouffre, tomba en un instant.”673

Since Lavalette’s bills had been implicitly backed by the Society, the firm appealed to the

Jesuits in Paris for a loan of 300,000 to 400,000 livres tournois to tide them over. Unfortunately, they had the bad luck to do so at the moment of a leadership transition within the Society.

Ignazio Visconti, the father general in Rome who appointed Lavalette superior general, had died in May 1755, necessitating a general congregation to elect a successor. Since the Institutes require the father general’s approval to alienate or borrow large sums, the Jesuits in France were slow to respond to Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s pleas. Letters to de Sacy and the provincial,

Mathurin Germain Le Forestier, and father general Visconti in Rome initially went unanswered.

670 Fontaine, L’économie morale, 306. 671 Riley, Seven Years War, 117-120. 672 For privateering see Maupassant, Abraham Gradis. For contracting see Menkis “Patriarchs and Patricians.” For neutral merchants see Pares, War and Trade. 673 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 35.

197

When a friend of the partners in Paris achieved a meeting with de Sacy, the procurator provided him with some small funds and spoke of more, but these fell far short of the required amount.

Finally, Jean-Joseph Gouffre traveled to Paris himself, calling on de Sacy, Le Forestier, and the procurator of the English province Alexander Crookshanks, but ultimately returned to Marseille empty handed.674 Here the Society’s centralized structure worked against it, creating institutional paralysis at the moment when rapid action was needed. At the end of November 1755, the general congregation finally elected a new father general, Luigi Centurione, who granted permission for the province of France to borrow up to 500,000 livres in early 1756. The Jesuits in Paris immediately dispatched a special courier to Marseille with the news, but crucial time had already been lost. When he arrived on 22 February, he found that Lioncy frères et Gouffre had already declared bankruptcy three days earlier.675

French bankruptcy procedure was a nuanced and relatively lenient process, with the maintenance of the social bonds undergirding the merchant community being balanced against financial restitution.676 Debtors could initiate the process themselves by submitting a balance sheet (bilan) of their assets and liabilities to the local merchant court, which Lioncy frères et

Gouffre did on 19 February 1756. The firm’s creditors would then assemble to form a union of creditors headed by a syndic who would negotiate with the debtor and represent the creditors before the courts. Once the union had looked over the balance sheet, they would decide whether the process was a faillite, in which the debtor had acted with honor and insolvency was caused by unforeseen circumstances, or a banqueroute in which the debtor had maliciously defrauded

674 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 36-37. 675 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 36-37. 676 Lenient compared to contemporary British bankruptcy law. In British law only the creditors could open a bankruptcy and the process led solely to the debtor’s liquidation. Jérôme Sgard, “Bankruptcy, Fresh Start and Debt Renegotiation in England and France (17th to 18th Century),” in The History of Bankruptcy: Economic, Social and Cultural Implications in Early Modern Europe, ed. Thomas Max Safley (New York: Routledge, 2013). See also Kessler, 257-258.

198

their creditors. In the case of a faillite, the debtor and the union would arrange a payment plan which would allow the creditors to recoup their funds and the debtors to be rehabilitated within the merchant community.677 Given this leniency and the Jesuits’ implicit backing of Lavalette’s debts, the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre would have had cause to feel confident that they would get their money and their reputation would be restored.

At their first meeting, the assembled creditors picked Jean Lioncy, a relative and the firm’s largest creditor, as syndic.678 He would be the primary point of contact between the Jesuits and the union of creditors. At the end of the spring, Jean Lioncy and the creditors announced that they found no evidence of fraud in the firm’s balance sheet, making the case a faillite rather than a banqueroute. On 30 April, they signed a concordat with the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre in which the union agreed to press the Jesuits for payment rather than lay claim to the partners’ household goods.679

The news of Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s faillite spread rapidly. Gradis, who had already settled his accounts with Lavalette, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the news in March.

“Nous avons été heureux de n’avoir pas voulu prendre d’engagements considerables dont le R.P. voulait nous charger” he wrote to Hurson on Martinique.680 Lavalette reacted with shock. “Je viens d’apprendre mademoiselle, le dérangement de la maison Lioncy frères et Gouffre.” He wrote to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt in May 1756. “J’ay peine à me le persuader j’ay toujours regardé cette maison comme tres solide et prudente. Je ne puis pas du moins doutter de leur probité.”681 Lavalette blamed the faillite on their mismanagement and promised to assist her in

677 See the overviews of the bankruptcy process in Savary, Le Parfait Negociant, 221-37. 678 The firm owed Jean Lioncy 180,582 livres. These debts were not connected with Lavalette. 679 “Ecrite passée entre Les srs. Lioncy freres et gouffre negts. de Marseille et leurs creanciers,” 17 May 1756 ADBR 3426 fols. 351-361. “Verbal fait a la Requisition des Sr. Lioncy frères et Gouffre négociants et de leurs créanciers sur l’afirmation de leur Bilan et leurs créances. 11 and 13 May 1756. ADBR 533 U 19. 680 Gradis to Hurson 5 Mar 1756, Quoted in Maupassant, Abraham Gradis, 5. 681 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt 12 May 1756. AFSI F An 17.

199

getting her investments back. “Le malheureux Gouffre qui avait seul le secret des affaires qu’il conduisait si mal nous a tous joués. J’en suis d’un chagrin inconsolable par rapport à vous.”682

Reflecting back after the scandal, one Jesuit writer was amazed by how rapidly Lavalette’s reputation changed with the news. Where before the war,

on ne voyait en Lui qu’un Homme actif, industrieux, intelligent, inventif, habile

cultivateur, Religieux à la verité, mais religieux chargé d’une administration

considerable, et des lors obligé de s’en acquiter par toutes les voyes honnetes, et

licites à l’avantage de la Maison, dont il était l’administrateur. Après

l’interception de ses denrées, ce n’est plus le même Homme. Ce n’est plus qu’un

fou, qu’un etourdi, qu’un avanturier, qu’un entreprenant hardi et temeraire.683

The Jesuits React

According to Montigny, the provincial procurator, it was only when they heard of Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s bankruptcy and saw the balance sheet with Lavalette’s 900,000 livres that the

Jesuits in Paris realize the extent of Lavalette’s dealings and their danger to the Society. “Cette découverte” he wrote “était bien capable de réveiller l’attention des supérieurs des jésuites; et le bruit que causa à Marseille l’intérêt que la Mission de la Martinique avait dans cette faillite, leur fit sentir qu’il pourrait y avoir beaucoup d’imprudence et de dérangement dans l’administration du P. La Valette.”684 To bring Lavalette under control, they dispatched a new procurator to the mission, Fr. Guillaume Fayard, and appointed a visitor to investigate Lavalette’s activities on

Martinique. As will be discussed in later chapters, both of these strategies failed to immediately reign in Lavalette, allowing him to continue borrowing even while his superiors struggled to pay the debts he had already accumulated.

682 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt 20 May 1756. AFSI F An 17. 683 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” AFSI F An 22. 684 Montigny, “Mémoire,” 28. AFSI F An 18.

200

Jean Lioncy’s contact points in the Jesuit hierarchy were the mission procurator in Paris,

Fr. Jean-Pierre-François Dominique de Sacy, and the procurator for the province of France,

Antoine de Montigny. Aged sixty-one in 1750, de Sacy was described by his superiors as having

“sound, good, and right judgement, great prudence, [and] more than average experience in managing temporal things.” Although he had never left France, his position as the point of contact for the overseas missions of the French province gave him practical knowledge of how global merchant networks functioned.685 De Sacy had handled Lavalette’s affairs in Paris, paying out Cresols’ stipend from the Dominica plantation, negotiating with Abraham Gradis, and remitting the funds from Jacques Cazotte’s bill of exchange. He also had experience with the faillite process. In 1745, the merchant who handled the provisioning of the Jesuits’ missions in

New France, C.P. Bougine, declared faillite with 40,000 livres still owed to the mission. De Sacy represented the mission to Bougine’s union of creditors, although it is unclear whether he received repayment.686 De Sacy would be the creditors’ primary contact within the Society and the mission’s primary representative within the French legal system. Montigny was new to the post of procurator, having only transferred in 1756 from the coastal town of Vannes in Brittany.

Also in his sixties, he had neither met Lavalette nor worked with Lioncy frères et Gouffre. Since he had spent the past seven years directing the Vannes retreat house, his experience with the merchant community was much more limited than that of De Sacy.687

Both de Sacy and Montigny would remain in their positions throughout the scandal, providing institutional memory and a stable face for the creditors. However, as Gillian

Thompson has argued, their superiors, the provincial and father general, would change multiple times between 1756 and 1762, leading to changes in how the province dealt with Lavalette’s

685 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 83. 686 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 56 and 184–85. 687 Rochemonteix, Antione Lavalette, 51.

201

debts and further confusing the creditors. Fr. Mathurin Germain Le Forestier was procurator when Lioncy frères et Gouffre declared bankruptcy in 1756. Like Montigny, Le Forestier had spent his career within the Jesuits’ colleges in Vannes and Paris giving him little experience with the merchant community and transatlantic credit networks.688 Appointed provincial in 1752, just as Lavalette’s network was getting off the ground, Le Forestier was a key patron of the

Martinique mission’s procurator. It was Le Forestier who had mobilized the Society’s connections at Versailles to defend Lavalette from Rouillé’s investigation in 1754. A recommendation from the provincial may have persuaded father general Visconti to appoint

Lavalette superior general of the Martinique mission. In return for his support, Lavalette had promised to pay off the 30,000 livres in debts owed by Le Forestier’s sister.689 “Ce digne

Jésuite,” Lavalette called him in the ‘Mémoire Justificatif,’ “ami de son corps, et qui ne consultait que la justice, et les intérêts de la compagnie.”690 In a matter of this seriousness, Le

Forestier and Montigny would also have been advised by the province’s consult of influential

Jesuits and past administrative staff.

Two seventeenth-century financial scandals at Iberian colleges suggest possible ways that the province of France could have dealt with Lavalette’s debts when Lioncy frères et Gouffre demanded payment made their extent clear. No mention of these scandals appears in the extant records from the “Lavalette affair,” implying that provincial officials did not explicitly use them to shape their decisions, but they do illuminate the options open to the Society’s decision makers.

The shady dealings of Br. Andres Villar Goitia, procurator of the Spanish college of San

Hermenegildo in Seville, bear the closest resemblance to the “Lavalette affair.” Villar’s appointment as procurator in 1632 appeared to usher in an age of prosperity for the college. He

688 Rochemonteix, 92. 689 Thompson, “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors,” 211–25. 690 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” GAL 115 fol. 104-105.

202

increased the production of wheat, barley, and olive oil on the college’s lands, multiplied its herds, and reaped the benefits of trade with Biscay and the Americas. This wealth, however, was a front for embezzlement. Villar redirected thousands of ducats from the college to his family members while creating a façade of prosperity through creative accounting. In the mid-1640s, a newly appointed rector noticed falsifications in his ledgers and ordered a thorough investigation.

When the Seville cathedral’s treasurer audited his accounts, they showed that far from being profitable, the college was actually in debt to the tune of 350-400,000 ducats. His superiors incarcerated Villar and dismissed him from the Society, but they struggled to untangle the mess he left behind. Responsibility for the debt ultimately remained with the San Hermenegildo college itself; neither the province nor the other provincial institutions appear to have intervened.

It paid off the balance by selling of much of its land and reducing its staff to fourteen people.691

The Portuguese “Alviero loan debacle” presented a different model for paying off significant debts, one which utilized the Society’s larger organizational structure. In 1615 and

1616, the procurator of Lisbon’s college of Santa Antão, Fr. Diogo Luís, loaned 42 million reales to the third Duke of Aviero to finance a wedding celebration for his son. The provincial procurator, Mateus Tavares, raised the money from Jewish money lenders. The duke paid off sixty percent of the loan over the next decade but left significant sums outstanding upon his death in 1626. As it became clear that the funds might not be recouped, provincial and college officials blamed Luís and Tavares for accepting such a dangerous debt and removed them from power. When negotiations with the Duke’s heirs failed, a 1636 provincial congregation hotly debated whether the debt would remain the college of Santo Antão’s responsibility or be spread amongst all the colleges in the province. Father general Mutio Vitelleschi approved the latter plan and ordered a pro rata division of the debt, which remained outstanding through the

691 Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 555-559.

203

1690s.692 Unlike Villar’s debt, which remained the sole responsibility of the Seville college, the

Aviero loans became the responsibility of the entire province. The Society’s unique organizational structure thus provided multiple options for locating financial responsibility and paying down debts.

Initially, Le Forestier, Montigny, de Sacy, and the province’s consult decided that the province would take on Lavalette’s obligations and pay out to the creditors what funds they had available, similar to the Aviero loans. The funds on hand consisted of 300,000 livres from the mission’s account plus a further loan of 800,000 livres from the English province.693 This money must not have been used to pay off Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s creditors who would continue to claim the same 1.5 million livres through 1761. With Lioncy frères et Gouffre defunct, de Sacy and the Paris Jesuits turned to another Marseille merchant house, Rey l’aîné, to handle these payouts. Montigny made Rey l’aîné a procuration, giving him the legal authority to liquidate debts with Lavalette’s signature and seize any future funds or produce which arrived from

Martinique. Rey was a known quality to de Sacy, who had been corresponding with him since at least 1755.694 Henceforth, de Sacy would redirect funds and creditors to Rey, who would handle the actual payments.

Three shipments arrived from Lavalette in the summer of 1756, creating the initial impression that he could pay down the debt if given time. The first reached Cadiz in June and the second came ashore at Amsterdam a month later.695 The third created conflict. Lavalette had consigned this last shipment to the Amsterdam firm of Clorck, Dedel, & Compagnie to pay off

150,000 livres in bills of exchange that he owed to a Sr. Darbeins. When de Sacy redirected the

692 Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 555-559. 693 This loan was delivered in two installments of 400,000 livres each in 1756 and 1758. Thompson, “Jesuit Superiors,” 213. 694 Lalourcé cites a 9 June 1755 letter from de Sacy with Rey’s name. Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 39-40. 695 Lalourcé and Lioncy, 40-41.

204

shipment to Rey the firm refused, requiring de Sacy to issue an injunction against Clorck, Dedel,

& Compagnie through the Dutch courts.696

This policy of paying the creditors from provincial and borrowed funds lasted less than a year. On April 16, 1756, two months after Lioncy frères et Gouffre deposited their bilan in

Marseille, father general Centurione appointed Le Forestier to the French assistancy and moved him to Rome.697 While there, he wrote a short treatise arguing that Lavalette’s creditors should be divided into two groups; poor creditors who needed relief and wealthy merchants who could survive without being repaid. Le Forestier ordered De Sacy to pay off the more needy group with borrowed funds and redirect the solvent creditors to Lavalette on Martinique.698 This broader consideration of each creditor’s position was in line with the practices of merchant courts, where arbiters’ decisions aimed to uphold the bonds of the community and the livelihood of individuals rather than applying the letter of the law.699

Le Forestier’s policies would never be implemented. To replace Le Forestier, Centurione appointed Pierre-Claude Frey de Neuville in charge as provincial in April of 1756. Frey would control the province through 1760, making him a crucial figure in the Society’s efforts to get

Lavalette’s debts under control. He had served a prior term as provincial from 1743 to 1749 and had since been procurator of the eastern missions, giving him experience with both Parisian politics and the overseas missions. Lavalette fingered him as the reason for his collapse. “Par malheur,” he wrote in the “Mémoire Justificatif,” “le P. de Forester fut remplacé, dans mon provincialat, par celui lui-même qui Dans la consulte qu’on tient à Paris avait été du sentiment de me faire Banqueroute- Il arrêt les emprunts, qu’on faisait, ne voulut plus entendre parler de me secourir, et fit approuver sa résolution, par le nouveau général on éluda sous différents prétextes

696 Lalourcé and Lioncy, 42. 697 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 92. 698 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” F An 22 fols. 10. 699 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 96–140.

205

les ordres, qu’il eut reçut de me secourir.”700 Frey certainly did not cause the initial collapse of

Lavalette’s credit (the British navy, Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s instability, and Lavalette’s own impetuousness are the more proximate causes), but along with the province’s consult, he destroyed the idea that the collective Society would take responsibility for Lavalette’s bills.

Shortly after taking office, he ordered de Sacy to stop payments to Rey and instead redirect the creditors to Lavalette himself on Martinique. In doing so, Frey attempted to compartmentalize the Society into its component missions and colleges. Isolating the Îles du Vent mission would save the province of France. There was precedent for this compartmentalization. Several general congregations had declared that goods donated in one province could not be used in another, although they had also granted exceptions to this rule.701 Colleges were also understood to have control over their own goods, although the father general and provincial could both obligate the colleges with contracts if necessary.702

Fallout

To the creditors themselves, who were not privy to the Society’s personnel changes, this sudden reversal of policy came across as a move of bad faith. Frey’s decision not to pay out

Lavalette’s debts breached the expectations of trustworthiness and fair dealing upon which the merchant community operated. An exchange of letters between de Sacy and the Bordeaux firm

Ballaca frères while this policy was being firmed up in the summer of 1756 shows how this prevarication would have looked from the creditor’s perspective. In June, de Sacy assured the firm that Rome had approved “un emprunt considérable” which would soon be available for disbursement.703 At the end of July, de Sacy attempted to walk these promises back. “Je fait

700 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 106. 701 O’Keefe et al., For Matters of Greater Moment, 118, 141, 149–50, 219–20.In O’Keefe et al., For matters of greater moment. 702 O’Keefe et al., 84 and 93–94. 703 De Sacy to Bellaca frères. 16 June 1756. Quoted in Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 138.

206

bien quelquefois leurs [the missions’] commissions,” he wrote, “mais seulement suivant les moyens que j’en ai & rien au-delà.” The talk of a loan had disappeared. “Je voudrais pouvoir l’accepter moi-même,” he concluded, “mais je n’ai pas, & ne prévois pas avoir l’argent qui seroit nécessaire à acquitter des 9,000# à leur echeance.”704 To Bellaca frères, whose solvency depended on a clear statement of financial responsibility, de Sacy’s prevarication must have come across as the dodges of a banqueroutier. Creditworthy borrowers did not promise payment and then deny responsibility.

Lavalette’s own actions further confused matters. Though his superiors had sent him strict orders to stop borrowing, he continued to write bills of exchange throughout the war.

Instead of winding down his currency system, he continued to take deposits from clients in exchange for bills payable in France. Rather than work with the firm of Rey l’aîné as de Sacy had arranged, Lavalette wrote these bills on the Marseille house of Aillaud, thus continuing to keep his activities outside the Jesuits’ oversight.

As more of Lavalette’s bills of exchange came due, de Sacy faced an increasing number of demands for payment. The collapse of French trade from British privateering in 1758 and

1759 further tightened access to credit and drove those holding Lavalette’s bills of exchange to the Jesuits in increasing desperation. In January 1758, the firm of P.G.N. wrote de Sacy demanding payment for 42,000 livres which Lavalette had written on them for a M. Etienne

Danet. Four months later, a Bordeaux merchant demanded 10,150 livres for one of Lavalette’s clients. In December 1758, another merchant asked whether the Society would honor a bill for

45,000 livres set to mature in June 1760.705 De Sacy redirected them all to Rey l’aîné with assurance that Lavalette would soon send the funds to honor his obligations. “Je ne puis rien de

704 De Sacy to Bellaca frères. 29 July 1756. Quoted in Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et Consultation, 202-203. 705 See the letters quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 43-51 and 67-73.

207

mieux en votre faveur,” he wrote to one creditor “que d’offrir à Dieu mes prieres pour qu’il vous console lui-même. Je viens de dire encore à cette intention la sainte Messe.”706 When temporal credit failed, de Sacy fell back on spiritual crédit.

Though he had no tangible funds to offer, de Sacy did provide information on potential future shipments from Lavalette. Following the litigious consignment to Clorck, Dedel & Cie, none of Lavalette’s shipments would make it across the Atlantic but the possibility that goods were coming left much room for speculation. Rumors of shipments came in the winter with the first ships returning from the Caribbean, but the goods themselves would never appear in the spring. In January 1758, Lavalette wrote that he was sending large shipments to Europe, leading de Sacy to optimism. “Vous ne devez point être inquiet, Monsieur” he told P.N.G. on 16 January,

“le pere de Lavalette nous promet des fonds considérables, lesquels ne peuvent tarder beaucoup à venir, & qui seront suffisans pour acquitter toutes ses traites anciennes & nouvelles.”707 “Je viens de reçevoir,” he wrote to a Bordeaux merchant four months later, “en effet du pere

Lavalette, en date du premier Janvier de la présente année, qui nous annonce de forts envois,”708

The January letter was the last that de Sacy would receive from Lavalette, leaving him just as uncertain as the creditors themselves. In April 1758, he expressed surprise when a Bordeaux merchant presented him with a bill dated the previous November; Lavalette had not stopped borrowing as ordered. “Nous avoit [sic] mandé,” he wrote “dans le mois d’Octobre précédent, qu’il n’everroit plus en Europe aucune traite: je ne sçais pourquoi il n’a pas tenu sa promesse.”709

Like the merchants themselves, he relied on the rumor mill for information. “C’est la voix publique qui m’apprit,” he informed one merchant in February 1759, “dans le temps, que ce Père

706 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 38. 707 De Sacy to P.N.G. 16 Jan. 1758. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 72. 708 De Sacy to J….of Bordeaux 20 Apr. 1758. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations de Lavalette, 70. 709 As will be described in a later chapter, Lavalette would continue to write bills of exchange throughout the war against orders from Paris and Rome. De Sacy to J….of Bordeaux 20 Apr. 1758. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations de Lavalette, 67.

208

avoit fait par Cadix un gros envoi à M. Aillaud, & on m’ajouta alors, que les lettres qu’il avait tirées sur lui en conséquence, il avoit ordre de ne les point accepter, mais de les payer à leur

échéance.” Given that the news of prior shipments had turned out to be false, de Sacy sought verification from the creditors themselves. “Comme je n’ai aucune preuve de la réalité de cet envoi & des ordres qui l’ont accompagné, j’ai prié quelques porteurs des lettres du Pere de

Lavalette, qui m’ont écrit sur cela, de tâcher de pénétrer ce qu’il pourrait y avoir de vrai ou de faux, dans ce qui m’avoit été dit à ce sujet.”710 By the end of 1759, Lavalette’s silence was telling. “Ce qu’il y a de certain,” he wrote in November 1759, “c’est que le Pere Lavalette ne nous a pas donné, a cette occasion, le moindre signe de vie. Il y aura deux ans entiers, au mois de Janvier prochain, que je n’ai eu de ses lettres; il paroît nous avoir totalement oublié.”711

Complicating matters further, Lavalette’s bills continued to circulate around France, thus widening the circle of those involved beyond his clients and agents. The final 1762 arrangements between the Society and Lavalette’s creditors listed the names on each bill, allowing a reconstruction of their path through metropolitan merchant houses. Lavalette’s clients tended to hold onto their bills in expectation of repayment. Maximin de Bompar, the governor who had protected Lavalette from Rouillé’s investigation during the heady prewar years, kept two bills Lavalette had given him in 1757.712 Antoine Le Fèvre de Givry, the Îles du Vent’s intendant during the first years of the war, kept five bills worth over 223,000 livres.713 The bills which Lavalette wrote to merchants to cover his own debts, however, tended to circulate more freely. A bill drawn by Guillin on Gradis in 1754 passed through the possession of Prunes frères, then Gradis himself before arriving in the hands of the Paris banker Pierre Banquet.714 Another

710 De Sacy to M. de *** 19 Feb. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations de Lavalette, 44. 711 De Sacy to M. de *** 17 Nov. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations de Lavalette, 50. 712 Chatelet agreement between Bompar and Delacroix/Gatin 19 Aug. 1761. ARSI GAL 115 fol. 62-63. 713 Chatelet agreement between Givry and Gatin 31 Dec. 1761. ARSI GAL 115 fol. 69-72. 714 Chatelet agreement between Gatin and Banquet. 31 Mar. 1762. ARSI GAL 115 fol. 85-86.

209

10,000 livre bill drawn on Rey l’aîné in December 1757 passed through four other hands in the course of nine months. Dutasta, the original recipient and a Caribbean agent of Lavalette, passed it to the merchant house Bruneau frères, who passed it to the Abbé Dutasta, who passed it to the

Paris banking firm of Tourton & Baur, who presented it to the Jesuits in September 1758.715 That many of Lavalette’s bills ended up in Paris banking houses implies speculation by the capital’s financiers. Merchants reeling from the war’s disruption would have been grateful to rid themselves of the questionable paper at a discount in return for much needed cash. With better liquidity, the bankers could have afforded to hold Lavalette’s bills and pressure the Jesuits for payment in full.

Faced with de Sacy’s questionable news and worthless prayers, creditors turned to other members of the Society for restitution. Several later published their stories and their correspondence with the Jesuits, providing a window into these negotiations from the creditors’ perspective. Jacques Cazotte, the ill-starred Marine administrator who had successfully transferred money through Lavalette in 1752 to fund a leave of absence in Europe, was one such creditor. His leave in Paris over, Cazotte had returned to Martinique in February 1754, shortly after Lavalette departed to face Rouillé’s investigation. The rest of his time in the Caribbean would be a litany of misfortunes. The governor Rouillé de Raucourt, with whom he shared a house, evicted him at gunpoint. He suffered an attack of scurvy and became partially blind. At odds with his superiors and thoroughly fed up with the Caribbean, Cazotte finally returned to

France for good in 1759.716

To get his property across the now war-torn Atlantic, Cazotte had once again turned to

Lavalette. Having liquidated his immeubles, Cazotte turned the proceeds plus “environ vingt

715 Chatelet agreement between Gatin and Tourton. 17 Feb. 1762. ARSI GAL 115 fol. 77-79. 716 E. P. Shaw, “New Facts Relating to the Biography of Jacques Cazotte,” Modern Language Notes 54, no. 1 (1939): 23–26.

210

Négres, & une assez grande quantité de bétail” over to Lavalette in return for a bill of exchange of 130,000 livres payable in France. The funds were to be paid out to his brother, the Abbé

Cazotte, in two installments of 65,000 livres each in September 1760 and February 1761.

Cazotte arrived in Paris in early 1760 only to discover that de Sacy and Montigny were no longer paying out Lavalette’s bills of exchange. They directed him back to Lavalette on Martinique.

Acting with “la sûreté du Créancier qui s’est livré de si bonne foi,” Cazotte wrote directly to father general Laurent Ricci in Rome with the expectation that his connections to the Society and years of friendship to its members would carry weight. Instead, Ricci directed him back to the new provincial, Fr. Mathieu-Jean Allanic. Growing more frustrated, Cazotte wrote Ricci a second time, only to be told that he was one of many creditors and had no special claim on the

Society’s assets. The now exasperated Cazotte wrote a final letter to Ricci in the summer of

1760 threatening legal action if he was not paid promptly.717

Another client, who gave his name only as M.****, was even more tenacious. In May

1758, he had given Lavalette Portuguese gold pieces in return for a 45,000 livre bill drawn on

Aillaud of Marseille and set to mature on 23 June 1760. When M.**** expressed doubt that a merchant would be handling the transaction rather than a Jesuit house, Lavalette assured him that he would shortly be dispatching 200,000 livres to Aillaud which would more than cover the payment. When the M.**** arrived in France, however, he found Lavalette’s credit to be seriously downgraded. Even though the bill still had eighteen months before reaching maturity, on 22 December 1758 M.**** wrote to Aillaud to confirm that it would be paid out. Aillaud redirected him to de Sacy. De Sacy sympathized with his plight (“À present, je suis, sans contredit, le plus fort créancier de cette Maison”), passed along rumors of shipments from

717 Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target and Rouhette, Mémoire sur les demandes formées contre le général de la société des jésuites, au sujet des engagements qu’elle a contracté par le ministère du père de La Valette (Paris : M. Lambert, 1761), 10-22.

211

Lavalette through Cadiz to the merchant Aillaud in Marseille, and directed him back to Lavalette.

“Je souhaite de tout mon cœur” he wrote, “que votre traite….ne vous oblige point de repasser la mer.”718

Rather than brave the wartime Atlantic again, M.**** sent a letter instead. Lavalette’s angry response, dated 4 August 1759 deflected the blame for his predicament. “N’est-ce pas vous qui m’avez engagé….?” he demanded. “En consequence, j’ai fait des opérations ruineuses…..Depuis quel temps ai je été obligé de vous rendre compte de ma conduite? Quel droit y avez-vous?……Vous allez être payé, je ne veux pas mulcter [condemn] des gens comme vous, & je ne veux pas de grace de la part des gens qui pensent comme vous.”719 Faced with a rebuff from de Sacy and vituperation from the increasingly hemmed in Lavalette, M.**** wrote directly to Rome asking to have the Jesuits’ Marseille college honor the bill. Lorenzo Ricci, who had replaced Centurione as father general in May 1758, wrote back on 26 September 1759, explaining that “le college de Marseille est si accablé de ses propres dettes” and suggesting that he send the bills back to Lavalette on Martinique for payment.720 Exasperated, M.**** wrote back to de Sacy on 15 November 1759, only to get the same sorrowful sympathy and rumors of future shipments.721 Eleven months of writing to various members of the Society had produced nothing but frustration.

Frey’s tactic of cutting off the Martinique mission to save the province of France was thus successful in the short term but disastrous in the long term. It prevented the province from hemorrhaging cash and preserved its finances. As long as sugar and news from Lavalette trickled across the Atlantic, de Sacy could talk up the possibility that Lavalette would eventually pay his debts. However, the constant runaround from de Sacy, Lavalette, and Ricci created

718 De Sacy to M. de **** 19 Feb. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 44. 719 Lavalette to M. de **** 4 Aug. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 52-53. 720 Lavalette to M. de **** 26 Sept. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 47-48. 721 Lavalette to M. de **** 17 Nov. 1759. Quoted in Lettres sur les opérations, 49-51.

212

frustration and smoldering resentment among the creditors. That the obviously wealthy Society refused to honor its debts chipped away at the Jesuits’ reputation and destroyed the trust and good faith foundational for early modern credit. As these “informal mechanisms” of merchant practice broke down, the creditors began to look to the formal structures of the ancien régime’s legal system for restitution. It was only a matter of time before Lavalette’s debts arrived in court.

Lawsuits

Cazotte’s threat of legal action in the summer of 1760 was believable because by that point the Society was already under suit from other creditors. As the expectation of payment from the Jesuits waned, Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s union of creditors split into factions. One wing, led by Mlle. Beuvron de Harcourt and others, forced the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre to sign a new agreement in December 1758 by which the firm’s creditors laid claim to the partners’ personal property, excluding their linens, cooking utensils and their wives’ dowries.722 Stuck between this faction and his own relatives, the syndic Jean Lioncy brought a suit against

Lavalette “en sa qualité de Supérieur Général des Jésuites aux Isles du Vent” and de Sacy “en qualité de Procureur Général des Missions” in the merchant court of Marseille for the outstanding 1.5 million livres in August 1759.723 Amalia Kessler has written at length about the place of merchant courts, specifically that of Paris, in ancien régime legal and merchant culture.

They were specialized institutions, designed to dispense cheap, efficient justice to members of guilds and the merchant community. Many of their cases were resolved by arbiters whose decisions sought to restore equity between the parties and mend broken relationships.724 Since

722 “Ecritte et Concordat”, 3 Feb 1759, ADBR B 3428 fol. 45-69. 723 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire á Consulter et consultation, 44. 724 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce.

213

the Society of Jesus was clearly solvent and had the ability to pay, the court merely needed find a way to make it do so.

By suing Lavalette and de Sacy as individuals in the merchant court, Jean Lioncy was treating them as business partners and the Îles du Vent mission as a merchant house (société générale) similar to that of Lioncy frères et Gouffre. Unless limited liability was spelled out in the founding documents (acte de société), ancien régime legal practice considered sociétés générales to operate with general liability, meaning that their partners were collectively responsible for the firm’s actions and their personal property could be seized in payment of its debts.725 At this stage the Jesuits appear to have accepted the merchant court’s jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled in Jean Lioncy’s favor three months later but he quickly ran into difficulties collecting. Neither of the defendants owned property, De Sacy informed him, but merely managed the church’s assets, so they possessed nothing with which to pay him.726 The assumptions built into a société générale did not transfer to the Society of Jesus.

The breakthrough came from a surprising source. On 11 May 1757, Lavalette had drawn a bill for 30,000 livres on Rey for the benefit of his Martinique agent Pierre Rachon. The bill would mature in two years. Rachon passed the bill to a Sieur Charlery the same day, who in turn signed it over the next day to the Nantes merchant house of Veuve Grou & Louis Grou.727 The

Grou family was one of Nantes’ largest merchant clans. The family founder, Jean-Baptiste Grou, had specialized in the Caribbean trade, outfitting seventeen ships for the Caribbean between his marriage in 1694 and his death in 1740. His widow, Marie-Marthe Grou, and son Louis carried

725 As Amalia Kessler notes, the eighteenth-century saw the rise of more complicated forms of sociétés with various combinations of general and limited liability. Kessler, 140–80; Meyer, L’armement nantais, 101–9. 726 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire á Consulter et consultation, 44. 727 Sentence des Juge [Sic] & Consuls de Paris. : Du 30 Janvier 1760. Que Condamne Tous Les Jésuites de France Solidairement à Payer La Somme de Trente Mille Livres Dûes en Vertu d’une Lettre de Change Tirée Par Le Pere La Valette, Avec Les Profits & Intérêts Depuis l’échéance de Ladite Lettre, & Tous Les Dépens, Du Jour de La Demande (Paris : s.n., 1760), 6.

214

on the family business together.728 The Seven Years War had hit the Grous hard. The would record over a million livres in losses over the course of the conflict, the second highest of Nantes’ merchant families.729 Lavalette’s bill thus represented funds which the Grous could ill afford to lose. However, by the time they received it in 1758, Lavalette’s reputation had collapsed to the point that other merchants were no long accepting bills with his name. Twice, in June 1758 and

May 1759, they sent the bill to a Marseille firm, Grimaud père et fils, for cashing but the

Grimauds refused to accept it. With the bill having reached maturity, they wrote to Rey and de

Sacy both of whom also rejected it. Further demands to de Sacy in August and November 1759 also yielded nothing.730 Lavalette’s signature had become toxic.

Faced with these rejections and with their situation increasingly desperate, Marie-Marthe and Louis Grou followed Jean Lioncy’s path to the merchant courts. Their tactics differed from those of Jean Lioncy, however, in two crucial details. First, they launched their suit in Paris’ merchant court rather than that of Nantes or Marseille. This choice of venue took advantage of the anti-Jesuit fervor roiling Paris in the wake of Damien’s 1757 assassination attempt on the king. The judges of the Paris merchant court may also have had an anti-Jesuit bent similar to those in the Paris parlement. Second, rather than sue Lavalette or de Sacy individually, they named “les Révérends Peres de la Compagnie & Societé de Jesus, des Pays & Etats de Sa

Majesté, ès persons des Révérendissimes les Peres Provincial, Procureurs Généraux de la dite

Société, & Supérieurs d’icelle & de toutes leurs Maisons sous la domination de Sa Majesté” as defendants. Perhaps they had heard of Jean Lioncy’s mistakes and learned from them.

728 Marie-Marthe is named in the sources only as “veuve Grou.” As a merchant in her own right and key player in the Lavalette affair, she deserves the dignity of her own name. 729 Jean Meyer, “La famille Grou,” Bulletin de la Societe archeologique et historique de Nantes de de Loire- Atlantique 99 and 100 (and 1961 1960): 117 and 58–65; Meyer, L’armement nantais, 250; Laure Pineau-Defois, “Un Modèle d’expansion Économique à Nantes de 1763 à 1792: Louis Drouin, Négociant et Armateur,” Histoire, Économie et Société 23, no. 3 (2004): 371. 730 Sentence des Juge & Consuls de Paris Du 30 Janvier 1760, 8-9.

215

As Amalia Kessler has recorded, much of the Paris merchant court’s docket was resolved through arbitration. In the Grou case, however, both sides pled their case in open court, with De

Sacy representing the Society against the Grous’ procureur, Benoît.731 Much ink has been spilt on the role of mission procurators as financial agents and nodes of information exchange.732

Less attention has been paid to their role as the legal representatives of the Society before the secular courts. They received no formal legal training in the finer points of canon law or secular law, yet they handled the legal affairs of the missions and colleges. Mission procurators held copies of the rights and privileges granted to the Jesuits in the colonies and royal confirmations of land titles.733 De Sacy’s handling of the Grous’ lawsuit provides a glimpse into how the Jesuits and their procurators interacted with secular legal frameworks.

Once in the courtroom, Benoît argued that since the Paris provincial had chosen Lavalette and Lavalette had issued the bill on behalf of the mission, the bill had been implicitly guaranteed by the Society as a whole. De Sacy countered with the explanation that each mission, college, and house was financially independent from the others. No house, he argued, could obligate its neighbors or share in their endowments. Benoît rejected this vision of an atomized Society, pointing out that as mission procurator, de Sacy and the Paris house had long been involved in the Martinique mission’s finances and had profited handsomely from them. Indeed, handling the mission’s affairs was de Sacy’s responsibility as mission procurator. De Sacy attempted to clarify: the missions did turn a profit but the benefits remained their own and were not shared with the Paris professed house or other houses in France. He had not received any returns from

731 The conventional literature of the “Lavalette affair” holds that Benoît was the Grous’ hired lawyer. The introduction to the printed sentence describes him as being a procureur. However, the sentence itself only describes him as “fondé de procuration,” implying that he may have been a fellow merchant charged with handling the case rather than a legal expert. Sentence des Juge & Consuls de Paris, 4. and 6. In theory, the merchant court required litigants to argue their cases themselves but lawyers often appeared before the court in practice. Kessler, Revolution in Commerce, 32-33. 732 See Martinez-Serna “Procurators” and Alden, The Making of an Enterprise. 733 Alden, 304-5.

216

Martinique since 1754 but had paid out what he could before redirecting the claimants back to

Lavalette. At this point, Benoît retreated to his original argument that since the Paris provincial had the authority to appoint the mission’s superior, he must also hold authority and responsibility for the mission’s finances.734

These arguments, recorded at the end of the court’s official verdict, would be rescripted into a livelier drama in print. Printers often disseminated the verdicts in major cases, such as those of the “Lavalette affair” and the affaire du Canada. The unnamed authors who copied merchant court’s verdict in the Grou case added their own introduction with their own more theatrical script of de Sacy and Benoît’s augments. This courtroom counterpoint would be picked up and reprinted by the lawyers fighting later appeals to the Paris parlement and copied again by historians.735

In this version, De Sacy began by questioning widow Grou:

“1. Qui est-ce qui a tiré la Lettre de change dont vous êtes propriétaire?

Rép. C’est le P. Lavalette.

2. Sur qui étoit tirée cette Lettre?

Rép. Sur le sieur Ray [sic], Négociant à Marseille.

3. A l’ordre de qui était-elle tirée?

Rép. A l’ordre du Sr. Gachon [sic], qui l’a endossée à l’ordre du sieur Chalery; & celui-ci

à mon ordre.”

De Sacy then concluded dramatically: “Je ne suis ni le P. Lavalette, ni le sieur Ray, ni le sieur Gachon: Donc la demande que vous me faites est nulle de plein droit, & tombe d’elle- même.” Then it was Benoît’s turn to interrogate de Sacy:

“1. Quelle est la qualité du P. Lavalette dans la Martinique?

734 Archives de Paris. D2B6 961. 30 Jan 1760. Sentence des Juge & Consuls de Paris Du 31 Janvier 1760, 12-15. 735 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 51. Dale Van Kley, Jansenists, 93.

217

Rép. C’est un Jésuite nommé Supérieur des Missions aux Isles du Vent.

2. Les Missions des Isles du Vent á qui ressortissent-elles, & à qui le Supérieur de ces

Missions rend-il compte?

Rép. Au Procureur des Isles du Vent qui réside à la Maison Professe de Paris.

3. Qui est actuellement chargé de cette Procuration, & à qui rend-il lui-même ses

comptes?

Rép. C’est moi qui en suis chargé; & je rends compte au Provincial, qui ne rend compte

qu’à notre Général.”

“Vous voyez, Messieurs.” Benoît crowed, “….C’est donc la Société en corps qui l[the bill of exchange]’a reçu par ses Mandataires. C’est donc elle-même qui doit être condamnée à le rendre après deux ans de jouissance.”736

Amalia Kessler has argued that the merchant court saw itself as a bastion of merchant

“virtue” and searched for “equity” in its verdicts. Its decisions privileged maintaining relationships and ensuring that costs were borne by those who could most afford them.737 To the judges, the Society was clearly solvent and possessed the resources to honor Lavalette’s obligations to his creditors. By hiding behind on the order’s organizational nuances, the Jesuits were displaying a lack of virtue and a breach of faith with the members of the merchant community. Benoît’s reasoning that the father general had installed Lavalette and was therefore responsible for his actions, an argument consistent in both narratives of the courtroom proceedings, was a means for getting the Jesuits to pay. The judges thus accepted Benoît’s reasoning. On 30 January 1760, the merchant court’s judges pronounced in the Grous’ favor, explaining that the “despotisme” and “union sociale” of the Paris professed house over and with the other Jesuit houses in France made it liable for their debts. Lavalette had drawn his letter

736 Sentence des Juge & Consuls de Paris Du 30 Janvier 1760, 4. 737 Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce, 96-140.

218

“pour le profit de la Société” and the Society as a whole was therefore liable.738 Their use of the word “despotisme” suggest judges who may have been reading the Jansenist jurist Adrien Le

Paige, who argued that the Society’s centralized power structure was incompatible with loyalty to the French king.739 Benoît and the Grous had chosen the venue for their case well.

Table 6.4 Judgements against the Jesuits by the Paris merchant court Name Amount Date Marie-Marthe and Louis Grou 30,000 livres 30 Jan. 1760 Marin Lequesne, Rouen merchant 18,000 livres 29 Feb. 1760 Joseph Bernarde Vezel, Bordeaux merchant 1,050 livres 7 Mar. 1760 Dubourg, capitan de vaisseaux 7,500 livres 14 Mar. 1760 Rillaubet, Bordeaux Merchant 7,581 livres 14 Mar. 1760 François Emanuel Mathieu, Marseille merchant 125,000 livres 17 Mar. 1760 Louis Hurard, Rouen merchant 3,000 livres 21 Mar. 1760 Olive, Marseille merchant 7,500 livres 28 Mar. 1760 Claude de l’isle, Marseille merchant 5,000 livres 9 Apr. 1760 Anne Clair Fouque 22,000 livres 14 Apr. 1760 Pierre Gaubert, Bordeaux merchant 42,000 livres 23 Apr. 1760 Estienne Dancy, capitan de vaisseaux 11,000 livres 25 Apr. 1760 Jean Lioncy, Marseille merchant 30,000 livres 25 Apr. 1760 Pierre Laporte, capitan de navire 40,000 livres 2 May 1760 Jean-Baptiste Joseph Petit Bellouche, “chirurgien major du 33,820 livres 7 May 1760 fort St. Pierre” 5s. 10d. François Marchant 4,739 l. 12 s. 12 May 1760 Total 388,190 l. 17s. 10d. Table 6.4 Source: Archives de Paris, D.2B6 961- D.2B6 965. The Grou decision opened the floodgates. Benoît and the Grous had discovered the key to unlocking the Society’s wealth in France as collateral for Lavalette’s loans on Martinique. As news of the decision spread, other creditors in port cities across France followed the Grous’ lead to the Paris merchant court. By May, the court had granted judgments against the Society for almost 400,000 livres (Table 6.2). Other merchant courts in other cities may have given similar verdicts. Jean Lioncy, as syndic for the union of Lioncy frère et Gouffre’s creditors, requested the Marseille merchant court in March to extend their previous verdict for 1.5 million livres

738 Archives de Paris. D2B6 961. 30 Jan 1760. Sentence des Juge & Consuls de Paris Du 31 Janvier 1760. 739 Maire, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation, 505–13.

219

against Lavalette and de Sacy to “le corps & Société des Jésuites de France, en la personne du P.

Provincial & les Procureurs Généraux de la Société.” They did so on 29 May 1760.740 By June, the Society in France had been judged responsible for at least 2 million livres owed to sixteen creditors.

The Jesuits fought back against these decisions. The provincial procurator Montigny belatedly protested that the merchant court had overstepped its jurisdiction in even hearing the case. The 1563 edict establishing the court declared that it was for settling disputes among merchants and the Ordonnance de Commerce gave it the authority to adjudicate bills of exchange

“entre toutes personnes.” The Society was neither a merchant, nor a person, he pointed out.

More importantly, the court’s geographic jurisdiction only covered the region of Paris and none of the people whose names were on the Grous’ bill lived in the capital. Even if the bill had been written on a Parisian merchant, the merchant court was woefully unsuited to try the case. Its small size, he argued, with only one judge and four consuls, and yes-or-no verdicts made it a tribunal rather than a court. It was ludicrous to entrust the finances of an entire religious order to such a group. “Ce tribunal” he wrote, “lui même trop flatté d’une chose si inattendue compte assez sur ses propres forces pour oser contre toutes les régles charger d’une affaire de cette conséquence.” Worse, the flood of anti-Jesuit literature sloshing around Paris poured into the judges’ minds, prejudicing them in the Grous’ favor. A regular court, he argued, should have handled the case rather than one so small and specialized.741

On 2 July the province of France served an opposition to the Marseille merchant court’s verdict in favor of Jean Lioncy, targeting the largest verdict against them. The other four provinces of the French assistancy (Champagne, Aquitaine, Toulouse, and Lyon), who had no

740 Lioncy received two additional judgements. One in the Paris merchant court for the Sieur de Kervegan’s 30,000 livres (25 Apr.), the other in the Marseille merchant court for 93,463 livres 9 sols in book debt (16 June). Lalource and Jean Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter et consultation, 46-49. 741 Montigny, “Mémoire,” 64.

220

authority over the overseas missions but fell under the court’s verdict, followed suit on 4 July.

The Society had long enjoyed the legal privilege of committimus, allowing cases against it to be heard by either the Requêtes de l’Hôtel, a court within the king’s household, or the Requêtes du

Palais of the Paris parlement. The Jesuits also may have been able to appeal to the Grand

Conseil, which was empowered to hear cases regarding the alienation of church goods.742 On 17

August 1760, Montigny and de Sacy obtained a judgment from the royal council, issued in letters patents, to appeal all suits against the Society for Lavalette’s debts to Grand Chambre of the

Paris parlement for a definitive ruling.743 The stage was set for a public scandal.

Conclusion

The Jesuits’ unique organizational structure was both a blessing and a curse. Dominican,

Franciscan, and Ursuline houses are self-contained units financially independent of each other and tied together with a minimal overarching administrative structure. This isolation limited their ability to support large mission projects or engage in collective activities, but it had the advantage of keeping financial accountability at a local level. The debts of one institution could not ruin the rest of the order. Ignatius’ system of provinces and procurators, with power centralized rather than devolved, gave the Society far greater cohesion and flexibility than contemporary orders. East Asian missionaries could arrange funding from European sources that would have been impossible for an Ursuline convent or a Dominican house reliant on local donors. However, this centralization created a liability in that the actions of one institution could easily affect others. Embedded in the Society’s administrative structure, individual colleges or missions could not easily be hived off or quarantined. In creating the streamlined administrative

742 “Mémoir sur le Père Lavalette,” 12. The author of this document confuses these privileges by stating that committimus allowed them to have their cases heard by the Grand Conseil instead of the Paris parlement. De la Ferrière and d’Argis, “Committimus” and “Grand Conseil,” Dictionnaire de droit et de pratique; Thevenot, Plaidoyer. 743 Lalource and Jean Lioncy, Mémoire à consulter, 52-53. Van Kley, Jansenists, 93-94.

221

structure, Ignatius never spelled out where financial responsibility ultimately lay. Merchant sociétés had the liability of their partners spelled out in the Ordonnance de Commerce, or their founding documents but no such clarity existed within the Society of Jesus. Financial crises, such as those in seventeenth-century Iberia and the “Lavalette affair” were moments when the

Society was forced to grapple with this question.

The collapse of Lavalette’s network in the face of British privateering challenges James

Riley’s claims on the power of “compensatory trade” to make up for losses during the war. Riley argued that the Seven Years War had a minimal effect on French merchants, since increases in trade before and after the war made up for the temporary stoppages.744 Lavalette did engage in compensatory trade before the war and intended to do so again after the peace but this trade did little to offset his inability to get sugar across the Atlantic. Packing the St. Pierre and the Reine des Anges to capacity in 1755 only assured Lioncy frères et Gouffre of greater losses and their

British captors of more prize money.

744 Riley, Seven Years’ War, 114

222

Chapter 7: Société, Solidité, Scandale

In the spring of 1761, Voltaire received a book. It arrived during a lull in the great satirist’s life. The first edition of Candide had come out two years before in 1759 (“Un mauvais

Roman” reported one widely read newspaper, “le plus impie & le plus pernicieux Ouvrage que soit jamais sorti de la plume de M. de V.”).745 1760 saw his first use of the phrase “Ecrasez l’infâme.” In 1762, he would take up the cause of the Calas family against religiously motivated murder charges. During spring of 1761, though, the doyen of French belles lettres was settling into the role of a landed seigneur on his newly purchased estate at Ferney near the Genevan border.746

The book was Charlemagne Lalourcé’s 533-page Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour Jean Lioncy, one of several works printed by the creditors’ lawyers arguing their case before the Paris parlement for the Society’s collective liability.747 Voltaire’s correspondence shows that he read Lalourcé’s evidence against Lavalette and the Society with interest. “Pour dieu dites moi si vous ne trouves pas le mémoire contre les jésuites bien fort, et bien concluent

[sic]?” he asked the former conseiller au parlement Charles Augustin Ferriol in April 1761.

“Comment s’en tireront ils?”748 And again a month later: “Les jésuittes sont bien impudents d’oser dire que frère la Valette ne faisait pas le commerce, et qu’il ne vendait que les denrées du

745 Des Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques, 3 Sept. 1760. 746 Nicholas Cronk, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Voltaire, Candide or, Optimism: The Robert M. Adams Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism, ed. Robert M. Adams and Nicholas Cronk, Third edition, A Norton Critical Edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016), 155–57. 747 The editors of Voltaire’s correspondence at the Voltaire Foundation claim that this was the book. The catalogue of Voltaire’s library in the Russian National Library does not list a copy of this volume or any printed work associated with the “Lavalette affair.” “Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] to Charles Augustin Feriol, comte d’Argental: Friday, 17 April 1761,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1070164b1c >. Gosuderstvennaia publichnaia mien M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina. Bibliothèque de Voltaire: Catalogue des Livres. (Moscow-St. Petersburg: Éditions de l’Académie des Sciences de l’URSS, 1961). 748 Voltaire [François Marie Arouet], “Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] to Charles Augustin Feriol, comte d’Argental: Friday, 17 April 1761,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1070164b1c >.

223

cru.” The landlocked sage of Ferney even claimed to have his own evidence against Lavalette:

“Je connais un homme d’honneur,” he bragged to Ferriol, “un brave corsaire qui l’a vu, déguisé en matelot, courir les colonies anglaises et hollandaises, et qui l’a accompagné dans un voïage à

Amsterdam.”749 When the parlement announced its decision against the Society on 8 May 1761, one of Voltaire’s Parisian friends wrote him jubilantly: “Ces Révérends ont été baffoüés et honnis de tout point le Vendredi 8 de ce mois, ce fut des acclamations et des battemens qui retentirent depuis les rües voisins du Palais dans tout Paris; deux ou trois événemens de suite ont fait leur disgrâce générale, l’affaire de leur guerre du Paraguay, la sinistre avanture du Portugal, et le procès des Lyoncys en France &c.”750 Voltaire had followed the Society’s Portuguese expulsion in 1759 and penned a scathing satire of the Paraguay reducciones in Candide.751 The fight over Lavalette’s debts appeared to forecast a similar expulsion from France.

Voltaire was not one of Lavalette’s clients, nor did he possess one of Lavalette’s bills of exchange. Yet he closely followed the details of the trial. Voltaire’s sudden attentiveness to

Lavalette’s debts shows the blossoming of what had been an arcane financial dispute into a lively cause célèbre. The parlementary trial, and the literature it produced, lifted Lavalette from merchant and Jesuit circles into the developing public sphere. By April 1761 even the sage of

Ferney knew his name and now infamous reputation as a banqueroutier.

749 As far as I can find, Lavalette never visited Amsterdam, nor did he disguise himself. Voltaire [François Marie Arouet], “Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] to Charles Augustin Feriol, comte d’Argental: Monday, 4 May 1761,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1070196a1c >. 750 père Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville, abbé Cideville, “père Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville, abbé Cideville to Voltaire [François Marie Arouet]: Wednesday, 13 May 1761,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1070209a1c >. 751 “….les nouvelles qui nous sont venües de la bataille donnée au Paraguai entre les troupes du Roy de Portugal, et celles des R:r pp. Jésuïtes. On parle de sept Jésuïtes prisonniers de guerre, et de cinq tués dans le Combat, celà fait douze martyrs, de compte fait.” Voltaire [François Marie Arouet], “Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] to Louise Florence Pétronille La Live, marquise d’Épinay [née Tardieu d’Esclavelles]: Friday, 25 April 1760,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1050262a1c >.

224

Scholars have been interested in the “Lavalette affair” for the same reasons Voltaire followed the news: it was a step in the Jansenists’ campaign to expel the Jesuits’ from France.

Dale Van Kley, Catherine Maire, and Marc Fumaroli have shown how the arguments in the case presaged the anti-Jesuit expulsion campaign and traced the alliances between Lavalette’s creditors and Jansenist lawyers, particularly that of Jean Lioncy with Charlemagne Lalourcé.

Yet examining the case on its own terms reveals an intricate debate over questions of definition of commerce, corporate liability, and whether the Society should be treated as a société. It has long been a truism that the Catholic church was the world’s first corporation. The Jesuits and their creditors would debate the implications of that point in earnest.

Jesuits versus Jansenists

The fight over Lavalette’s debts interested Voltaire and others like him because it fit into larger battles between the Jesuits, the Jansenists, the Paris parlement, and the French monarchy.

In Paris, the Jesuits and their enemies, the Jansenists, had been locked in a theological and political battle since the late seventeenth century; a fight entwined with a battle between the monarchy and the parlement. The Jansenists were a group of theological reformers who emerged in the seventeenth century favoring Augustinian theology, local church control, and greater access to Biblical texts. The Jesuits opposed these ideas and won several key victories against the Jansenists in the early years of the eighteenth century. The Port Royal convent, a center of Jansenist thought, was demolished in 1709, the papacy denounced key Jansenist propositions in the 1713 bull Unigenitus, and Cardinal Fleury removed clergy with Jansenist leanings from much of the church hierarchy during the 1720s and 1730s. In response to these assaults, the Jansenists morphed from theological reformers into a quasi-political party which claimed to represent the French nation in opposition to absolutist monarchy and Jesuit scheming.

This stance dovetailed with the developing pretensions of the regional parlements, who saw

225

themselves as guardians of the “nation” against absolutist overreach. By the mid-eighteenth century, the parlements had become bastions of Jansenist support.752

The Jansenists’ most impressive creation during the first decades of the eighteenth century was a clandestine publication network to disseminate their writings and ideas. “À Paris,” writes Catherine Maire, “bien plus que les écrits des philosophes, c’est la librarie janséniste, qui, la première, a créé les conditions matérielles de l’existence d’une presse indépendante et d’une opinion publique regardée comme capable de juger elle-même des ‘affaires du temps.’”753 At mid-century, 20% of Parisian printers published clandestine Jansenist material, much of which had an anti-Jesuit bent. Between 1728 and 1803, A weekly newspaper, Les Nouvelles

Ecclésiastiques, provided its readers with a Jansenist interpretation of events around Europe.754

As the suits around Lavalette’s debts neared the Paris parlement, then, a sophisticated system of publication stood prepared to insert the case in their political battles against the Society.

Lavalette’s debts were about to be weaponized.

The creation and destruction of Lavalette’s currency transfer system corresponded to the latest bout of this Jansenist/parlement-Jesuit/monarchy fight: the “refusal-of-sacraments” controversy. Dale Van Kley has called this controversy “a singularly unedifying not to say lugubrious story, reeking more of the stench of death than the ‘odor of sanctity.’” In 1750, the

Archbishop of Paris had controversially ordered priests to refuse last rites to those who had not confessed themselves to a priest who accepted Unigenitus. When the parlement and its parti janséniste issued a remonstrance in defense of a Jansenist who was forced to die unconfessed in

April of 1753, the king’s minsters ordered the parlementaires’ exile from Paris to the provinces.

752 For a more detailed overview of Jansenism, see Maire, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation; Dale K Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996). 753 Maire, De la cause de Dieu, 139. 754 Maire, 137.

226

However, a lawyer’s strike and continued prosecutions of sacrament-refusing priests by other parlements compelled Louis XV to recall the judges in September of 1754. The conflict flared up again six months later, leading to another lawyer’s strike and more parlementary resignations before the crown capitulated in September 1757. The king needed parlementary acceptance for new taxes to pay for the Seven Years War and was willing to give the parlementaires a free hand on religious policy in return. By the time Lavalette’s debts became a legal case in 1759, the

Paris parlement had exiled the last of the priests who still refused last rites to Jansenists.755

Lavalette may have felt the effects of this controversy early on. Rouillé’s investigation of

Lavalette between May 1753 and July 1754 corresponds with the parlement’s exile (May 1753-

September 1754). Rouillé had served as a conseiller in the Paris parlement for six years (1711-

1717) and spent seven years as maître des requêtes (1717-1725) giving him Jansenist connections and possible anti-Jesuit sympathies. A later mémoire written by Jesuit hands describes Rouillé as having “little affection” for the Society, implying that his investigation into

Lavalette may have been a way to embarrass the Jesuits.756 This theory is unlikely, however, as the Rouillé’s investigation was never publicized and the Jansenist press remained ignorant of it.

During the last years of the 1750s, while the parlement banished Parisian priests and de

Sacy held off Lavalette’s creditors, events both domestic and foreign swelled anti-Jesuit sentiment. On the cold evening of 5 January 1757, a disturbed commoner, Robert-François

Damiens, attempted to assassinate Louis XV with a pen knife. The king survived, but royal judges quickly discovered that Damiens had served as a lackey at Louis-le-Grand and rumors spread that he had Jesuit accomplices still at large. The Society had been associated with regicide for over a century, since early Jesuit writers such as Robert Bellarmine and Juan de

755 Dale Van Kley sees this surrender of 1757 an important nail in the coffin of absolutism. Van Kley, Religious Origins, 142–53. 756 “Mémoire sur le P. Lavalette,” F An 22 fol. 5. AFSI F An 22.

227

Mariana had postulated that killing royalty was an acceptable way to uphold papal authority.757

Damien’s failed assassination led to an outpouring of anti-Jesuit hysteria and Jansenist polemics against the Society. “Le geste symbolique de Damiens aura été l’étincelle qui a rallumé le foyer des animosités traditionnelles à l’égard de la Compagnie de Jésus,” writes Catherine Maire, “Les

événements qui le suivent vont l’embraser.”758

News from Portugal and South America further fanned these sparks. In 1750, Spain and

Portugal had concluded a treaty dividing their lands in Paraguay. Fulfilling the treaty’s obligations required relocating seven Indian reductions under the Society’s oversight and leaving their Guaraní inhabitants vulnerable to Portuguese slave raiders. The Jesuits of the missions protested this move and helped the Guaraní to defend themselves against slave raids and military expeditions. The Jesuits’ enemies in Europe published accounts of the Society’s recalcitrance widely, portraying the Paraguayan reductions as the father general’s personal fief. Sebastião José de Carvalho, Joseph I’s first minister who intended to expel the Society, encouraged these stories. In the spring of 1758, he pressured the pope to appoint Cardinal Francisco Saldanha to inspect the Jesuit houses within the Portuguese empire. After a short visit to the Lisbon’s college of São Roch, Saldanha announced that all the Jesuit houses in the empire were guilty of scandalous commerce. The Jansenists translated and circulated Saldanha’s “findings” through their network. An assassination attempt on Joseph I in September 1758 reawakened the specter of Jesuit regicide and gave Carvalho the needed excuse to expel the Society from Portuguese dominions the following year.759 The Society’s 1759 expulsion from Portugal would serve as a model for the Jesuits enemies in France. The Jansenist press circulated the news of the “War of the Seven Reductions” and the Portuguese expulsion throughout Paris. Lavalette’s debts thus

757 Van Kley, Damiens Affair. 758 Maire, De la cause de Dieu, 501. 759 Bangert, Society of Jesus, 351–69.

228

arrived at the Paris parlement at a moment when the Society’s image was already weakened and the Jansenists were attuned to rumors of Jesuit houses conducting scandalous commerce.

Lavalette enters the Public Sphere

Lavalette’s name entered France’s public sphere as an outgrowth of his creditors’ frustrations. Dale Van Kley has described in detail Jean Lioncy’s alliance with the Jansenist lawyer Jean Charlemagne Lalourcé to argue the case before the Paris parlement and the latter’s publication of the Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour Jean Lioncy.760 However, connections between the creditors and anti-Jesuit forces in France went back longer and were wider than just those surrounding the parlementary battles. As early as 1758, two years before the case reached the parlement, creditors were publishing their experiences with Lavalette in anti-Jesuit publications. It was a useful tactic for both groups. For anti-Jesuit authors, the alliance provided concrete examples of Jesuit perfidy and real examples of their danger to the

French economy. For the creditors, the bad press warned other merchants away from Lavalette and the Society, thus applying pressure for the Jesuits to pay. The Jansenist authors focused on

Lavalette’s commercial activities, inserting them into a global narrative of Jesuit greed. A notable absence from their argumentation was any accusation of the Society as a slaveholder.

While they used slavery as a metaphor, referring to Jesuit priests as slaves of the father general, the real, brutal slavery of the plantation regime remained outside their vision.

France’s reading public first became appraised of Lavalette’s existence in 1758, as his creditors were pestering de Sacy and Ricci for payment. The author/translator of the Decret du

Cardinal Saldanha, Pour la réforme des Jésuites de Portugal & des Domaines qui en dépendent. warned his readers in the introduction that the Jesuits in France were guilty of similar commercial dealings as their brethren in Portugal. Two examples supported this claim: two

760 Van Kley, Jansenists, 90-137.

229

vague sentences accusing the Jesuits running a commercial bank in Lyon (“Les négociants de

Lyon disent…que les Jesuites de cette Ville si commerçante sont la plus grande partie du commerce, & que les seuls intérêts qu’ils tirent de leur Banque….doit leur produire des sommes immenses, car cette Banque s’étend à tous les pays du monde.”) and two detailed pages describing Lavalette’s currency exchange network operation from the client’s perspective. Here the author explains that he is on more solid ground (“mais voici ce que j’en ai appris de certain”) and must have gotten the details from one of Lavalette’s former clients. The author explained the lopsided exchange ratio, Lavalette’s claim to transfer funds at par using bills at three-year terms, and the losses to British privateers. De Sacy, Lioncy frères et Gouffre, and Lioncy & Cartier are all named as his agents. Once Lioncy frères et Gouffre stop accepting bills, the narrative switches to the story of a single capitaine de vaisseau, “porteur d’une lettre de trente mille livres” who successfully threatens de Sacy with a public scandal and receives his payment to keep quiet. Other creditors then descend on the Paris house demanding similar treatment but de

Sacy rebuffs them.761 Des Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques’ review of the Decret du Cardinal

Saldanha in the 18 Nov. 1758 edition sharpened further this attack on the Society: De Sacy “tient la Banque des Jésuites de Paris” and Lavalette conducted “[un] commerce prodigieux.”762 This narrative, starting with Lavalette’s issuing of bills on Martinique and ending with the Paris

Jesuits’ refusal to pay them was the first embryonic storyline of the “Lavalette affair.” It would be added to in multiple variations.

Lavalette’s name next appeared in a 388-page tome entitled Les Jesuites marchands, usuriers, usurpateurs, et leurs cruautés dans l’ancien & le nouveau continent. Published in 1759, as Carvalho was expelling the Society from Portugal and Jean Lioncy was bringing his first suit

761 Francisco de Saldanha da Gama, Decret du Card. Saldanha, pour la réforme des Jésuites de Portugal & des domaines qui en dépendent. (15 mai 1758), iii-v. 762 Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques, 18 Nov. 1758.

230

to the Marseille merchant court, it purported to chronicle the Society’s “commerce illégitime” around the globe. “Les Jesuites ne sont aujourd’hui que ce qu’ils ont toujours été,” the author claimed in the introduction, “s’ils paroissent si noirs & si coupables aujourd’hui aux yeux des

Papes & des Rois, ce n’est pas qu’auparavant ils fussent moins criminels.”763 Lavalette’s activities were one of these examples, tucked between an account of Jesuits cornering the

Maltese wheat market in the sixteenth century and a claim that they had sold “plusieurs sortes de marchandise” in the Philippines in 1682. Half the entry on Lavalette is copied from the Decret du Cardinal Saldanha. The other half is an account of Malan & Martin, a Livorno merchant house, which the author probably copied from a newspaper. Malan & Martin had been correspondents of Lioncy frères et Gouffre (their balance sheet lists them as creditors for 14,144 livres) whom the Marseille merchant house had been unable to pay following their 1756 faillite.

The article traces Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s losses back to Lavalette “lequel faisant un commerce considerable dans ce pais en plusieurs sortes de marchandises.” “Voilà,” declared the author triumphantly “donc un Jesuite chef de missions qui fait encore actuellement un commerce considérable en plusieurs sortes de marchandises, & spécialement en sucre.”764

The Grou verdict brought Lavalette further into the public eye. Anonymous hands printed the merchant court’s verdict, added an introduction, and distributed it widely. The first publication devoted entirely to Lavalette, Lettres sur les opérations du P. de Lavalette, Jésuite, et

Supérieur Général des Missions des isles Françoises du vent de l’Amérique, nécessaires aux négocians, followed shortly thereafter. It was a direct attack on his reputation within the merchant community and reveals the close connections between Lavalette’s creditors and the anti-Jesuit printing network. The book takes the form of a series of letters, both fabricated and

763 Les Jesuites, Marchands, : Usuriers, Usurpateurs, et Leurs Cruautés Dans l’ancien & Le Nouveau Continent (La Haye : les Freres Vaillant, 1759), iv. 764 Les Jesuites, Marchands, 67-69.

231

authentic, between two merchants. The letters which make up the bulk of the work are clearly fabricated. The first, from Cl. M. & Compagnie on Martinique to M. B**** in Lyon, purports to be from a planter on Martinique preparing to retire to France. Having heard “les discours empoisonnés de quelques hommes jaloux & méchans”765 against Lavalette “qui mérite aujord’hui, avec plus de fondement, toute ma confiance”766, the Martinican author provides a glowing account of Lavalette’s profitable actions in the Caribbean to set his European correspondent straight. “Rapprochez tous les événements,” he claims, “& vous ne douterez plus ni de la bonne foi, ni de la solvabilité du Pere de Lavalette.”767 The account includes his promotions within the Society, purchase of the Crésols estate, and the currency exchange operation. So certain is the Martinican merchant of Lavalette’s trustworthiness that he has given him 20,000 écus, “le seul bien que j’ai pû sauver, en mon particulier, des funestes événemens de cette guerre opiniâtre, ou de l’affreux coup de tempête qui dévasta notre Isle,”768 in exchange for

Lavalette’s bills on Aillaud. Lavalette’s trustworthiness, the author claims, is a credit to “cette

Compagnie respectable,” which had placed him in power and supported his activities. Indeed,

“Ce qu’il fait jusqu’ici, il l’a fait pour l’avantage de la Société.” Many of Lavalette’s erstwhile clients would have recognized themselves in this naïve merchant who had considered Lavalette creditworthy.

The author proceeds to disabuse this rosy reputation in the responding letter. “J’ai toujours fait peu d’estime des papiers du P. Lavalette.” he writes, “Mille bonnes raisons, inutiles

à détailler ici, m’autorisaient à soupçonner leur solidité.”769 Indeed, the bills of exchange for

30,000 écus which he received from Lavalette have already been rejected by Aillaud. Neither

765 Lettres sur les opérations, 20. 766 Lettres sur les opérations, 5. 767 Lettres sur les opérations, 18. 768 Lettres sur les opérations, 21. 769 Lettres sur les opérations, 25.

232

were Lavalette’s actions as innocent as the first writer had claimed: Lavalette had evaded royal edicts by purchasing land on Dominica, bought slaves on Barbados in disguise, and “n’a pas eu honte de confier le secret de la Société à des Juifs,” by using the Jewish merchant Isaac Juda as an agent.770 Far from being a prudent merchant, he had drawn bills of exchange

“indistinctement” all across Europe “suivant l’idée ou le besoin des traitans.”771 In contrast to the sober and unassuming ideals for both clerics and merchants, Lavalette “voyageoit en France dans une chaise de poste brillante & commode, précédé d’un noir & d’un laquais françois, & toujours suivi d’un troisième domestique ou esclave noir.”772 He was, in short, a dishonest and untrustworthy merchant who dissipated his creditor’s wealth in ostentatious luxury.

The author widened the attack against Lavalette into an assault on the Society by using the Jesuits’ support of Lavalette into a weapon against them. Promoting Lavalette and defending him against Rouillé’s investigation, he argued, showed that the Society as a whole valued profit over piety. Lavalette’s credit had been backed by that of the Society since the father general had approved his loans (“j’ai presque ajouté les larcins”).773 Indeed, the vows of obedience made individual Jesuits no more than slaves: “ils souffrent néanmoins qu’on les enchaîne; on les voit même se plaire dans l’esclavage où les retiennent les Jésuites.”774 Like the authors of Les

Jésuites Marchands and the Decret du Cardinal Saldanha, the author of Lettres sur les

Operations contextualized Lavalette within the Society’s global presence to show a continuous and widespread network of Jesuit commerce. His trade network was similar to “le commerce

770 Lettres sur les opérations, 34. 771 Lettres sur les opérations, 25. 772 We do not know whether Lavalette brought enslaved persons to France during his 1754 recall or how he travelled but such a retinue would have been unlikely. The Jesuit hierarchy did not look kindly on flamboyant displays with many servants. The seventeenth-century visitor André Palmiero reprimanded Father Francesco Buzomi for traveling Southeast Asia with an entourage of five moço servants. French laws also required planters to register their enslaved attendants upon arrival in France. Lettres sur les opérations, 75. Brockey, The Visitor, 358; Sue Peabody, “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 773 Lettres sur les opérations, 77. 774 Lettres sur les opérations, 56.

233

qu’elle faisoit overtement à la Chine & au Japon,” the 1640s “banqueroute” of the Seville college, and the commercial activities which Saldanha had recently discovered in Portugal.775

Lavalette’s purchase of Crésol’s plantation, he argued, is an example of how the Society cultivates wealthy patrons to increase their estates. “La Société est née commerçante;” he concluded “elle ne se démentira jamais.”776

To support these claims of the Society’s untrustworthiness, the author quoted seven letters written by Lavalette, de Sacy, and Ricci to Lavalette’s former clients, M. De ***, J….of

Bordeaux, and P.G.N. de *** which have been quoted and summarized in the preceding chapter.

In contrast to the first two epistles of the Lettres sur les opérations, which are clearly the author’s fabrications, these letters are probably genuine. That these merchants were willing to share their personal correspondence demonstrates the extent to which Frey’s policy of rejecting the creditors claims had backfired into enmity. The hidden nature of their names reveals a paradox for the merchants attacking Lavalette’s reputation. Other merchants would only believe claims from reputable sources, but admitting that they had been duped by Lavalette threatened the merchants’ own reputation and trustworthiness. The author of Lettres sur les operations threaded this needle by redacting the names of the contributors and beginning the book with a list of the merchants referenced, most of whom were Lavalette’s agents whose reputations were thus already ruined.

Arguing Before the Parlement

The case, as it reached the Paris parlement, was quite complicated. Four plaintiffs faced two defendants. First among the plaintiffs came Lioncy frères et Gouffre, followed by the syndic of their creditors, Jean Lioncy. These two jointly claimed the 1,056,629 livres 2 sols 2 deniers which Lavalette had drawn on the Marseille firm. Third was the unfortunate Jacques Cazotte,

775 The author of the Lettres sur les opérations is the only work I have found to have made the connection between the seventeenth-century Iberian scandals and Lavalette’s debts. Lettres sur les opérations, 28-29 and 60. 776 Lettres sur les opérations, 31.

234

who had finally gotten around to bringing the legal action he had threatened Ricci. He joined his suit for 130,000 livres with the fourth plaintiff, the Demoiselle Fouque. Another of Lavalette’s clients, Fouque had followed the Grous’ steps to the Paris merchant court and won a judgment there for 33,000 livres which the Jesuits had then appealed.777 Arrayed against these four plaintiffs were the province of France and the other four provinces of Toulouse, Aquitaine,

Champagne, and Lyon.

Table 7.1 Anti-Jesuit Works Title Author(s) Publisher Mémoire à consulter et Charlemagne Lalourcé Alex. Le Prieur consultation pour Jean Lioncy Plaidoyer pour le syndic des Jean-Baptiste Le Gouvé Charles-Maurice Houry créanciers des sieurs Lioncy freres et Gouffre Mémoire sur les demandes Guy-Jean-Baptiste-Target, M. Lambert formées contre le général et Rouhette la société des jésuites Second mémoire pour le sieur Guy-Jean-Baptiste-Target Unknown Cazotte, et la demoiselle Fouque

777 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire sur les demandes formées, 10-22.

235

Table 7.2 Pro-Jesuit Works Title Author(s) Publisher Mémoire à consulter et L’Herminier, Mallard, Gillet, L. Cellot consultation pour les Jésuites Taboué, de la Monnoie, de France Babile, Thevenot d’Essaule Plaidoyer pour les Jésuites de Claude-François Thevenot Unknown France d’Essaule Réponse au mémoire intitulé Deligny H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour “Memoire sur les Demandes formées” Precis pour les Jesuites de Deligny H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour France “Mémoire pour les Jésuites Antione de Montigny Unpublished de France” (Unpublished, manuscript in Archives de la Province de France de la Société de Jesus F An 18) Mémoire pour les Jésuites Laget-Bardelin J. Chardon des provinces de Champagne, Guyenne, Toulouse & Lyon

As Sarah Maza has discussed, lawyers in high profile trials regularly published their arguments to sway the nascent public opinion. These mémoires judiciaires were a staple feature of pre-revolutionary print culture. By the 1770s, mémoires for hot scandals could have print runs of 6,000-10,000 copies with expectant readers getting into brawls outside booksellers over the latest news.778 Despite its arcane subject matter concerning the Society’s organizational nuances, the “Lavalette affair” produced a similar spate of publications. The trial generated nine mémoires and plaidoyers: four arguing for the Society, five arguing for the creditors (Tables 7.1 and 7.2). Antoine de Montigny, the procurator for the province of France, also wrote his own

Mémoire which was never published. First to come out in January or February of 1761 was

Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target’s Mémoire sur les demandes formées contre le général et la société des jésuites, in defense of Jacque Cazotte and Demoiselle Fouque. The last, Charlemagne Lalourcé’s

778 Sarah C. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France, Studies on the History of Society and Culture 18 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

236

mammoth Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour Jean Lioncy, appeared in late April, a month after the trial began at the end of March. The audience for these texts would have been the erudite reader rather than the public at large. They were certainly not light reading. Most average between 100 and 200 pages, with the longest running to over 500. Each begins with a narrative of Lavalette’s activities followed by lengthy arguments drawn from legal texts. Both sides had access to Ignatius’ Constitutions and the papal bulls relating to the Jesuits, allowing them to make detailed claims about Society’s organizational structure. They also referred to

Henry IV’s 1603 Lettres Patentes establishing the Jesuits in France and various royal edicts on ecclesiastical property. For the laws governing liability among merchants, they drew on the code of Justinian and the 1673 Ordonnance de Commerce. The authors quoted extensively from these sources, often in the original Latin. Several of Lavalette’s former agents (Grasson, Ballaca, the

Lioncys), including several merchants not listed as litigants in the suit, provided the lawyers with their letters from Lavalette allowing Lavalette’s own words to be used against him. Despite the publications’ arcane subject matter, the notoriety of the case and its portents for the Society encouraged their dissemination to Ferney and beyond.

Scholars of Jansenism such as Dale Van Kley and Catherine Maire have zeroed in on this trial literature as examples of Jansenist rhetoric being put into courtroom practice. The

Jansenists’ campaign for the Jesuits’ expulsion, they argue, could be read in Charlemagne

Lalourcé’s Mémoire à consulter et Consultation pour Jean Lioncy of 1761.779 Examining the published mémoires and plaidoyers which surrounded the case before the parlement on their own terms, however, reveals lawyers grappling with the reality of a religious house acting like a merchant house; the Society as a société. Who exactly had Lavalette obligated with his bills of exchange? The mission? The province of France? The father general? The Society as a whole?

779 See Maire, De la Cause de Dieu and Van Kley, Jansenists.

237

Where in Ignatius’ hierarchy did financial liability ultimately rest? What exactly was

“commerce” and was Lavalette guilty of it? More broadly, the case opened questions of how one applied laws designed for profit-seeking merchant houses to an ecclesiastical body with vows of poverty and communal goods. What analogy best described the relationship between the father general and Lavalette (master/slave, merchant/factor, guardian/minor, father/son, employer/employee (preposé), monarch/subject)? How to characterize the Society’s unique structure (family, monastery, société)? Under the simplified polemics lurked real questions.

Anti-Jesuit Arguments

The creditors struck first. They aimed their attack straight at the father general himself.

“Le Gouvernment de la Société des Jésuites est un Gouvernement Monarchique,” proclaimed

Lalourcé, “ce n’est pas assez dire, il est despotique.”780 “C’est un de ces Maîtres de l’Orient, qui a tout dans sa main, biens, personnes, loix….” Stated another.781 The litterae annuae and triennial catalogues gave the father general full knowledge of everything that was happening.

The power to make appointments gave him control over every college and professed house. He ran an “état” or an “empire” with a “puissance arbitraire.”782 His powers were “illimité, suprême, sans révision, & irrévocable,” problems which the Jansenist parlementaires saw reflected in France’s absolute monarchy.783 Through vows of obedience and the Society’s collective mind set, the father generals could even dictate the actions of the priests themselves.

“Une seule intelligence imprime le mouvement à cette multitude active,” Target argued, “atteint par elle aux extrémités du monde, met à profit son courage, emploie son adresse, use de son

780 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 67. 781 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 38. 782 Sometimes their Jansenism poked through. “Jesus-Christ, en fondant son Eglise, a voulu que nul n’y affectât d’Empire.” wrote on lawyer, “C’est à des Modérateurs & à des Peres qu’il en confié la direction. Tout doit s’y décider par des Synods, par des Conciles…..Les Jésuites se sont fait des principes contraires.” Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 5, 47, and 56. 783 Le Gouvé, 49.

238

crédit, dispose de ses richesses, avec la même facilité qu’un homme robuste & fort, se sert de la vigueur de ses membres.”784 With this corporeal metaphor came images of servitude. “Ils sont tous des serfs, des esclaves” wrote Jean-Baptiste Le Gouvé, “le Général est leur maître.”785 The

Society was “un esclave,” agreed Lalourcé, “et moins que cela encore. C’est un bâton, un cadavre, qui n’a de mouvement & d’action que ce qu’il en reçoit du Général.”786 The broad powers Ignatius had bestowed, they noted, included direct control over the Society’s goods. No house could be founded or property alienated without his permission. He could “passer toute espèce d’Actes, de contracter pour la Société, de l’enrichir par ses stipulations, d’acquerir & de vendre, de recevoir & de donner.”787 This meant, they argued, that the Society’s goods were his property. “Il n’est pas moins le Maître des richesses de son Ordre,” wrote Lalourcé, “que chaque

Citoyen ne l’est de son propre bien.”788 In sum: “Le Gouvernement de la Société des Jésuites est despotique;” wrote Target, “tout, jusqu’à la règle même, est soumis au pouvoir absolu du

Général; & c’est dans sa main que réside le droit de disposer des biens de la Société, dont il est le seul & le véritable propriétaire.”789 Though pushback from the Jesuits’ lawyers forced them to clarify that the father general did not own these goods personally but was rather the

“administrateur suprême” or “administrateur universel” for the Society as a whole, the unitary ownership of the Jesuits property remained clear.

With this picture of collective responsibility established, it was a short leap to extend that control to responsibility for Lavalette’s actions. Lavalette, they argued, was merely a “préposé” or a “subalterne” carrying out the father general’s will.790 “C’est du Général, c’est de l’Ordre

784 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 34. 785 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 39. 786 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 142. 787 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 50-51. 788 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 57. 789 Target, Mémoire, 24. 790 In the military sense of being an aide de camp rather than a colonial subject. Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 64; Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 71.

239

que le Pere de la Valette a été le Mandataire” who truly owned Lavalette’s bills of exchange, Le

Gouvé argued. “L’Ordre seul étoit Propriétaire du commerce de la Martinique, comme il est de tant d’autres Comptoirs répandus dans l’univers.”791 Characterizing the precise relationship between the father general and Lavalette, however, proved to be less straightforward. Roman law, commercial law, and the coutume de Paris contained several models where one person’s property could be rendered liable for another’s actions (communauté des biens and solidité being two examples). Which of these concepts fit the Society of Jesus? The most obvious method was to consider the father general as a merchant and Lavalette as his “agent,” “préposé,” or

“mandataire.” De Sacy himself had fended off demands for payment by stating that “ce sont mes Supérieurs qui les réglent, je ne suis plus que leur simple Agent.”792 Lalourcé and Le Gouvé thus turned to the Institutes of Justinian, which described the liability merchants and employers faced for the actions of their slaves and servants. The rule of quod jussu held a merchant liable for his agent’s debts based on whose credit or name had been used in the transaction. If the merchant had allowed the agent to conduct trade in his name, the public was considered to have relied on the merchant’s credit rather than that of the agent. Justinian applied this rule to two other cases: exercitoria, where a shipowner was responsible for the debts his captain contracted, and institutoria, where an owner who appointed a servant to run a shop (“OR ANY OTHER

BUSINESS” Lalourcé emphasized in all uppercase letters) was liable for the servant’s debts.

Exercitoria in particular, Lalourcé noted, “peut très-bien s’appliquer à ceux qui ont préposé le P.

De la Valette.”793 Another action of Roman law, de in rem verso, applied explicitly to slaves

791 For more on Jesuit spacefaring, see Arthur C. Clarke, “The Star,” in The Nine Billion Names of God: The Best Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (New York: Signet/NAL, 1974), 235–40; Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow, 1st ed (New York: Villard Books, 1996); Mary Doria Russell and Mary Doria Russell, Children of God: A Novel, 1st ed (New York: Villard, 1998). Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 45. 792 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 83-84. 793 Book 4 Title VIII Section 1-2. Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 61; Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 105-8.

240

who had done business on their own account (“sur le pécule que les fils de famille avoient ordinairement, & que quelquefois les maîtres permettoient aux esclaves d’avoir”) without their master’s knowledge. In this case the master would be liable only if they had shared in the business’ profits.794 Le Gouvé asked his readers to imagine a situation where a Roman citizen had three slaves in Rome, Sicily, and Tuscany. If one contracted a debt on behalf of the master, the creditor could seize the other two. Merchant houses with multiple branches and land owners with multiple properties functioned in the same way, he claimed.795 Nor were these principles confined to Roman law; they were reiterated in the 1673 Ordonnance de Commerce. “Encore qu’il n’y ait qu’un qui ait signé,” Lalourcé quoted Article 7 Title 4, “au cas qu’il ait signé pour la

Compagnie.”796

When the Jesuits protested that they were under canon law not merchant law, the creditors’ lawyers held their ground. The Jesuits had lost the protections of canon law when they violated it with commerce, argued Le Gouvé. “Quiconque agit en Négociant,” he declared, “doit

être jugé par les Loix de Négocians.”797 The Ordonnance de Commerce, noted Target, considered minors who engaged in commerce or banking to be adults, since doing business forfeited them the protections of their underage status. “Si le mineur perd les Priviléges [sic] de son âge lorsqu’il devient Négociant,” he argued, “les Communautés [Religieuses] ne peuvent plus invoquer ceux de leur état, lorsqu’elles se livrent ouvertement au trafic.”798 That the bulk of their examples from Roman law referred to slaves seemed especially fitting. “Si cette loi, ainsi que presque toutes celles qu’on a citées, ne parlent que d’affaires faites avec des esclaves, par

794 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 108-9. 795 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 144. 796 Lalourcé and Lioncy, Mémoire a consulter et consultation, 63-64. 797 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 151. 798 The same held true for members of the nobility who undertook retail commerce. Target quotes Title I, Article 6 of the Ordonnance de Commerce. Target, Second Mémoire, 74.

241

ordre de leur Maître,” Lalourcé explained, “c’est une raison de plus pour les appliquer aux

Membres de la Société, qui, vis-a-vis de leur Général, ne sont que des esclaves.”799

That Lavalette had conducted trade in the Society’s name, with the father general’s consent, and to the profit of the Society was obvious, the creditors’ lawyers argued. It was the

Society’s reputation as much as that of Lavalette which caused his creditors to trust him. “C’est par confiance en eux & dans leurs papiers qu’une infinité de Propriétaires ont versé dans leurs mains toute leur fortune.” wrote le Gouvé.800 Lavalette had conducted “un commerce habituel, florissant, universel, soutenu des ressources, du crédit, de la solvabilité apparente de la

Société” wrote Target.801 Lavalette’s trade was so widespread and well known, they argued, that it could only have happened with the father general’s knowledge and permission. “La publicité des actes que le Pere de la Valette a faits,” said Target, “la notoriété de son commerce & de ses traites, ont dû faire penser à tout le monde qu’il étoit revêtu des pouvoirs nécessaires, pour contracter solidement avec lui.”802 Le Gouvé was more sarcastic. “Ses correspondances étoient

établies dans toute l’Europe, avec une multitude de personnes, dans les villes où la Société a des

Maisons. Ne se serait-il donc jamais trouvé, ou chez les Jésuites ou parmi les Externes, quelqu’un qui donnât des avis au Général?”803

They held Lavalette’s swift promotions and the Society’s vigorous defense of him during

Rouillé’s 1753-1754 investigation as confirmation of complicity. When the Jesuits pushed back against this circumstantial evidence, demanding documentary proof that the Society in Europe

799 Lalourcé, Mémoire, 370. None of the lawyers referred to current slave laws in force on the Jesuits’ Caribbean plantations. The 1685 code Noir was silent on the question of a slaveowner’s liability for their enslaved’s actions. Article XXIII of the 1724 Louisiana Code Noir, however, stated that “les maîtres soient tenus de ce que leurs esclaves auront fait par leur commandement, ensemble de ce qu’ils auront géré et négocié dans leurs boutiques, et pur l’espèce particulère de commerce à laquelle leurs maîtres les auront préposés.” The article went on to specify that if the slave was not authorized to trade, then the owner was only liable for the profit arising from the transactions. If the trade was not profitable, then the owner becames a creditor of their own slave. 800 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 141. 801 Target, Second Mémoire, 96. 802 Target, Mémoire, 73. 803 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 110.

242

knew and approved of Lavalette’s activities overseas, Le Gouvé was more than happy to comply.

He quoted a sheaf letters from De Sacy to the creditors with plentiful details of Lavalette’s transfer system. The smoking gun was a January 1755 letter from Rome authorizing Lavalette to borrow. This, he crowed, established a direct link between the father general’s office and the bills of exchange in the creditor’s hands.804 Thus, the evidence showed incontestably, that the

Jesuits in France had knowingly permitted Lavalette to conduct commerce in the Society’s name, rendering them liable for his debts under the Institutes and the Code de Commerce.

Pro-Jesuit Arguments

The Jesuits and their lawyers quickly counterattacked. Where the creditors’ lawyers began their reasoning with the father general and worked downward, the Jesuits’ lawyers began with the individual houses and worked their way up. “Chaque Maison est considérée comme une personne civile, distincte & séparée,” wrote L’Herminier, “dont le fait est absolument étranger aux autres; parce que chaque Maison a ses possessions particulieres, ses interérêts particuliers; parce que chaque Maison profite de ses revenus & de l’effet de ses conventions, sans que les autres puissent y rien prétendre.”805 “Point d’administration commune, point de communauté de revenus.” wrote Laget-Bardelin.806 The corporate personhood, and thus individuality, of the colleges was written into their founding documents. King Charles IX had treated the college of

Paris like a person, he noted, granting it the right of committimus “comme à un Citoyen.”807 This independence vis-a-vis other institutions was true for the other religious orders, most notably for the Benedictines and must therefore be held for the Jesuits. French custom (“le Droit commun

804 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 114-40. 805 L’Herminier et al., Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour les jésuites de France. Au sujet d’une sentences, du janvier 1760, qui les condamne solidairement au paiement des lettres de change tirées sur les sieurs Lioncy et Gouffre par le P. La Valette (Paris : L. Cellot, 1761) 39-40. 806 Laget-Bardelin and Chameau, Mémoire pour les Jésuites des provinces de Champagne, Guyenne, Toulouse, & Lyon…. (Paris : J. Chardon, 1761), 39. 807 Certainly he and Montigny differed on their view of the Society’s corporate personhood. Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 36.

243

du royaume”) required all religious orders to be treated the same, asserted Laget-Bardelin.

“Chaque Maison des Jésuites ne jouit-elle pas en France des mêmes droits, des mêmes prérogatives que celles de tous les autres Ordres?” he asked.808 This institutional individuality was because each college and house had been founded independently with its own mission and endowment. Founders, patrons, and donors, the Jesuits’ lawyers argued, had intended for the goods to be used by that specific establishment, not for the Society as a whole. The Jesuits’ own rules acknowledged this reality, wrote L’Herminier: “tout les revenus, tout l’argent de chaque

Maison doivent servir ou à son entretien ou à son augmentation. Les autres Maisons n’en peuvent donc profiter en aucun cas.”809 Thus the Jesuits’ goods were owned by the individual colleges, rather than by the father general or the Society as a whole. Laget-Bardelin took this a step further: “Quels sont les vrais Propriétaires de ces Colléges et leurs biens?” he asked, “Ce sont les Fondateurs: ce sont nos Rois, les Villes, les Province, en un mot, l’Etat tout entier.”810

The Jesuits’ lawyers reacted with particular alacrity against the characterizations of the father general. He was not a despot or slave master, they argued. A despot was by definition above the law, whereas the father general was beholden to the Constitutions and the decrees of the general congregations (their opponents were quick to point out that Ignatius permitted him to ignore these rules if necessary).811 A general congregation elected him and a general congregation could remove him. These slaves, wrote Claude-François Thevenot d’Essaules, could topple their despot from his throne.812 The father general did not hold its goods as his personal property, as the merchant court had claimed in their decision. He was merely the

“général administrateur” or “premier régisseur” for the individual houses. “Le Général n’est

808 Laget-Bardelin, Mémoire, 31. 809 L’Herminier et al. Mémoire, 57. 810 Laget-Bardelin, Mémoire, 48. 811 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 41-45. 812 Thevenot, 70.

244

donc, suivant les Constitutions, que l’exécuteur de la surintendance du régime confié à tout l’Ordre.” wrote Thevenot, “Il n’a pas même la surintendance, elle réside dans le Corps, il n’a que l’exécution; il n’a que le mandat de l’Ordre pour exercer en son nom cette surintendance.”813 Montigny compared him to a bishop who only administered rather than owned the churches in his diocese.814 Deligny drew on an educational metaphor: “La vraie idée que l’Institut des Jésuites donne du pouvoir de leur Général, quant au temporel, est celle d’un

Tuteur” he explained “qui, sans avoir la moindre Propriété des Biens de ses Pupilles, en a cependant la plus ample administration.”815 The Constitutions put strict limits on the father general’s powers over the colleges and their goods. He could not found a college himself or dissolve one. He could not move income between houses or across provincial lines. To do so would require violating the terms of the bequests and donations laid down by those institution’s founders. The power to alienate goods, which the creditor’s lawyers trumpeted, occurred in dialogue with the houses’ own administration and required proving that the action was “useful and necessary” to the benefit of the church. If the father general could not obligate other houses, change their revenue stream, or alienate their goods, then Lavalette certainly could not have done so.

With the independence of the houses established and the power of the father general properly contextualized, the Jesuits’ lawyers moved to clear up Lavalette’s relationship to the rest of the Society. Calling Lavalette an “agent” or “mandataire” of the father general or the provincial was inaccurate, they held. When Le Forestier and Visconti appointed Lavalette superior general they were giving him control over the mission’s goods, not delegating their

813 Thevenot, 49-50. 814 Montigny, “Mémoire,” 89. 815 Here the creditors were forced to nuance their original claims to specify that the Jesuits’ goods belonged to the Society as a whole, not the father general personally. Deligny, Réponse au mémoire intitulé : Mémoire sur les Demandes formées contre le General et la société des Jesuites…. (Paris : H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour, 1761), 65.

245

authority over their own goods. “Le Supérieur de la Maison de la Martinique n’est donc véritablement, quant à la gestion, que le Mandataire de cette Maison” L’Herminier wrote.816

One needed look no further than the bills of exchange themselves for proof. “Le Pere Lavalette tire les Lettres de change pour le compte de la Maison de Saint Pierre. C’est donc pour cette

Maison qu’il contract; cette Maison est donc la seule qu’il entende obliger.”817

The creditor’s evidence showing that De Sacy had handled Lavalette’s bills was likewise not proof that the European hierarchy had participated in or profited from the latter’s activities.

“Le Pere de Sacy, Procureur Général des Missions de la Martinique, a été volontairement le

Mandataire, le dépositaire du Pere Lavalette, ou, pour mieux dire, de la Maison de Saint Pierre,”

L’Herminier explained, “Il a rendu à cette Maison l’office de recevoir quelquefois des fonds pour elle, & de les remettre pour elle à ses créanciers qui avoient pour titres des Lettres de change signées du Pere Lavalette.”818 The funds that he had paid out to the creditors, they claimed, came from the mission’s funds rather than those of province. Nor was Visconti’s authorization to borrow proof of obligation, Thevenot argued. The borrowing was to be done on the mission’s behalf, not that of the father general.819

Since Lavalette was not the agent of the father general, Justinian’s cases of Roman slaves doing business on behalf of their master did not apply. Ignoring the unflattering comparison between “Roman slaves” and “Jesuit slaves,” Thevenot explained that the Roman cases rested on the basis of shared property and profit between master and slave. Neither was true in Lavalette’s case, since the missions shared no property with the Jesuits’ other houses and the creditors had offered no proof that the rest of the Society had profited from his activities.820 The accusations

816 L’Herminier et al. Mémoire, 65. 817 L’Herminier et al., 36-37. 818 L’Herminier et al., 65. 819 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 131-132. 820 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 142-145.

246

that the Society as a whole had shared in Lavalette’s profits was particularly galling for the provinces of Toulouse, Aquitaine, Champaign, and Lyon, who had no control over the Îles du

Vent mission or access to its revenue stream but were now threatened with the burden of its debts. “Où étoit la nécessité, où étoit l’utilité pour les Maisons des quatre Provinces,” their lawyer asked, “que le Pere la Valette tirât ces Lettres de change à la Martinique? Quel profit leur en est-il revenu? Aucun.”821

Several of the Jesuit’s defenders took issue with the cavalier assumption that the Society was a société and therefore held a goods in common (solidité). L’Herminier admitted that the

Jesuits’ Latin title, Societatis Jesu, invited this confusion but stated that it meant nothing different from other orders calling themselves “congregations.” The Jesuits’ actual name, by which they were referenced in Italy, Spain, and French royal edicts, was the ‘Compagnie de

Jesus’ “qui signifie une troupe militante sous les étendards de Jesus” rather than a merchant société. The merchant court’s judgment compounded this confusion, he claimed, since it called the Jesuits a ‘Société’ “à chaque ligne dans la préface.”822 Montigny took a different tack, arguing that if the creditors labeled the Society as a société, then it should be treated as one. The

Ordonnance de Commerce stated that merchant courts should consider “aucune preuve par témoins contre ou outre le contenu en l’acte de société, ni sur ce qui serait allégué avoir été dit avant, lors ou depuis l’acte.”823 The merchant court should thus have referred themselves to the

Jesuits’ Institutes, which functioned as their ‘acte de société.’ “Sans doute si les juges consuls ne

821 Laget-Bardelin, Mémoire, 43. 822 The word does not appear this frequently. The suit itself was against the “Compagnie & Société de Jesus.” 823 Montigny conveniently ignores the rest of the sentence: “encore qu’il s’agit d’une somme ou valeur moindre de cent livres.” Title 4 Article 1.

247

les avaient pas ignorées, ces loix,” he speculated, “ils n’auaient pas traitté les Jésuites si rigoureusement; mettons du moins le public en état de leur rendre justice.”824

Deligny, easily the most careful and detailed of the lawyers on either side, also took the

Society/société comparison seriously. The Jesuits’ opponents, he noted, were arguing that the

Jesuits had solidité, an obligation in which multiple debtors were held collectively liable for the debts of one person. “La Solidité étant de soi une chose odieuse, &” he wrote, “un titre onéreux, elle ne peut se prouver que par un Droit net & précis, ou par une Convention formelle & expresse.” This they had failed to do. “La Partie adverse des Jésuites, n’a pû entreprendre de montrer ce Droit dans leur Institut, qu’en le corrompant.” They had also produced “aucune Acte, aucun Titre, qui contienne une Convention expresse & formelle, par laquelle toutes les Maisons des Jésuites, au moins celles de France, se soient rendues ou ayent été faites Caution pour la

Maison de la Martinique.”825

How did one get solidité? Deligny summarized three ways the goods of one person could be held liable for the debts of another. First, goods could be made communal without an agreement, such as by a bequest to multiple heirs, in which case the partners were only obligated for the shared good. Second, there could be communal goods with a formal agreement

(convention) but without incorporation as a société. In this case, the partner’s obligation would be written into the rules of the agreement or would default to limited liability. The third case was a société which required an act of creation registered with the local Greffe. Sociétés,

Deligny explained citing Savary’s Le négociant parfait and the Ordonnance de Commerce, fell into two categories: société générale and société en commandite. Most merchant houses were sociétés générales “qui se fait entre deux ou plusieurs personnes, peut faire Commerce sous leur

824 Montigny seems to have been willfully ignorant of the contradiction between this reasoning and his argument that the merchant court did not have the capacity to try the case. If the Society was to be considered société, then it would have been well within the merchant court’s jurisdiction. Montigny, “Mémoire,” 79. 825 Deligny, Réponse, 95.

248

noms collectifs, qui sont connus d’un chacun.”826 All partners were actively involved in running the firm and each partner’s property was liable for the organization’s debts. In contrast, a société en commandite had silent partners who put up capital and active partners who managed the firm’s affairs. The silent partners in the société were only liable for the funds they invested.827

Which of these categories applied to the Jesuits? Despite the name, Deligny argued, the

Society of Jesus could not be classified as a société (“bien que cet Ordre soit connu sous le nom de Société, il est certain que cette Société ne doit s’entendre proprement qu’à l’égard du

Spirituel”).828 Its members were obligated to poverty, its houses and colleges could not redirect their income, and “Le Commerce qu’on suppose être l’object particulier de ces sortes de Sociétés est absolument incompatible avec l’Etat Religieux.”829 Also, they did not have an act of foundation registered with the Greffe.830 Deligny then turned to Lavalette to categorize the

Jesuits from a different angle. Lavalette had either drawn his bills as a partner (associé) of the

French houses, or as a managing partner (associé-commerçant). As a partner, “il faudroit, suivant les Loix, pour qui’l ait obligé solidairement ces Maisons, qu’il y eût preuve qu’elles ont profité du fruit de ces Engagements….& c’est assurément ce que les Créanciers n’oseront jamais prétendre.” If Lavalette were a managing partner, then the Jesuits would be a société en commandite and their houses in France would only be liable for their initial investment, which in

Lavalette’s case was nothing. The creditors’ claims, Deligny concluded, would therefore be worthless. Backing away from sociétés, Deligny made one last attempt to cast the Jesuits having solidité through the holding of communal goods received from bequeaths and donations, thus

826 Deligny, 115. 827 Deligny, 110-116. For more on the types of sociétés and how the functioned in practice, see Jean Meyer. L’armement nantais dans la deuxième moiti ́du XVIIIe siècle. (1969) 828 Italics original. Deligny, Réponse, 116. 829 Deligny, 117. 830 He makes no mention of Ignatius’ Constitutions, the papal bull Regimini militantes ecclesiae, or royal lettres patentes.

249

circling back to the first form of communal ownership.831 This categorization did not fit either, he argued, since donations are made to individual houses rather than the Order as a whole and the professed houses cannot touch the colleges endowments. Thus, he concluded triumphantly,

“il n’y plus lieu d’en conclure la Soliditié contre toutes les Maisons, qu’il y a droit de prétendre qu’une même Personne qui seroit chargée des Procuration de différents Particuliers, pourroit, par les Engagements qu’il contracteroit dans l’affaire d’un de ces Particuliers, engager pareillement tous les autres que cette affaire ne concerneroit aucunement.”832

Commerce

That Lavalette had violated the canon law prohibitions against doing commerce for profit at first seemed so obvious to the creditors’ lawyers as to not require an explanation. The act of drawing bills of exchange made one a merchant, stated Le Gouvé. “Des Lettres de Change forment déjà des présomptions de Négoce.” he wrote, “Quiconque tire des Lettres de Place en

Place, est par cela seul réputé Négociant. Il peut être poursuivi comme tel. Il doit être condamné comme tel.”833 The size and scope of Lavalette’s transactions also weighed against him. “Lié par des relations de mille espèces avec mille Commerçants de l’Europe, pouvoit-il n’être pas

Commerçant lui-même?” he asked.834 Certainly Lavalette had far overdrawn the mission’s income (which Le Gouvé estimated at “100 mille livres de rente” from properties “dont quatre- vingt Familles seroient satisfait”).835 “Comment qualifier des entreprises pareilles,” he summarized, “si ce n’est du nom de trafic d’argent, de négoce de marchandises, de Banque &

831 He uses the phrase commauté des biens here. Lawyers on both sides, including Deligny, used solidité and communauté des biens interchangeably to describe the Jesuits’ collective liability. 832 Deligny, 120. 833 Le Gouvé, Plaidoyer, 92. 834 Le Gouvé, 92-93. 835 Le Gouvé, 94.

250

même de Banque téméraire, enfin de monopole.”836 If it looked like commerce, then commerce it must be.

The Jesuits’ lawyers fought back. “Est-ce commerce,” Deligny asked, “que d’être simplement tireur de Lettres de change?”837 Everyone in the islands, including the clergy, drew bills of exchange, wrote Thevenot, since credit instruments were necessary for running a plantation. “Certainement on ne dira pas que tous les Insulaires sont des Commerçans quoique tous soient notoirement des tireurs de lettres de change.”838 Montigny agreed. The act of drawing bills of exchange “n’étoit point assurêment faire du commerce,” he wrote, “c’était faire des purs emprunts.”839 Canon law did not bar priests from drawing bills of exchange, even for externs. The size and scope of Lavalette’s debts did not have a bearing on their legality. The accusation of commerce, Deligny insisted, could not just be thrown around but had to be proven by law. “Pour être réputé Marchand ou Commerçant,” he pronounced “il faut, suivant la définition qu’en donnent les Juriconsultes, acheter ou échanger des Marchandises pour les revendre.”840 Did Lavalette fit this definition? Since the Domaine paid out the Jesuits’ salaries in sugar which the priests could not consume as sustenance, they were forced to exchange it for foodstuffs and other necessities. This exchange, the Jesuits’ lawyers insisted, was not commerce. Lavalette’s money transfer system did not fit the definition either, since he did not buy goods to resell but rather transferred the goods his clients entrusted to him. As long as

Lavalette transferred the funds his clients gave him rather than buying plantation produce to exchange for a profit, Deligny argued, his money transfer network satisfied secular and ecclesiastical laws.

836 Le Gouvé, 97. 837 Deligny, Réponse, 87-88. 838 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 106. 839 Montigny, “Mémoire,” 21. 840 Delingy, Réponse, 98-99.

251

With little concrete information on exactly what Lavalette had been doing, the Jesuits’ defenders provided different explanations as to why he had borrowed so much. Montigny, who as provincial procurator should have had the best knowledge of Lavalette’s activities, stated that the bills of exchange were to finance improvements on the plantation. Thevenot and

L’Herminier also thought that he had only drawn bills to finance plantation upgrades or send the

Domaine’s salaries to France in exchange for foodstuffs. Thevenot rested his defense of

Lavalette on hypothetical calculations. He estimated the mission’s annual revenue at between

150,000 and 200,000 livres, which he then multiplied by the fifteen to sixteen years of

Lavalette’s appointment as procurator and produced a sum of 3 million livres, more than the creditors were claiming. “Point d’impossiblité à admettre que le Pere Lavalette n’ait tiré que jusques à concurrence à peu près du produit des denrées de sa maison” he concluded. Only

Deligny admitted that Lavalette had been running a transfer system but maintained the argument that it wasn’t commerce since he hadn’t bought or sold anything, only transferred it.841 With this uncertainty, the Jesuits’ lawyers put the burden of proof back on the creditors ordering them to come up with documentary evidence of Lavalette’s buying and selling.

Deligny even went on the offensive to point out contradictions in the creditors’ narratives. The accusation that Lavalette had conducted commerce struck him as irrelevant to their case for the Society’s liability. “Quel intérêt ils ont à accuser ce Jésuite de Commerce?” he asked, “Quelle connexion il peut y avoir entre ce Commerce & les Demandes qu’ils forment contre le Général & la Société des Jésuites?”842 Making the accusation put the creditors themselves in a bind. If the charges of commerce were true, then his creditors had been his accomplices. They were therefore implicitly incriminated in breaking canon law. At the very least they were revealing themselves as being sloppy merchants. “Ils ont donc eu tort de ne point

841 Deligny, 98-99. 842 Deligny, 78.

252

s’assurer de la condition de celui avec qui ils contractoient, ou plutôt ils n’étoient que trop assurés que le P. de la Valette n’étoit autorisé à commercer par qui que ce fût; & qu’il ne pouvoit l’être par aucun de ses Supérieurs.”843 Finally, if it could be proven that Lavalette had done illicit commerce, then his actions would be considered null, thus voiding the creditors’ claims.

“Ils sont donc réduits à avouer” he concluded “qu’ils ont contracté sciemment avec une personne inhabile à contracter en matiere de Commerce. Les Actes qu’ils ont passés sont donc nuls, & dans leur âme ils les reconnoissoient pour tels au moment qu’ils les passoient.”844 By needlessly accusing Lavalette of commerce, his creditors and their Jansenist lawyers had undermined their own position.

Faced with these counterarguments, the creditors’ lawyers nuanced their claims. Target accepted Deligny’s distinction between buying/selling and transferring funds. “Si le Pere de la

Valette avoit vendu ses denrées à ceux de qui il a reçû les fonds, & qu’il ne lui restât qu’à les livrer; s’il étoit au moins assuré de leur arrivée dans les lieux où devoit s’en faire le débit, & qu’il n’eût tiré des lettres de change que pour la facilité d’en recueillir le produit, il eût fait ce que sont tous les habitans des Colonies, & dans cette conduite rien en effect ne caractérise le

Commerce.”845 But Lavalette had not stopped with transferring his client’s money, he pointed out. He had bought and sold their goods to increase the system’s profit margin. This trade not only made him guilty of violating the laws against commerce, but of betraying the fiduciary trust which the creditors had placed in him. “Ce n’est pas seulement ici une banque hardie, c’est un commerce frauduleux,” he argued “dans laquel le Pere de la Valette jouoit sa solvabilité, puisqu’il n’a eu la témérité d’exposer ses denrées à un péril presque certain, dans la vûe d’un plus grand profit, qu’après avoir reçu, sans aucun risque, la valeur dont elles étoient le

843 Deligny, 84. 844 Deligny, 80. 845 Target, Second Mémoire, 80.

253

gage.”846 The Jesuits’ lawyer Thevenot responded that there was no proof that Lavalette had drawn such bills, but even if he had he could have invested the money in the plantation and provided the difference through the added income.847 “Ce n’étoit pas là faire la banque assurément,” he wrote.

Cazotte’s lawyer Target was also only too happy to comply with the demands for written proof that Lavalette had bought and sold with excerpts from Lavalette’s own letters, which were sprinkled with references to buying and selling. Lavalette was not just transferring the

Domaine’s salaries or his client’s goods to France, Target observed, but was actively purchasing more sugar: “Voila pourquoi je fais acheter a force,” “pour acheter le navire de Messieurs Diant, et pour le charger tout de suite,” “pour n’être occupé que de l’achat des sucres, et de toutes les autres choses qui en dépendent,” “J’ai acheter des sirops pour cela.” He spoke in the language of a merchant, not a priest. “J’ai été obligé de prendre des fonds à long terme pour avoir des sucres,” “pour avoir la préférence de 350 barriques de sucre,” “au-dessus du prix estimé desdits sucres.” He had drawn bills “pour le commerce des monnoies d’or” and threatened one of his agents to “forme une autre Société.”848 If Lavalette thought himself to be doing “commerce” as a “société,” why argue otherwise? “Le commerce ne s’établit point par le droit, mais par le fait.”

Target concluded, “Pour juger des obligations d’un Négociant, on n’examine pas s’il a eu le droit de commerce, mais s’il a commercé effectivement.”849

Verdict

The Grand Chambre of the Paris parlement opened the case of Lavalette’s debts on

Tuesday, 31 March 1761 to packed visitor’s galleries. The Jesuits immediately moved for the case to be appointed, meaning decided in private based on written argumentation rather than

846 Target, 81. 847 Thevenot, Plaidoyer, 105. 848 Target, Second Mémoire, 84-88. 849 Target, 94.

254

verbally argued and adjudicated in open court. The case’s complexity, they reasoned, and the toxic atmosphere produced by the miasma of Jansenist print made a fair public hearing impossible. However, Cazotte and Fouque agreed to drop their suits in order to allow that of the

Lioncys to be pleaded in public where it had a greater chance of winning.850 When the court announced itself in favor of the plaintiffs on 8 May, after a month of deliberation, the city erupted in the celebration which Voltaire’s correspondent so happily described to him.

Had the joyous throngs read the judgment carefully however, they would have discovered a much more nuanced verdict that laid down a road map for how the debts would be paid off.

Far from a blanket condemnation of the Society, it was an attempt to heal wounds and get all parties working together. The court decided in the creditors’ favor in that it required the Jesuits

(“le Supérieur général & en sa personne la Société des Jésuites;” the court had accepted the plaintiff’s argument about the father general’s personal control over the Society) to pay the full

1.5 million livres to the Lioncys plus 50,000 livres in damages and interest to Lioncy frères et

Gouffre alone. In one month, the Jesuits were to present the Lioncys with the bills of exchange that they had already paid off so that the latter could update their list of debts still outstanding.

In two months, all parties were to appear in Marseille before two merchants named by that city’s merchant court. There they would use all the extant documentation, including the account books

Lioncy frères et Gouffre had submitted upon their faillite, to determine what was still owed to whom. With the status of the debts finally established, the parlementaires granted the Society one year to completely pay off all remaining bills of exchange. Only if they failed to do so within that timeframe would the Society’s goods be liable to seizure. Even in that extreme instance, the judges barred the creditors from laying hands on “ceux dont la destination n’a pû

être changée par ladite Société & le Supérieur général d’icelle [sic], au préjudice des droits des

850 See Dale Van Kley, Jansenists.

255

Fondateurs Dotateurs & de leurs représentans, ou des Villes & pays à l’utilité desquels lesdits biens auroient été irrévocablement affectés.” The court had thus accepted the defendants’ argument that public usefulness and the immovability of bequests overrode the creditors’ claims.

Finally, though the parlementaires remained silent on whether Lavalette was guilty of commerce and whether the rest of the Society had been involved, they prohibited him and any others “de s’immiscer directement ni indirectement dans aucun genre de trafic, interdit aux personnes

Ecclésiastiques par les saints Canons reçus dans le Royaume, Ordonnances du Roi, Arrêts &

Règlements de notredit Cour.”851 Exactly what constituted this “trafic” was left unspecified.

The parlement’s final verdict was important news. Merchants and those holding

Lavalette’s bills of exchange had a financial stake in the outcome. For the Jansenists and other anti-Jesuit activists, the decision in favor of Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s creditors implied future parlementary verdicts against the Society possibly culminating in a Portuguese-style expulsion.

As with the Grou ruling, printers published the court’s decision for public dissemination. At least four different print versions exist, implying a wide public demand.852 The news reached

Voltaire at Ferney through the Norman priest and jurist Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville.

“Voilà donc les jesuites condamnés à ne plus faire le comerce [sic] des 4 parties et Banqueroute quand cela leur convenait” he wrote joyfully within a week of the verdict.853

Newspapers further disseminated the news throughout Louis XV’s domains and around the Atlantic. The Gazette de France passed over the verdict in silence but the uncensored Gazette

851Arrêt de la Cour Du Parlement, : Contre Le Général & La Société Des Jesuites. (Paris, 1761). 852 These are F An 26 in the Archives Français de la Compagnie de Jésus, F 47109 (28) in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and one each in the John Carter Brown Library and the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center. This seems to have been a common practice for significant cases. Multiple copies of the Châtelet’s verdicts in the affaire du Canada were printed as well. Bosher, Canada Merchants, 206. 853 Père Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville, abbé Cideville, “père Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville, abbé Cideville to Voltaire [François Marie Arouet]: Wednesday, 13 May 1761,” In Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence, edited by Robert McNamee et al. University of Oxford. < http://dx.doi.org/10.13051/ee:doc/voltfrVF1070209a1c >.

256

de Leyde published excerpts of the sentence before the end of May.854 The Jansenist organ Des

Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques curiously waited until July, two months after the ruling, to report the decision but then ran the story as a serial through September.855 The Spanish Mercurio Historico reported the verdict in its May issue followed by a twenty-two-page overview of the scandal in

June.856 British newspapers had been following the story for months. The Whitehall Evening

Post had first reported the parlement’s 1760 decision to take up the case of Lavalette’s debts.857

Several London papers, Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle, the London Evening Post, the St. James Chronicle, and the Public Advertiser all ran the same synopsis of the case during the first week of May 1760 followed by the verdict a week later. “This is a mortifying affair to the Society” they surmised.858 By October, anglophones who needed a summary of the trial or those with an anti-Jesuit bent could purchase a pamphlet entitled The Authentic Proceedings of the French King and his Parliament against the Jesuits of France which included a preface

“enumerating the various diabolical methods they [the Jesuits] made use of by Mons. La Valette their principal agent at Martinico, and which gave occasion to the above Declaration and

Decrees.”859

Despite the war, the news crossed the Atlantic before the end of the summer. “Messrs.

Lioncy, Brothers and Merchants at Marseille,” reported the Boston Gazette on 31 August 1761,

“have obtained, by the Parliament of Paris, a Verdict against the Superior General of the whole

854 Gazette de Leyde, May 22, 1761, 41 edition. 855 Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, July 10, 1761 ; Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, July 17, 1761 ; Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, September 4, 1761 ; Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, September 11, 1761 ; Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, September 18, 1761 ; Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, September 24, 1761. 856 Mercurio Historico y Politico, May 1761; Mercurio Historico y Politico, June 1761. 857 Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer, 19 July 1760-22 July 1760, Issue 2238. 858 Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle, May 4, 1761, Issue 594; Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle, May 15, 1761, Issue 599; London Evening Post, May 5, 1761, Issue 5229; London Evening Post, September 12, 1761, Isue 5285; St. James Chronicle or the British Evening Post, May 5, 1761, Issue 24; St. James Chronicle or the British Evening Post, May 16, 1761, Issue 29; Public Advertiser, May 6, 1761, Issue 8267; Public Advertiser, September 14, 1761, Issue 8381. 859 The Authentic Proceedings of the French King and His Parliament against the Jesuits of France (London reprinted: J. Wilkie, 1761).

257

body of the Jesuits in France.” The article inaccurately reported that the Society had since paid off the debt. Members of the Carroll family spread the news to Maryland. “Since I wrote my letter there has been published a Pamphlet with an account of the late Parliamentary proceedings against the Jesuits in France,” Charles Carroll wrote to his father from London on 22 October

1761, “As it contains The french king’s declaration and the decree of the Parliament of Paris against the Jesuits, with some curious anecdotes I thought it woud not be unacceptable & have sent it for yr. Perusal.”860 The Carrolls had a personal connection in the case. Alexander

Crookshanks, the procurator who had invested the English province’s money with Lavalette and the French province, also served as the Carroll’s agent in Paris. If the Jesuits were expelled from

France, the Maryland family would lose their representative in the French capital. Lavalette himself probably heard about the parlement’s decision around the same time. By the autumn of

1761, though, he had much more pressing concerns.

Conclusion

The “Lavalette affair” hit Paris as France’s wartime fortunes collapsed. Vaudreuil had surrendered Canada to Amherst in September 1760 while the lawyers were still writing their mémoires and plaidoyers. Pondicherry fell in January 1761, as both sides geared up for the trial, followed by Dominica and Belle-Isle island in June. As British arms stripped Louis XV of his overseas possessions in the closing stages of the Seven Years War, the political repercussions of these military defeats redounded in the Parisian courts and coffeeshops. Between November

1761 and December 1763, the Châtelet would try the former intendant of New France, François

Bigot, plus 54 other colonial officials and suppliers for corruption and embezzlement in the affaire du Canada.861 In 1765, the first arrests and publications began in the similar affaire de la

860 Given this description the pamphlet was probably The Authentic Proceedings of the French King and his Parliament against the Jesuits. Charles Carrol to Charles Carrol of Annapolis, Oct. 22, 1761. in Hoffman, Mason, and Darcy, Dear Papa, Dear Charley, 1:231. 861 Bosher, Canada Merchants, 206–16.

258

Louisiane.862 The “Lavalette affair” was the first of these colonial scandals to wash ashore in the capital.

Courtrooms are places where the amorphous and undefined are forced to become concrete. Amalia Kessler has argued that cases heard by the Paris merchant court forced it to redefine “commerce” and the merchant community’s place within French society. The parlementary debates over Lavalette’s debts were a similar site of definition and a site where the merchant community policed its boundaries. As Albane Forestier, Dale Miquelon, Pierre

Gervais, Amalia Kessler and others have shown, merchants in early modern France formed a tight knit community connected by kinship and with its own practices.863 They had their own laws, courts, and ways of settling disputes. Could a religious order whose priests were sworn to poverty, barred from commerce, and civilly dead, be a member of this community? The surprising answer from the merchants themselves was yes.

862 Dubé, “Les biens publics,” 31-32. 863 Forestier, “Commercial Organization”; Miquelon, Dugard of Rouen; Gervais, “Mercantile Credit”; Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce.

259

Chapter 8: “Je vivrai profitte de cette guerre”

Lavalette had been lucky. His first years in control of the mission’s temporal affairs corresponded with a period of economic growth for the French Caribbean. He had the good fortune to become procurator just as the War of the Austrian Succession drew to a close, allowing him to ride the wave of the French islands’ rapid economic recovery. The years of peace between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War were a boomtime for the French and Caribbean economies. Martinique’s sugar output continued the upward climb which the war had interrupted. Credit was plentiful on both sides of the Atlantic. Brazilian gold fields produced a constant stream of ingots which Portuguese mints turned into coins. The plentiful supplies of French credit, Martinican sugar, and Portuguese gold which accompanied the economic expansion of the inter-war years made his network possible.

After his return from France in 1755, that good fortune ended as the supply of gold dried up, credit contracted, and the risks of trade increased. Between 1755 and 1762, Lavalette and the

Îles du Vent mission would be wracked by the war, storms, and epidemics. When British privateers swept the seas of French shipping, they also disrupted Lavalette’s currency exchange network. Surrounded by mounting stockpiles of useless sugar and coffee but with creditors in

France demanding repayment, Lavalette bought madly in hope that some of the produce would make it across the Atlantic to pay down his European debts. His ability to see and make use of short-term opportunities allowed him to take advantage of the war’s dislocations. Being cut off from France became a short-term benefit as his credit in the islands remained insulated from the collapse in France, allowing him to create a smaller network among the Lesser Antilles. The relief would only be temporary. As the war climaxed with the British conquest of Martinique in

1762, his debts in France and the Society’s oversight finally caught up with him.

260

The Îles du Vent Mission and the Seven Years War

Unlike the War of the Austrian Succession, which was primarily a war on trade, the

Seven Years War would be a war of conquest. British forces launched campaigns against the

French islands 1759 and 1762. In January 1759, the British landed 6,000 troops in the south of

Martinique near Fort Royal but withdrew them the next day when French resistance hardened. A probing raid against Saint-Pierre, in which British warships traded fire with shore batteries but no troops were landed, also failed, prompting the British to shift their attention to Guadeloupe.

They quickly burned and invested the main town of Basse-Terre but the island’s planters put up a stiff resistance among the rocky ravines leading into the interior. Only after three months of sea- borne raids had reduced Guadeloupe’s plantations to ruins and a relief effort from Martinique had failed did Guadeloupe’s governor surrender, putting one of France’s most lucrative colonies in British hands for the remainder of the war.864 Three years later, in January 1762, Major

General Robert Monckton led a second attack on Martinique which proved to be more successful than the probing raids of 1759. The citadel in Fort Royal surrendered shortly after the British landings. Despite the entreaties of Martinique’s governor, Louis Le Vassor de la Touche, to make a stand at Saint-Pierre, the island’s elites approached Monckton for terms, forcing de la

Touche to surrender Martinique’s remaining French forces on February 15.865

These campaigns hit the mission’s Guadeloupe plantation hard while leaving its

Martinique complex intact. The Guadeloupe plantation’s location on the defensible Bisdari bluff overlooking Basse-Terre put the Jesuits and their superior, Gabriel Moreau, in the thick of the fighting. Moreau had offered the Bisdari plantation to the governor as a site for a gun battery,

864 Anderson, Crucible of War, 312-13; Marshall Smelser, The Campaign for the Sugar Islands, 1759; a Study of Ambitious Warfare. Foreword by Samuel Eliot Morison. (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Va. by the University of North Carolina Press, 1955). 865 Anderson, 490.

261

but the guns had not been placed when the British landed in 1759.866 Moreau took to the hills with the enslaved population when Basse-Terre burned, leaving the plantation to be looted in his absence. When French forces returned to the area following the initial panic, they brought five canons to the Bisdari plantation, turning it into a key redoubt which sustained at least one attack from British forces. The militia quickly repurposed the plantation’s resources for the war effort.

Its wooden infrastructure “plus de mil écus de Bois” was fashioned into wagons and canon mounts. Its provisions were doled out to feed the defenders. Its enslaved men and women guided French forces through the area’s ravines and defiles to attack British positions. Moreau himself traveled across Guadeloupe looking for provisions and participated in the conference which persuaded Nadeau to surrender.867

In contrast, Lavalette and the Martinique mission complex saw little fighting. The British directed both of their attacks at the Fort Royal citadel in the south, rather than Saint-Pierre in the north, sparing the Jesuits from the destruction visited on the Bisdari plantation. Nevertheless, the mission’s location on a hill behind the St. Ignace gun battery guarding Saint-Pierre’s harbor would have put it in the line of British fire during the 1759 probing raid. In the “Mémoire

Justificatif,” Lavalette reported spending seven months in shelters (maisons au réduit), so the mission may have sustained some damage.868 The Saint-Pierre complex also faced the indirect effects of the war, specifically the decline in sugar prices and reduction in needed supplies of food and enslaved workers. During previous wars, the Saint-Pierre plantation had rented a neighboring plantation and had the mission’s enslaved workers plant it with manioc, providing an alternate food source and making the mission more self-sufficient. Lavalette, however,

866 Moreau made the offer at the suggestion of “un vieux négre.” 867 Moreau to Beauharnois, 29 July 1759 ANOM COL Series C7 18. 868 Lavalette also claimed over 150,000 livres in losses from damaged crops and runaway slaves, although this is unlikely since the British never came ashore during the probing raid. He may have been overstating the effects of the war in order to justify the financial losses from his commercial activities. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 110-117.

262

considered this plan not to have been worth the expense during the War of the Austrian

Succession, so he may not have resorted to it during the Seven Years’ War.869 Instead, he looked to the Dutch at St. Eustatius. “Provisions qui me coutaient achetées à St. Eustache, et rendues à

Saint-Pierre, un tiers moins que si je les avais achetés à la Martinique” he wrote in the “Mémoire

Justificatif.”870 Early in the war, his agent on St. Eustatius, Constance, received shopping lists for cheap protein and European delicacies, implying that Lavalette did not expect the consumptions patterns of the mission’s priests and enslaved to change. “J’ai besoin ici cette annee de 150 barrils de bon Boeuf de 20 tonneaux de morüe….Barils d’huile de poisson de 4 barils d’huile du lin du 9 grosse cuivres d’huile d’olive commune des frinnards, jambons, fromages, oignons, prunes pour la jardin” he wrote in May 1757.871 Lavalette expected the produce from the Jesuits’ plantations on Dominica and Martinique to cover the costs of provisions and shipping fees to St. Eustatius.872 This strategy would have become less effective as the war dragged on, particularly after the British began blockading the French islands in 1758 and St. Eustatius in 1759.873 The British took at least one of these provisioning shipments, Le

Signe, costing him 24,000 livres.874 By 1760, the mission was producing its own flour, rice, and millet supplemented by meat from a herd of cattle and pigs.875

A series of natural disasters compounded the effects of the war. A disease outbreak killed many of the enslaved men and women on the Dominica plantation just before the war’s outbreak.

The brother coadjutor in charge of the plantation, Le Vasseur, coldly estimated the sickness cost the mission 120,000 livres.876 A six-month drought reduced the sugar crop. Hurricanes struck

869 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 98-99 870 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 106. 871 23 May 1757. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 18-19. 872 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 106. 873 Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739-1763 (London: F. Cass, 1963), 383-385. 874 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif” fol. 114. 875 Le Vassor de la Touche “Observations sur le Resume du Pere Lavalette.” 16 Apr 1761. ANOM Series COL F3 92 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 121. 876 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 129.

263

Martinique in 1751, 1756, and 1758, devastating the mission’s crops and causing damage to its infrastructure.877 The storm of 12 September 1756 brought particular devastation.878 A naturalist from the Académie des Sciences described its effects for Parisian readers. The storm withered the grass “comme si elle eût été brûlée” revealing the cracks and crevices in the earth. The forests were stripped of their greenery and appeared “semblables aux mâtures d’un vaisseau.”879

The harbors presented a gruesome spectacle. “Les eaux sont couverts des débris des naufrages; les bâtiments fracassés & batus par les lames flottent de toutes parts, confondus avec les membres & les corps défigurés des malheureux qui en ont été les victimes,” one which was an inter-island coasting boat belonging to the Jesuits, the St. Xavier.880 The storm of 20 August

1758 caused similar damage.881

To offset this destruction and keep the plantation’s enslaved laborers busy during the wartime slump in sugar prices, Lavalette dived into infrastructural improvements. This building campaign continued his first wave of building as procurator and follows a patterned noted by

Paul Cheney on Saint-Domingue where planters responded to the wartime drop in sugar prices by redirecting their enslaved labor force to infrastructure improvements on the plantation.882 He rebuilt the Saint-Pierre plantation’s distillery (vinaigrerie) for making taffia, which he had found

“en ruines” upon his arrival as procurator. The new version used the labor of three slaves to produce forty barrels of taffia per day. He expected it to bring in 6,000 livres, possibly by quenching the thirst of French soldiers sent to the island. Lavalette also invested in making the mission more fireproof. He rebuilt wooden buildings in masonry and tile while reverting

877 Antoine Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 114-117. 878 Cathala to Delmas. 6 Dec 1759. GAL 114 I fol. 23. 879 Chanvalon had a personal reason to complain of the storm’s ferociousness. The hurricane destroyed his copious notes on Martinique’s climate. Chanvalon, Voyage à la Martinique, 135. 880 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif” fol. 114. 881 Beauharnais de Beaumont to Berryer, 15 Sept 1758, ANOM Series COL C8A 61 fol. 349. 882 Paul Burton Cheney, “A Colonial Cul de Sac: Plantation Life in Wartime Saint-Domingue, 1775-1782,” Radical History Review, no. 115 (Winter 2013): 45–64.

264

portions of cropland to grass as firebreaks.883 Finally, Lavalette began making and selling canoes from local wood supplies.884

Commerce during a Privateering War

With the official British declaration of war against France on 17 May 1756 and the

Admiralty’s issuance of letters of marque a month later, the British war on French trade began in earnest. The condemnations in the High Court of Admiralty records for privateers operating from the British Isles reveal the first eighteen months of the conflict to have been the most active. The court handed down 339 of the 1,176, condemnations issued during the war in 1757.

By 1758, French shipping in the Bay of Biscay had become so exhausted that British forces shifted their focus to the Mediterranean and the West Indies.885 The result was a near-complete stoppage of French transatlantic trade over the course of the war. The number of ships arriving in Marseille from the West Indies fell from 42 in 1754 to none in 1758.886 Colonial import and export revenues in Bordeaux declined from 30 million livres at the beginning of the 1750s to 8 million livres at the end of the decade. Re-exports of sugar through Bordeaux declined even more: from an average of 300,000 cwt between 1750 and 1756 to less than 8,000 cwt between

1757 and 1761.887 Shipping plantation produce directly to France thus became impossible at the moment when Lavalette most needed to pay down his European debts.

As French transatlantic trade ground to a halt, French state officials looked to neutral vessels from Holland and Spain to provision the colonies. At French behest, the Spanish government opened Spanish ports as transshipping points for French cargos seeking to avoid

883 Lettres sur les opérations, 13-14. “Mémoire Justificatif” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 98-99. My thanks to Jordan Buchanan Smith for helpful pointers on Caribbean rum production. 884 Le Vassor de la Touche “Observations sur le Resume du Pere Lavalette.” 16 Apr 1761. ANOM Series COL F3 92 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 121. 885 David J Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990), 164–87. 886 Carrière, Négotians marseillais, 1046–47. 887 Starkey, British Privateering, 167.

265

British fleets in the bay of Biscay.888 In place of the convoy system from the War of the Austrian

Succession, Marine Secretary Machault decided instead to issue passes to neutral merchants but these did not reach the merchants in sufficient numbers until the fall of 1757.889 Martinique’s governor and intendant had not waited for the Secretary of State’s permission to paint the peacetime inter-imperial smuggling with the patina of wartime legality. Defying explicit orders from Machault that all neutral passes had to come from him, they distributed passes of their own to Martinique’s merchants who then passed them on to the neutrals. In 1756 alone they issued

261 passes, followed by a further 138 in 1757. As a result, neutral trade flourished in the first two years of the war, with 145 Dutch ships visiting Martinique during 1757, double the 70 which had visited the island in 1747 during the War of the Austrian Succession.890

Lavalette initially saw opportunity from the war. “La guerre bien loin de m’être funeste, me devenait favorable”891 he wrote in the “Mémoire Justificatif.” As in the War of the Austrian

Succession, the war at sea had dropped the price of plantation produce in the colonies, creating larger profit margins in Europe. Had the St. Pierre alone been able to make another trip, he wrote to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt, the 56,000 livres in cargo which he had bought cheap and stockpiled in Martinique would have sold for 100,000 livres in Marseille.892 He hoped the transatlantic price differential would reduce or cancel out the currency conversion between argent de France and argent des îles. “Les denrées,” he recorded in the “Mémoire Justificatif,”

“à bas prix dans les iles, valaient beaucoup en Hollande j’espérais avec

fondement de ne perdre que 10% à 12%, vu les commissions que je devais payer a

888 The Spanish government did charge a 1% duty on goods being transferred to Spanish ships and 2% for those making their way into foreign holds. Richard Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763, (Oxford,: The Clarendon press, 1938), 219. 889 Alice Clare Carter, The Dutch Republic in Europe in the Seven Years War. (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1971), 104; May, Histoire économique, 120–21; Dull, French Navy, 60; Pares, War and Trade, 360– 73. 890 Pares, War and Trade, 376-377. 891 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 106. 892 Lavalette to Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt 12 May 1756. AFSI F An 17.

266

mon agent, car les séculiers qui faisaient eux mêmes leurs affaires espéraient

remettre au pair, cet a dire que 10 écus romains monnaie de l’Amérique leur

rendraient 10 écus romains monnaie d’Europe, beaucoup se flattaient d’engager

dans leurs remises, et que 10 écus romains monnaie de l’Amérique leur en

rendrait 11 monnaie d’Europe, comme dans la dernière guerre.”893

“Vous voyes bien mon cher” he wrote to his agents on St. Eustatius after suffering a setback,

“que il me passe et que je vivrai profitte de cette guerre.”894

To take advantage of this price differential and pay the creditors now beating at de Sacy’s door in Paris, Lavalette entered the inter-island coasting trade. He created a network of agents throughout the Lesser Antilles to buy up cheap cotton and coffee for shipment to Europe via

Dutch merchants. Rather than work through the Jesuits’ plantations on Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Lavalette sent out his own agents. An agent named Chapuis represented his interests on Grenada. A Monsieur Valentin made arrangements on Guadeloupe.895 Moreau &

Lioncy, the firm he used on Marie Galant, probably had connections with Lioncy frères et

Gouffre.896 His Jewish agent on Dominica, Isaac Juda, was located in the island’s main city of

Roseau, separated from the Jesuits’ plantation by the mountainous interior. A “sieur Dutasca” or

“Dutasta” made regular trips to St. Lucia and St. Vincent to buy plantation produce.897 In

September 1757, at the height of hurricane season. Lavalette wrote to Juda empowering him to buy as much sugar and coffee as he could lay his hands on (“limited by no [price] boundary”).

In May 1759, as French trade reached its nadir, he again ordered Juda to buy 200,000 pounds of

893 Lavalette translated all currency values into Roman currency (“écus romains”) for Ricci’s benefit. Lavalette “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 106. 894 Lavalette to Constance and La Hutte, 23 June 1757 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 21 895 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73. 896 Moreau & Lioncy is not listed on Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s balance sheet. Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres et Gouffre, 19 Feb 1756, Archives Departementales des Bouches du Rhone (ABDR) 533 U 19. 897 Lettres sur les opérations, 15. Rochemontiex, Antoine Lavalette, 155-160.

267

coffee.898 Lavalette paid for these goods with more bills drawn on Martinique and Holland for two and two and a half year terms. He also bought 128,000 livres worth of European foodstuffs and manufactured goods from a Dutch merchant, Van den Branden. When the visitor de la

Marche arrived on Dominica in 1762, he found accounts listing hogsheads of Burgundy and

Marseille wine, barrels of Irish salted beef, jars of Provençal olive oil, boxes of candles, crates of

Marseille soap, plus linens, threads, hats, shoes, saddles, hoes, boiling kettles, and cannon balls for the French war effort.899 The Dominica plantation had become a provisioning center for the

Lesser Antilles.

To transport these goods, he bought two coasting boats but complained that “il m’en fallut 11.”900 Lavalette was extending his supply lines from Martinique around the Caribbean.

With metropolitan merchants cut off and colonial merchants refitting their ships as privateers,

Lavalette was able to capture an ever-growing share of the Antilles’ production. If he had remained as head of the mission to the end of the war, he may have found himself with a monopoly on the produce from the Îles du Vent. However, since Britain retained the smaller islands of Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent after the war, these connections may not have done him much good.

Lavalette ran this network through the Saint-Pierre commissionnaire firms of Rachon &

Cartier and Lioncy & Cartier.901 Martinique’s former governor Caylus had also used Rachon &

Cartier as a conduit to Dutch merchants during the War of the Austrian Succession, making them experienced in wartime trade.902 Lioncy & Cartier were Caribbean agents of the Lioncy brothers

898 Because “livre” was both a unit of weight and a unit of currency, it is unclear to which Lavalette was referring. 899 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73. 900 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 107. 901 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 160. 902 Banks, “Official Duplicity,” 237 and 239.

268

in Marseille, to whom they were probably also related. Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s balance sheet lists several accounts connecting the Marseille firm, the Martinique firm, and Lavalette.903

The sugar, cacao, and coffee Lavalette, his agents, and the commissionnaire firms could acquire and send through the British privateering war made its way to St. Eustatius. As in the

War of the Austrian Succession, the Dutch island and its port of Oranjstad was at the center of transatlantic and inter-island trade. British shipments of wood and wheat from North America,

Irish beef and butter, Spanish silver, and Dutch bills of exchange all met at St. Eustiatius and were exchanged for French plantation produce. French and Dutch coasting vessels carried the sugar, indigo, and coffee to the island where it would be transshipped onto Dutch oceangoing vessels for the voyage across the Atlantic.904 The voyage from Martinique was risky for French ships, since it involved sailing past several British islands including the privateering nest of

Antigua and the captured Guadeloupe. In the early years of the war, Lavalette used two agents,

Constance and La Hutte to transship his goods at St. Eustatius.905 Later he switched to the house of Texier et Pacaud, who also served as a conduit of information from Martinique to France.906

St. Eustatius’ governor, Jan de Windt, provided papers certifying Lavalette’s goods bound for

France had been “sold” to Dutch merchants, thus making them Dutch property and in theory beyond confiscation by British privateers.907 When the cargos reached Amsterdam, two agents,

Clorck, Dedel, & Compagnie and Jacob and Adrien Temnink, received the goods, handled their sale, and dispersed the funds to Rey or other creditors. Through Rachon & Cartier, Lavalette

903 The Martinique firm held 17,600 livres of Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s assets, owed them 3,005 livres, and was owed 50,075 livres in bills of exchange drawn by Lavalette. Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres et Gouffre, 19 Feb 1756, Archives Departementales des Bouches du Rhone ADBR 533 U 19. 904 Truxes, Defying Empire, 58–59; Pares, War and Trade, 205–23. 905 Lavalette, 23 May 1757. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 18-19. “Mémoire Justificatif” fol. 114. 906 See Le Mercier de la Rivière to Texier, 16 and 19 Jan. 1762. ANOM COL Series C8A 63 fols. 242, 245, and 247. 907 Pares, Colonial Blockade, 170-171.

269

also sent shipments to a Martinez in Cadiz and sought foodstuffs from Curaçao.908 He reportedly augmented these connections with shipments to Danish agents on St. Thomas and St. Croix.909

To keep his contacts on St. Eustatius secret, Lavalette did not use their names in correspondence but instead referred to them and himself with a series of letters and symbols.

Constance was “P.” La Hutte was “H.” Letters addressed to both were signed “Y.” A “Z” and

“S” with a key in between signified Jacob and Adrien Temnick. “KK” represented Clorck,

Dedel & Compagnie. Lavalette also referred to himself as “Y” in his letters to St. Eustatius which must have added an extra layer of confusion.910 This system expanded on his use of alphabetical nomenclature before the war. He maintained an account with Lioncy frères et

Gouffre under the letter “S.” At his behest, Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt’s accounts with the

Marseille firm used the letter “E.”911

The outbreak of the war and Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s faillite did not stop Lavalette from continuing to write bills of exchange for administrators and plantation owners returning to

France. On the contrary, the wartime stoppages created an even greater market for his services.

In May 1757, he wrote the fateful 30,000 livre bill for Pierre Rachon which the widow Grou would later brandish in the Paris merchant court.912 Three months later, he wrote a bill for another 30,000 livres on Rey l’aîné for a Demoiselle Fouque. M. de **** gave him Portuguese gold pieces worth 45,000 livres in May 1758 and received bills drawn on Aillaud in Marseille.913

908 Both of these shipments were captured by the British for losses of 27,000 livres and 20,000 livres respectively. Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 114-117 909 Lettres sur les opérations, 15. 910 Lavalette 23 May 1757. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 18-19. See also Lavalette to Constance and La Hutte 28 May and 23 June 1757, ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 20 and 21. 911 Bilan des Srs. Lioncy freres et Gouffre, 19 Feb 1756, Archives Departementales des Bouches du Rhone ADBR 533 U 19. 912 L’Herminier et al., Mémoire, 11-13. 913 Lettres sur les opérations, 40-41.

270

Jacques Cazotte, content with Lavalette’s handling of 33,000 livres during the peace, gave him a further 130,000 livres to transfer in December 1758.914

The hope that neutral shipping could provision the islands and maintain France’s transatlantic trade during the war turned out to be a pipe dream. From the outset of the war,

British legal officials changed prize law to ensure that neutral ships could not carry on enemy trade in wartime. Since the late seventeenth century, Atlantic prize law operated under the principle of “free ships, free goods, unfree ships, unfree goods” by which the nationality of the ship determined the seizability of the cargo. Cargo owned by neutral Dutch merchants in the hold of a combatant French ship was liable to seizure, where French goods on neutral Dutch ships were not. This arrangement allowed Dutch ships to provision French colonies during the

War of the Austrian Succession without interference from British privateers.915 In response to the Marine’s issuance of passes to neutral merchants, British legal officials adopted a new rule that any trade which was not permitted in peacetime should not be permitted in wartime. Since

French law prohibited Dutch merchants from trading with French colonial ports in peace, this new “rule of 1756” targeted Dutch ships carrying on French colonial trade during wartime. The

High Court of Admiralty handed down the first such condemnation in 1757.916

The effects of this policy were quickly felt in the Caribbean. The years 1758 and 1759 were the turning point for French trade carried out in Dutch bottoms. In 1758, the British began a naval blockade of Martinique and Guadeloupe, followed by a more audacious blockade of St.

Eustatius itself the following year. British prize judges also moved against the transshipment trade. In early 1758, the British warships and privateers in the English Channel began intercepting and impounding Dutch ships returning from Holland’s Caribbean colonies under the

914 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 10-22. 915 Pares, Colonial Blockade, 172. 916 Pares, 201-202.

271

premise that their cargos were French shipments with false papers. Although the British government moved away from this new policy following a public outcry in Holland and official protests from the Dutch government (the “crisis of 1758-9”), from then on Dutch merchants refused to take on cargos for French merchants.917 St. Eustatius’ trade with the French islands quickly withered.918

By December 1758 the effects of the British blockade were telling on Martinique. “Ce qui m’inquiette le plus,” wrote governor Beauharnais de Beaumont, “c’est La disette extrême dans laquelle nous nous trouverons.”919 When the food crisis became critical the next month, the governor and intendant opened the ports of Trinité, Cul-de-Sac Marin, Fort Royal and Saint-

Pierre up to French and foreign ships without any passes for four months. In July, Paris reluctantly approved this policy for the duration of the war, but it came too late to unleash the expected flood of Dutch ships.920 Until the British conquered Martinique in 1762, the island would survive on prizes from colonial privateers and the visits of occasional neutrals. As had happened in the War of the Austrian Succession, the irregularity of these imports made food supplies variable and prices volatile. In his dire statement of “disette,” Beauharnais observed that Martinique had enough flour, but “le boeuf et les autres provisions salés manquent entierement.”921 By March 1759, the price of beef was 120 livres, equivalent to price spikes during peacetime but well below the 450 livre high of the previous war.922

Lavalette’s plan for shipping goods through the Dutch and Spanish seemed to work during the first year of the war when the prize rules were still in flux. As was discussed in a

917 Pares, Colonial Blockade, 205-210. Carter, The Dutch Republic, 119-125. 918 Pares, War and Trade, 383-385. 919 Beauharnais de Beaumont to Berryer, 10 Dec 1758 ANOM COL Series C8A 61 fol. 353. 920 May, Histoire Economique, 122. 921 Beauharnais de Beaumont to Berryer, 10 Dec 1758 ANOM COL Series C8A 61 fol. 353. 922 État des prix courants des principales denrées de France et des îles pratiqués à la Martinique en mars 1759 ANOM COL Series C8B 22 n. 32. For the peacetime comparison, see Bompar and Hurson to Rouillé, 31 Dec 1750 ANOM COL Series C8A 59 fol. 1.

272

previous chapter, at least three shipments reached Europe during the summer of 1756 and were distributed to his European creditors. These were the only three shipments to make it across the

Atlantic. British privateers intercepted the rest either in the Caribbean or during the oceanic crossing. Lavalette’s itemized list of losses at the end of the “Mémoire Justificatif” is a litany of seized ships and captured cargos. Goods worth from Monsieur Dutasta which “ont été pris par l’enemy:” 766,040 livres. Three schooners (goélettes) taken with their enslaved crews: 27,000 livres. The lost provisioning vessel, Le Signe: 24,000 livres. Two ships loaded with the coffee from Dutasta and the Dominica plantation bound for St. Eustatius: 22,000 livres. A Spanish ship

“qui fut pris et conduit à Gibraltar:” 27,000 livres.923 In one three-week period, the British took eight inter-island craft and five transatlantic shipments, costing Lavalette between 200,000 and

300,000 livres. A further 150,000 livres bound for Cadiz also fell into British hands.924

Had more of Lavalette’s produce reached France safely, it most likely would not have been enough to pay for the increased shipping costs and insurance premiums caused by the war, let alone pay down Lavalette’s debts. As Richard Pares and James Riley have shown, prices for plantation produce in France did not rise significantly during the Seven Years War as Lavalette had predicted they would. The foreign consumers who purchased the bulk of France’s peacetime sugar imports merely turned to Dutch and British suppliers. Foreign imports and stockpiles from prewar trade satisfied domestic demand.925 Lavalette’s dreams of profit, like his expectations of a robust neutral trade, turned out to be chimeras.

As the chances of getting goods across the Atlantic dwindled, Lavalette turned his attention to colonial state finance. In 1759, he partnered with Martinique’s new intendant,

Pierre-Paul Le Mercier de la Rivière, Baron de St. Médard to alleviate the Marine’s wartime

923 “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 114. 924 “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 108. 925 Riley, Seven Years War, 119–20; Pares, War and Trade, 392.

273

financial difficulties through inter-island trade. With war closing off the specie supply, La

Rivière funded the Marine administration by borrowing in his own name (Lavalette loaned him

74,500 livres from the mission) and writing large numbers of bills on Paris. Lavalette’s inter- island network would bring specie into the colony and support more bills of exchange. La

Rivière gave Lavalette and his agents the use of the Domaine’s customs boats to exchange sugar from Martinique and Grenada for foodstuffs and specie on St. Eustatius. On one shipment alone,

La Rivière expected Lavalette to bring back 600,000 livres in specie which could support a million livres in bills. 926 La Rivière minimized the wartime risks by arranging for a British privateer, Hider, to seize the ships and remit the funds from their sale to La Rivière. The state would then indemnify Lavalette for his losses.927

La Rivière thus set himself up as a colonial John Law, with Lavalette’s network as the miniature Mississippi company whose profits would relieve the state from its financial problems.

That La Rivière chose Lavalette is indicative of the latter’s centrality to Martinique’s circulation of credit during this period. Despite the war’s setbacks and the collapse of his reputation in

France, Lavalette still had credit in the Caribbean. By engaging in state financing, Lavalette was following the Jesuits’ global modus procedendi. Jesuits around the world were intimately involved with state finance. The Society’s colleges and provinces in the Iberian empires were key sources of loans for governors and state officials. Lavalette’s participation in La Rivière’s paper money plan, however, went beyond negotiated loans. It edged into speculation on foodstuff prices and specie stocks. As with other facets of his commercial dealings Lavalette followed a long tradition of Jesuit practice while simultaneously pushing its envelope.

926 The agents were Dutasta and Diant. I am still unclear as to the details of this system due to confusion between the sources. “Coup d’oeil sur la Martinique” 1763 ANOM COL Series C8B 11 n 23. Louis Philippe May, Le Mercier de La Rivière (1719-1801) Aux Origines de La Science Économique (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975), 35–37. 927 Marion, L’administration des finances, 276–78.

274

La Rivière’s plan collapsed as British privateers took the customs boats just as they had

Lavalette’s ships. The plan was also not received well in Paris. Berryer, the Marine secretary, berated La Rivière in March of 1760 for taking on the king’s authority to create currency.

Equally troubling to Berryer was La Rivière’s willingness to trust Lavalette. “Quelle sureté avez- vous en traitant avec le Père Lavalette?” Berryer asked,

Était-il partie capable et suffisante? Quel recours vis à vis de lui dans le cas où il

n’aurait pas rempli ses engagements? Vous saviez avant que de partir de France

la cause qu’il avait contracté, les faillites qu’ils ont occasionnées, et vous verrés,

par une autre de nos dépêches commune à vous et à M. Le Vassor de la Touche,

que les Jésuites eux-mêmes, allarmés de ces engagements, font passer à la

Martinique un autre superieur qui a les pouvoirs nécessaires pour en arrêter le

cours. Que devient dès lors votre traité avec le P. Lavalette!928

The scandal which had destroyed Lavalette’s credit in Europe had begun to redound in the

Caribbean.

Conclusion

Scholars have debated the effects of the Seven Years’ War on France’s trade and economy. The dominant narrative has long been one of French ships being “swept from the seas” by British privateers, thus destroying French trade and by extension the French economy.929 Lavalette’s wartime experience nuances these claims. Certainly the war destroyed his currency exchange network and his ability to pay his European debts. Few of Lavalette’s sugar shipments during the war made it to his creditors in France. Those that did arrived during

928 Berryer to de la Touche, 29 Mar. 1760, ANOM COL Series B 111. 929 See Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century, 161; Thomas M. Truxes, “The Breakdown of Borders: Commerce Raiding during the Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763,” in Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009, ed. Bruce A Elleman and Paine, S. C. M (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2013), 13.

275

the first years of the war through Dutch and Spanish merchants. No shipments arrived after

1758, when the British began blockading St. Eustatius and taking Dutch ships.

More remarkable than Lavalette’s failure was ability, albeit limited, to create and maintain a flow of goods and information between multiple islands despite the privateering war.

Shipments did get through to Saint-Pierre and St. Eustatius from his agents across the Lesser

Antilles. Lavalette received two shipments of coffee and chocolate from Juda in December 1757 and May 1759, at the height of the war when transatlantic shipments were at a standstill.930 Juda would have had the easiest time doing so since he only needed to send shipments across the strait separating Dominica from Martinique. The wide, open shape of Saint-Pierre’s harbor made it impossible for British ships to effectively blockade. French privateers with British prizes slipped into port under the nose of British warships.931 People and letters crossed the Atlantic too.

Lavalette’s clients, Demoiselle Fouque and Jacques Cazotte, both returned to France during the war carrying Lavalette’s bills of exchange and an expectation of payment. M. de ****’s letter to

Lavalette arrived on Martinique and Lavalette’s angry response made it back to France. The

British cordon around the French sugar islands was thus both effective and quite porous. The war’s dislocations were beneficial to Lavalette in addition to detrimental. The Caribbean’s disconnection from Europe temporarily insulated Lavalette from the fallout of Lioncy frères et

Gouffre’s faillite and prevented the Society’s hierarchy from reestablishing control.

930 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 154. 931 Smelser, Campaign, 60.

276

Chapter 9: Final Reckoning

Economists discuss the principal agent problem as being fundamental for companies and institutions with wide geographic reaches. Once an agent is sent outside a company’s area of influence, what ensures that they follow the company’s interests? The principal agent problem was a constant worry during the early modern period, as Albane Forestier and others have noted.932 With their globe-spanning reach, the Jesuits suffered from this dilemma as well. How to ensure the Society’s missionaries enforced the father general’s will in such far off places as

China, Mozambique, and the pays d’en haute. Ignatius’ system of annual reports, triennial catalogues, and the network of procurators and provincials addressed the principal agent problem, but only imperfectly.

The “Lavalette affair” is an illustration of the principal agent problem. By appointing

Lavalette as superior general of the Îles du Vent, the Society’s European superiors gave him authority to act in the Society’s name while the nearest oversight was across the Atlantic in Paris.

This chapter examines Lavalette from the vantage point of his superiors in Rome and Paris. It lays out their attempts to acquire information about his financial dealings from Martinique and what intelligence would have been conveyed to them across the Atlantic. After the collapse of

Lioncy frères et Gouffre in 1756, the Jesuit hierarchy in Europe attempted to reestablish control over Lavalette in various ways. They demanded copies of the mission’s financial accounts, arranged a visit by a state official, and finally sent a representative from Paris. As they closed in,

Lavalette likewise used a variety of tactics to fend off the reestablishment of Paris’ and Rome’s authority. He suppressed letters, removed rivals, burned his account books, and outright lied. In

932 See Forestier, “Commercial Organization.” Robert Harms, describes the principal agent problem in practice for one slave ship in The Diligent.

277

the end, these stall tactics availed him little. A visitor, François de la Marche, arrived in 1762 on the heels of the British conquest and ended Lavalette’s contentious term as superior general.

Lavalette v. Fayard

Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s requests for aid in February 1756 drew the attention of the

Jesuits’ administrators in Paris to how far their control over Lavalette had lapsed. The Lioncys’ balance sheet showing large debts contracted in Lavalette’s name created an instant need for information about Lavalette’s activities and an imperative to control Lavalette’s future actions.

Montigny later recalled that the Jesuits in Paris

ont encore profité de toutes les occasions, pour envoyer au P. La Valette les

ordres les plus positifs et les plus sévères de ne faire aucune entreprise sans en

avoir communiqué avec le Pere Provincial de France et sans sa permission

expresse de rendre le compte le plus exact de toutes les affaires de la mission au

Visiteur, qui devait se rendre à la Martinique….D’envoyer à Rome l’état le plus

détaillé de toutes les dettes de la Mission toutes actives que passives…. De ne

plus tirer aucune lettre de change; de ne pas faire le moindre emprunt, qu’il n’est

payé tout ce qu’il devait deja, et de suivre dans le paiement des dettes contractées

les arrangements que lui prescrivaient le P. De Sacy et Mr. Rey.933

When Claude Frey became provincial in the fall of 1756, he dispatched Fr. Guillaume

Fayard to Martinique with letters ordering Lavalette to stop borrowing and restrain himself paying down his outstanding balances instead.934 Fayard was the last Jesuit recruit for the mission to arrive in Martinique before the privateering war closed the sea lanes. Of similar age and background to Lavalette, he had risen through the province of Aquitaine’s collegiate

933 Montigny, “Mémoire.” fols. 42-43 934 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 108.

278

archipelago followed by several years in Rome.935 One of the mission’s priests described him as having a terrible temper (“J’espere que le seigneur ne permettra pas qu’il soit jamais à la tête de cette mission, à moin que sa colere ne s’appesantisse sur elle pour vouloir entierement la detruire”) and sowing discord wherever he went.936 Frey probably also ordered Lavalette to appoint Fayard as procurator, a move which would have served as a check on Lavalette’s power.937

Table 8.1 Missionary Allegiance and Province of Origin Lavalette Neutral Fayard Antoine Lavalette (Toulouse) Guillaume Guillin (Champ.) Guillaume Fayard (Aquit.) Antoine Valous (Toulouse) Fran.-Xav. Bruny (Italy) Louis Roger Magloire (Lyon) Denis Pontier (Toulouse) Christophe Mangin (Champ.) Michel Delpeche (Acquit.) J-B Cathala (Toulouse) Joseph Collet (Champagne) Louis Pretrel (France) Gabriel Moreau (Toulouse) Louis Peyrouny (Aquitaine) J.-Bart. Desbouges (Aquit.) Charles Censier (Belgium) Source: ARSI GAL 121 and Delpeche to Ricci, 2 June 1761. GAL 114 II fol. 9-10. Desbouges is listed as neutral in GAL 121, but on Fayard’s side in GAL 114 II fols. 9-10. Collet is also listed as neutral in GAL 121 but Lavalette’s letter of 1 Sept. 1759 implies that he was in Fayard’s camp. GAL 114 II fols. 1-2. If Fayard’s appointment as procurator was an attempt to produce information about

Lavalette’s business dealings, it backfired spectacularly. Fayard and Lavalette soon fell out with each other, dividing the mission into factions and creating a flow of accusation and counter accusation across the Atlantic. As Camille de Rochemonteix has noted, and Table 8.1 shows, the split between factions took place along provincial lines.938 Lavalette’s followers had all come to the mission from Lavalette’s home province of Toulouse, whereas many of Fayard’s followers came from Aquitaine. Those who had been on Martinique the longest, Guillin (arrived

1725), Bruny (1725), Mangin (1732) and Desbouges (1726) stayed out of the fray. Lavalette’s recruitment of Cathala shows how he had actively constructed his power base during his 1754

935 ARSI GAL 121 “Fayard” 936 Cathala to Ricci. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 23. 937 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 108. Lavalette claimed that he appointed Fayard himself. This seems unlikely. 938 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 164.

279

sojourn to France. Cathala had vowed himself to the missions during a bout of sickness as a novice at Rodez in 1751. Lavalette arranged to have him sent to Martinique and stopped off in

Carcassone to personally deliver the letter of appointment while enroute to meet with Gradis in

Bordeaux. The two then shared the same ship across the Atlantic.939 Won over by this treatment,

Cathala became devoted to Lavalette, writing letters in his defense to Paris and Rome. Other scholars of Jesuit missions have noted that national divisions often fractured the multinational

Society, thus rending Ignatius’ ideal of centralized unity. In the Society’s formative years of the sixteenth century, non-Spanish Jesuits resented the Spanish near-monopoly of administrative positions. Portuguese missionaries in China complained of the German and French Jesuits sent to help them throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.940 Far from being an anomaly, the feud which rent the Îles du Vent mission was part and parcel of larger fractures across the global Society.

We know of the feud primarily through letters that both sides sent to Rome between 1759 and 1761. Only one letter from the anti-Lavalette faction, written by Michel Delpech, survives in ARSI compared to three from Lavalette and one from his supporter Cathala.941 Both sides accused the other of being unfit for duty as missionaries. Fayard, Cathala claimed, had a terrible temper and predilection for cabals (“Est-ce un missionaire est-ce un jesuite depuis qu’il est ici, n’a rien fait, que dis je, il a porte la discorde la division, l’esprit de parti et de cabale dans cette mission”). Lavalette displayed excessive craftiness (sycophantia) and false piety according to

Delpeche.

The animosity seems to have started shortly after Fayard’s arrival and simmered for two years before exploding in 1759. Cathala wrote that Lavalette kept Fayard at arm’s length as

939 ARSI GAL 121. “Cathala,” “Pontier.” Cathala to Ricci. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 23. 940 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 58-67. Bangert, Society of Jesus, 343–44. 941 These are: Delpech to Ricci 2, June 1761, ARSI GAL 114 II fol. 9-10. Cathala to Ricci, 6 Dec. 1759 GAL 114 I Fol. 23. Lavalette to Ricci 1 Sept 1759, 2 Jan 1760, and 4 June 1760 GAL 114 II fol. 1-2, 3-6, and 7-8.

280

procurator, giving him only trifling assignments while continuing to run the mission himself.

Fayard investigated Lavalette’s commercial dealings on his own. He visited the Dominica plantation and spoke with Lavalette’s clients, including Martinique’s governor and intendant, behind his back.942 By the end of 1758, Fayard had begun accumulating evidence that Lavalette had not obeyed Frey’s missives from France and was expanding his commercial activities instead of winding them down. Jacques Cazotte recalled that after Lavalette had written him a bill of exchange, Fayard had taken it in return for a copy and a personal letter of introduction to de Sacy in Paris.943 Lavalette reported that Fayard asked the intendant for a written testimony against

Lavalette.944 Delpeche, in his 1761 letter to Ricci, informed the father general that Fayard’s faction had compiled a dossier incriminating Lavalette which would be presented to a visitor when one arrived from Europe. Delpeche also accused Lavalette of censoring their correspondence and suppressing instructions from Europe that would have removed Lavalette from power.945 By September 1759, Lavalette was complaining that Fayard and his allies were refusing to take meals with him and Cathala in the rectory.946

Lavalette himself saw the feud differently from the other priests. His letters to Ricci of 1

September 1759 its duplicate of 2 January 1760 accuse his enemies of sex scandals which tarnished the mission’s reputation. They are filled with innuendo and gossip: the racy smut of the rumor mill flung across the Atlantic in hurried Latin: “This is doubtful and I do not know for certain,” “….from that truth an accusation started….,” “….everyone murmured and scandals were sown.” The accusations are constantly vague, unclear, and implied, making a reconstruction of the events and their veracity difficult. There is no corroborating evidence for

942 Cathala to Ricci. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 23. 943 Target and Rouhette, Mémoire, 10-22. 944 Lavalette to Ricci 1 Sept. 1759. ARSI GAL 114 II fols. 1-2. 945 Delpeche to Ricci 2 June 1761 ARSI GAL 114 II fol. 9-10. 946 Lavalette to Ricci 1 Sept. 1759. ARSI GAL 114 II fols. 1-2.

281

the claims made in these letters. The father general Ricci would later dismiss Lavalette’s statements against Fayard as “calumnies.”947 Nevertheless, they deserve a reading because they reveal the women who surrounded the priests of the Martinique mission and were intimately entangled with their lives.

Lavalette accused his enemies of spreading rumors of a woman from his former parish of

Le Carbet. Known for sexual promiscuity, she was the younger of two daughters born to “a truly pious pauper” named Richard whom Lavalette had supported with alms. When the mother and older sister died, the older sibling used her last words to urge her sister to confession. She came to Lavalette, who used the opportunity to scold her for her vices. The now penitent woman later married one of her lovers. “From that small truth,” Lavalette wrote, “an accusation started,” implying that he may have been one of her lovers.

Lavalette also accused Frs. Louis Pretrel, Charles Janier and, Fayard of breaking their own vows of chastity. Pretrel, he claimed, had spoiled the marriage of one “Marie” or “Marri,” and Durand. The mission’s other priests suspected that Pretrel had begun a tryst with Marie prior to her marriage, a tryst which Durand later discovered. Durand divorced “that defamed girl” soon after their marriage, accusing her of being Pretrel’s secret wife. Lavalette claimed that a naval captain, Desroches, had made identical accusations to the governor and intendant “that

Father Pretrel had inflicted dishonor on his wife, with her before his marriage. This the wife had confessed to.” Lavalette claimed to have punished Pretrel, but the latter remained lax in his duties, often failing to perform the daily mass or hear confessions.

Janier had frequent contact with an unnamed widow in Lavalette’s former parish of Le

Carbet. Her former husband, Bellair (who often showed up drunk to church functions), had accused his wife of adultery and publicly beaten her in St. Pierre’s main square. When Janier

947 Ricci, “Historia,” ARSI HIST SOC 273 Fol. 26-27.

282

took over the parish, Lavalette had advised him to stay away from the widow, but he instead cut a door in the presbytery’s garden wall so that she could come and go in secret.

Fayard had dishonored a widow “with the appearance of beautiful youth” within the walls of Jesuit residence itself. “They were alone from the first light until the evening; everyone murmured and scandals were sown. The lords Tremeau du Pignon, de Launej our surgeon and his wife were witnesses.” The scandal spread through Saint-Pierre all the way to the Dominican parishes on the other side of town. Rather than end the relationship, Fayard became the widow’s financial manager, arranging the purchase of slaves for her plantation and even promising her part of the Jesuits’ Dominica plantation. Several more days spent together on a neighboring plantation also generated rumors around Saint-Pierre. Finally, Lavalette also accused Fayard of selling tunics from his bedroom and calling the intendant’s house “the money house,” an ironic accusation considering his own intricate commercial dealings. Accusing Fayard of becoming a widow’s financial advisor also carries the ring of hypocrisy. Fayard’s arrangement with the widow is a mirror image to that between Lavalette and Mlle. Beuvron d’Harcourt in France.

Lavalette’s descriptions of Janier, Pretrel, and Fayard’s amorous indiscretions read like a piece of anti-clerical Grub Street pornography of the type studied by Robert Darnton.948 The specification of Fayard and Janier’s partners as widows was a long-standing trope in anti-Jesuit polemics. The infamous 1614 Monita Secreta, a vengeful publication of a scorned Jesuit student masquerading as the secret instructions which guided the Society’s thirst for riches and influence, devoted several chapters to seducing wealthy widows and diverting their wealth into the

Society’s coffers.949 Lavalette’s sex scandals also fit with the portrayals of the Caribbean as

948 Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982). 949 Jerome Zahorowski, The Secret Instructions of the Jesuits in Latin and English, trans. Thomas Edward Leyden and W. C. Brownlee (Boston, Mass.: T.E. Leyden, 1888), 79.

283

“libertine colonies” in the words of Doris Garraway.950 Whether or not Janier, Pretrel, and

Fayard had actually yielded to the temptations of the flesh as the rumors claimed they did, the accusation that they had broken their vows of chastity would have been recognizable to Ricci and carried weight in Rome.

The historiography of Jesuit administrative organization has been largely celebratory, with scholars portraying the Society as a model of organizational efficiency over which secular monarchies could only salivate.951 New scholarship, such as that of Luke Clossey, pushes back against this narrative, with examples of wayward clerics finding creative ways to disobey the far- off father-general to whom they had sworn obedience.952 Recent literature of French Atlantic state formation, which centers on administrative disagreements and the creation of power blocs, provides a fruitful framework in which it analyze to the feud which wracked the Îles du Vent mission. Kenneth Banks and Alexandre Dubé have shown that administrative feuds were common in France’s colonial administration, particularly during the Seven Years’ War. New

France’s governor, Pierre de Vaudreuil, infamously disagreed with the general dispatched from the metropole, Louis-Joseph Montcalm, over military strategy, militia effectiveness, and the usefulness of Indian allies. Louisiana’s commissaire-ordonnateur Michel-Vincent Gaspard de

Rochemore, and governor, Louis Billouart, Comte de Kerlérc, fell into an even more acerbic dispute known as the “l’affaire de la Louisiane.” Each sent a stream of letters to Paris accusing the other of corruption and connivance with smugglers. These disputes, Banks and Dubé argue, were as much fights between transatlantic chains of patronage stretching to Parisian backers as they were professional and personal disagreements. The wartime stoppage of letters from France created power vacuums in which multiple parties competed to claim royal authority in the

950 Doris Lorraine Garraway, The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). 951 Martinez-Serna, “Procurators,” 181-209. Friedrich, “Information-Management.” 952 Luke Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 45-67.

284

colonies. In Paris, the competing narratives which reached the Marine secretary from across the ocean forced him to take sides and made determining the true state of affairs overseas all but impossible. The result was an administrative confusion which hampered colonial defense.953

The feud on Martinique was part of a similar clash of client chains. Lavalette had spent the years before the war and his trip to France building a patronage base by cultivating the provincial in Paris, Le Forestier, and other members of the Jesuit hierarchy. They, in turn, had supported him with money and their influence at court. Le Forestier’s replacement by Claude

Frey in 1756, concurrent with the collapse of Lavalette’s credit network, was a major blow to this patronage base. The new provincial administration, whom Lavalette called “mes enemies” in the

“Mémoire Justificatif,” were a competing power center hostile to Lavalette. As their client,

Fayard represented Frey’s power over the mission and was therefore Lavalette’s rival. Both

Lavalette and Fayard implicitly claimed the authority of the distant father-general: Lavalette as his appointed representative, Fayard in lieu of a visitor dispatched from Europe. Fayard’s dealings with Martinique’s governor and intendant behind Lavalette’s back can be interpreted as an attempt to create his own power base in the colonies, thus undercutting the close connections that Lavalette had been cultivating with state officials for over a decade and upon which his

Caribbean power base rested.

The competing accusations sent to Rome must have confused Ricci at the moment when he most needed clarity in the mission’s affairs. Le Forestier’s movement to Rome as head of the

French assistancy would have given Lavalette a powerful voice in Ricci’s ear. With Lavalette’s creditors knocking on the Society’s proverbial door, information on his debts and the mission’s financial situation was vital, but the competing narratives and counter-accusations only muddied the transatlantic waters and made it impossible to know whom to believe.

953 Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea, 184–216; Dubé, “Les Biens Publics.”

285

Demands for Accounts

Where they had shown little interest in Lavalette’s finances when he was successful,

Paris and Rome became obsessed with them once he became a liability. From an implicitly trustworthy figure in 1755, Lavalette became questionable in 1756. With Lavalette’s creditor’s demanding money, a full accounting of the bills he had written, for whom, and on what terms became vital. The accounts immediately available to the provincial and father general, the triennial catalogues, would have been of limited help. The extant figures for 1749 and 1754 show the debts for the Missiones Americae Meridionalis to have increased four-fold during Lavalette’s tenure but without endangering its financial health (Tables 9.1 and 9.2).954 However, the catalogues bundled all the Caribbean missions into a single set of accounts, thus confusing the Île du Vent’s finances with those of Saint-Domingue and Guiana. Since the figures were probably compiled by De Sacy in Paris, they list only the debts and revenues receivable and payable in

Europe. Finally, they do not include the debts Lavalette contracted with merchant houses such as Lioncy frères et Gouffre. These accounting practices had hidden Lavalette’s debts from his superiors, allowing them to spiral out of control until Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s faillite presented the Society with the consequences. Faced with these limitations, his superiors demanded that

Lavalette send them detailed financial statements.

Table 9.1 Missiones Americae Meridionalis accounts for 1749 Annual Revenue in France 53,648 l.t. 6. Burdens 18,673l.t. 0s. 5d. Net Annual Revenue 34,975l.t. 5s. 7d. Debts without rentes 4,924l.t. 14s. 8d. Funds on hand 132,014 l.t. 1s. Source: ARSI Franc 21 fol. 272.

954 The 1751, 1757, and 1761 catalogues are missing or do not contain financial records. ARSI Franc 21 fol. 272 and 547.

286

Table 9.2 Missiones Americae Meridionalis accounts for 1754 Annual Revenue in France 55,546 l.t. 5s. Burdens 18,160 l.t. 7s. 5d. Net Annual Revenue 37,838 l.t. 17s. 7d. Debts with rentes 12,000 l.t. Debts without rentes 17,315 l.t. 11s. 1d. Funds on hand 93,352 l.t. 5s. Source: ARSI Franc 21 fol. 547. Lavalette sent at least three financial statements to Europe over the course of

1760.955 They were all selective, misleading, and contradictory. His hold over the mission’s mail allowed him to control the financial information his superiors received. In January, he said his debts totaled 789,000 livres, which would be reduced by 212,000 livres within six months. A further 30,000 livres, he claimed, were en route by way of Britain.956 In June, however, he listed millions of livres moving between Martinique, Marseille, and Paris.957 As the scrutiny increased,

Lavalette turned to thinner and thinner smokescreens to hide the true state of his finances.

With Lavalette’s figures untrustworthy and unhelpful, the Jesuits in Paris turned to state officials to provide on the ground reconnaissance. When Le Vassor de la Touche arrived on

Martinique in the spring of 1761 as the Îles du Vent’s new governor, he interviewed Lavalette,

Guillin, and Cathala on the state of the mission’s affairs. De la Touche was the scion of a

Martinican family with roots on the island since the 1660s and would have understood the workings of a sugar plantation.958 He had known Lavalette previously as a capitaine de vaisseau when Lavalette was still getting his currency network off the ground. In 1753, Lavalette had written him a bill of exchange on Gradis for 6,000 livres.959 De la Touche’s judgement of

Lavalette indicates that Lavalette’s reputation and circumstances had changed in the intervening

955 These were in January, June, and August. The January and June accounts are preserved in ARSI GAL 114 II fols. 3-6 and fols. 7-8. De la Marche quotes from a third sent “around the month of August” in GAL 114 I fols. 67- 73. 956 ARSI GAL 114 II fol. 3-6. 957 ARSI GAL 114 II fol. 7-8. 958 Michel Verge-Franceschi, Les Officiers Généraux de La Marine Royale, 1715-1774: Origines, Conditions, Services. Vol. 4: Normands, Poitevins., vol. 4 (Paris: Librerie de l’Inde, 1990), 1431–47. 959 AN 181 AQ/76 51.

287

eight years. In contrast to the knowledgeable confidence and implicit creditworthiness described by others who had met Lavalette, de la Touche found him uncertain, prevaricating, and deceitful.

Lavalette’s estimates of the mission’s revenues did not match those of Guillin.960 A list of the mission’s active debts (Table 9.4) “me paroit très informe” only because Guillin and Cathala had signed it. Aware that his commercial activities were causing problems in Europe, Lavalette portrayed himself solely as a sugar planter well within the expected practice for religious communities. His Caribbean network, however, kept poking out awkwardly from behind this cover story. De la Touche wondered why the plantation had so many losses in ships and enslaved sailors when a fleet was unnecessary for sugar cultivation. Lavalette refused to explain the long list of active debts (Table 9.4) throughout the Lesser Antilles which were clearly not part of a plantation’s normal operating budget. “Je trouve que le P. Lavalette s’egare,” de la

Touche concluded about these debts, “….il devoit dû produire des nottes detaillées, motivées, sans quoi on ne peut pas voir clair.” His exasperation at Lavalette’s reluctance to answer straight questions leaps from the pages of his report: “Quels sont les revenus, les ressources de M.

Brande, les suretés qu’il a donné;” he exclaimed in discussing one 200,000 livre debt, “pour qu’on lui ait confié une somme aussi considerable; port t’elle [sic] interêt, n’en porte t’elle pas?”

On a 100,000 livre debt to the Domaine: “Il n’explique pas non plus ce que c’est que cet ancien

Domaine, de quelle nature sont des effects; Je le regarde comme bien vereux. C’est au Pere

Lavalette à donner des eclaircissemens la dessus pour qu’on puisse y voir plus clair; ceux que j’ai consultés n’y entendent rien.”961

Despite this evidence, de la Touche bought into Lavalette’s explanation that the debts were tied to the plantation’s sugar production. He concluded that the mission’s finances were

960 Lavalette estimated the peacetime revenue as 112,000 livres. Guillin estimated it at 100,000 livres. De la Touche trusted Guillin’s figures. 961 Le Vassor de la Touche “Observations sur le Resume du Pere Lavalette.” 16 Apr 1761. ANOM Series COL F3 92 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 121.

288

salvageable. The mission could pay off its active debts in the colonies, which de la Touche estimated using Guillin’s figures at 1,016,000 livres, in sixteen years through annual installments of 120,000 livres. The Jesuits could pay off the passive debts with the plantation’s output for

1761 and 1762, leaving that of 1763 and beyond available to pay down his European debts.962 In regards to Lavalette himself, De la Touche concluded that he should no longer be in charge of the mission’s finances, since he would merely leap into some new enterprise. “Le pere

Lavalette” the governor wrote, “doit desirer de ne rester plus chargé que d’indiquer et de donner tous les eclaircissemens qu’on l’uy demandera, sans se mesler davantage d’acheter, de recevoir, et de payer; outre que la confiance ne seroit plus la même par rapport à la confusion et aux embarrasse qu’il n’a pas prevû, on doit luy eviter toute occasion de renoüer quel qu’autre affaire et de faire de nouvelles entreprises.”963 De la Touche did not, however, order Lavalette’s recall to France but allowed him stay on as head of the mission. The Jesuits themselves would have to remove Lavalette from power.

Table 9.3 De la Touche’s Summary of the Mission’s income Income from white and common sugar 100,000 Income from syrup 25,000 Income from taffia 20,000 Rental income 6,900 Domaine’s pensions and rentes in France 13,244 Dominica plantation’s revenues 100,000 Total revenue 306,344 Source: ANOM Series COL F3 93 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 212. The figures do not add up to de la Touche’s total. Possibly there are more which he did not write down.

962 It is unclear how both sets of payments would be managed simultaneously, but de la Touche may not have known either. “Je ne suis point financier, et je n’employe dans cecy qu’une forme simple” he remarked in self-defense. 963 Le Vassor de la Touche “Observations sur le Resume du Pere Lavalette.” 16 Apr 1761. ANOM Series COL F3 92 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 121.

289

Table 9.4 De la Touche’s summary of the mission’s active debts Payable to Mr. Larnac 80,000 Payable in Granada 85,000 Payable to Moreau and others on Dominica 25,000 Payable to M. Brande 200,000 Payable to M. Forcade 15,000 Payable to the Guadeloupe mission 36,000 Payable to Sr. Jh Litée 166,000 Payable to the Domaine 100,000 Payable to the inhabitants of Le Carbet 16,000 Payable to the successors of Puichafray 19,000 Payable to Mlle. Mignard 12,000 Payable to Grasson 32,000 Diverse debts crying out for payment (dettes criardes) 30,000 Total active debts 1,016,000 Source: ANOM Series COL F3 93 fol. 262-267. Copy in ARSI GAL 121. The figures do not add up to de la Touche’s total. Possibly there are more which he did not write down. He may also have confused passive and active debts Appointing a Visitor

Getting a financial statement from Lavalette had always been a stopgap measure for the

Jesuits in France. The complicated problem which Lavalette presented to the Society required a representative on Martinique to sort out matters on the ground. From 1756 onward, the provincials in Paris and the fathers general in Rome had attempted to get a visitor across the

Atlantic but had been stymied by circumstances beyond their control. Visitors were the established tool by which the father general’s authority could be brought to bear on the overseas missions. They were appointed by the father general’s office to inspect regions and solve local problems. The Portuguese visitor Andre Palmiero, for example, inspected the Society’s Indian ocean and East Asian provinces between 1617 and 1635 in an attempt to solve the burgeoning

Chinese rites controversy and reconcile Roberto Nobili’s mission work to low cast Indians with the other Jesuits’ work among those of high caste.964

Dispatching a visitor to Martinique would have been easy in peacetime, but the war made a shambles of the Society’s vaunted organizational structure just as it had Lavalette’s credit

964 Montigny, “Mémoire” ARSI F An 18 fols. 42-43. Brockey, The Visitor.

290

network. The result was a tragicomedy of errors bordering on the farcical. The Jesuit hierarchy appointed five visitors to Martinique over as many years. Only the last made it to the island.

Each nomination was a time-consuming process requiring a nomination from the provincial in

Paris, approval by the father general and the Propaganda Fide, a bestowal of spiritual powers by the Holy Office, and permission from Versailles to visit Martinique. Each failure gave Lavalette more time to expand his Caribbean network. “Dans un temps de paix,” wrote Montigny in his

“Mémoire,” “six mois leur auraient suffi pour en venir à bout. Depuis quatre ans ils y ont employé tous les moyens que la prudence pouvait leur suggérer; et les malheurs de la guerre, des accidents qu’on ne pouvait prévoir, ont rendu jusqu’ici leurs efforts inutiles.”965

In September 1756, seven months after Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s faillite had awoken the province to Lavalette’s debts, Claude Frey considered sending Antoine de Montigny to

Martinique as visitor. Montigny had shown himself as a competent administrator running the

Jesuit retreat house in Vannes but Frey decided to appoint someone already in the Caribbean who would have an easier time getting to the island. Montigny became the province of France’s procurator instead. On November 10, the provincial’s office nominated Fr. Philippe

D’Huberland, superior general of the Guiana mission, as visitor. D’Huberland, however, either never received the orders or was unable to act upon them. For two years Paris and Rome waited for a report from him which never came.

By the end of 1758 it had become apparent that d’Huberland had never reached

Martinique. Lavalette’s clients were arriving in France with newly written bills of exchange.

British ascendency at sea was beginning to tell. The British had captured Louisbourg in North

America and Gorée island in Africa. British probing raids openly harassed the French Atlantic coast. French trade fell towards its wartime nadir.966 Frey thus decided to appoint someone

965 Montigny, “Mémoire” fol. 39-40. 966 Dull, French Navy, 115–19.

291

already on Martinique who could begin his duties immediately: Fr. Jean-Barthélémy Des

Bouges. Des Bouges had been on Martinique since 1726 and had served as superior of the

Guadeloupe mission during Lavalette’s early years in the Caribbean. His name was one of those recommended to Rome as superior general in 1753 whom Visconti had turned down in favor of

Lavalette.967 Des Bouges thus had the experience, temperament, and location to become visitor, but never received the chance to do so. Lavalette intercepted the letters of appointment which arrived with Bompar’s naval squadron in the spring of 1759. He packed the unwitting Des

Bouges back to Europe on a returning warship, the Florissant, before the latter could learn of his new position.968 Des Bouges reached Cadiz in September, still ignorant of his appointment.

With Des Bourges’ return, the new provincial, Allanic, abandoned the plan of appointing someone resident in the colonies and went back to the idea of sending a visitor from France. Fr.

René Fronteau, the rector of the Rouen college, volunteered for the position. As rector, he would have had experience with the finances and administration of a Jesuit institution. Once again the

Jesuits relied on Marine’s communications structures. Fronteau was to travel on a naval vessel with Martinique’s newly appointed governor, Le Vassor de La Touche. Berryer wrote to de la

Touche and the intendant De la Riviére in January 1760 ordering them to confine Lavalette to the island and offer Fronteau “tout la protection et les facilités nécessaires pour parvenir à terminer les affaires du P. Lavalette.”969 With the loss of a French fleet at Quiberon Bay the previous year

967 “Desbouges” ARSI GAL 121. 968 The chain of evidence for Lavalette’s guilt here is circumstantial but telling. Montigny reports in his “Mémoire” that “Dès le commencement de 1759, on lui [Des Bouges] addressa par differenctes voies les expéditions nécessaires.” Bompar’s squadron departed France on 21 Jan. 1759. Given the Jesuit’s close ties to the Marine, they most likely sent a copy of the orders with Bompar, who arrived at Martinique on March 8. The Florissant was the first warship in Bompar’s fleet to return to Europe at the end of the summer while the bulk of the squadron sailed to Saint-Domingue. It therefore would have been the first chance to ensure Des Bouges’ irrevocable departure from the Caribbean. Putting him on a warship would have ensured that he was not turned back by a privateer. Montigny claimed that Des Bouges “débarquait lui-même à Cadiz pour returner en France, ou sa santé l’obligeait à venir fixer son séjour.” Lavalette may have used the sickness as an excuse to get him off the island. Ironically, if the Jesuits had sent a person with Bompar’s fleet rather than a letter, Lavalette may have been shut down then and there. Dull, French Navy, 137-140 ; Montigny, “Mémoire” fol. 42. 969 Berryer to Le Vassor de la Touche and Le Mercier de la Rivière. 20 Mar 1760. ANOM COL Series B 111.

292

the Marine was stretched thin, necessitating a long wait at Rochefort for a ship and the right conditions to slip the British blockade. Fronteau caught sick and died in the interim. Allanic chose Alain-Xavier De Launey to replace him. As the former procurator of New France, De

Launey had the most expertise of any appointee to unravel Lavalette’s financial doings. Once again Berryer wrote to de la Touche and la Rivière to expect the new visitor.970 However, De

Launey made even less progress towards Martinique than his predecessors. While at Versailles to collect the congé allowing him to cross the Atlantic, De Launey fell and broke his head open, making further travel an impossibility.971

François de la Marche

By spring of 1761 Lavalette’s debts had reached the Paris parlement and news of the

Society’s plight had made them the laughingstock of Paris. The new provincial, de la Croix, appointed Jean François de la Marche, the sixty-one-year-old head of the Nantes professed house, to be the fifth and final visitor to the Îles du Vent mission. Over the course of three decades in Nantes, De la Marche had headed the city’s professed house, directed a retreat house for women, and overseen the local “Congregation des Messieurs.” These positions would have given him experience with the accounting practices and financial management of Jesuit institutions. A stint teaching grammar in Quebec gave him a familiarity with transatlantic travel.

His letters speak in the voice of a competent, level-headed administrator with a keen grasp of the public ramifications of his findings. De la Marche’s name had been broached as a possible visitor in 1757, but Frey had passed him over for the geographical proximity of d’Huberland and des Bouges.972

970 Berryer to Le Vassor de la Touche and Le Mercier de la Rivière, 30 Jan 1761. ANOM COL Series B 111. 971 Montigny and Ricci both wrote their own lists of the erstwhile visitors which Camille de Rochemonteix synthesizes. Montigny “Mémoire” ARSI F An 18 fol. 37-40. Ricci, “Istoria,” ARSI His Soc 273 fols. 29-30. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 133-136. 972 “De la Marche” ARSI GAL 121. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 248-249.

293

Once de la Croix chose de la Marche, the Jesuit hierarchy moved quickly to dispatch him.

On 27 March Berryer wrote to La Rivière and de la Touche yet again telling them to expect a new visitor.973 On 9 April the Inquisition in Rome granted de la Marche his spiritual authority, giving him the ability to commute simple vows, issue matrimonial dispensations for consanguinity (second, third, and fourth degrees only), and grant absolution for heresy and apostasy.974 By the end of April, as the Jesuits’ lawyers were jousting with those of the creditors in the parlement, de la Marche had arrived in Amsterdam for the voyage across the Atlantic.975

Rather than rely on the French navy, which had been reduced to impotence by the defeats at

Louisbourg and Quiberon Bay, the Society decided to use neutral Dutch merchants. The news of the parlement’s verdict in May would have reached him well before he departed Amsterdam at the end of July 1761. De la Marche would also have known that he was sailing into a war zone.

The British had conquered Guadeloupe in 1759. They would take Dominica while he was in

Amsterdam (June 9) and Martinique early in 1762. De la Marche’s investigation would follow in the wake of these conquests down the curve of the Lesser Antilles’ island chain. From Antigua in the north, he would hop south to Guadeloupe, Dominica, and then Martinique, speaking with

Lavalette’s contacts and other Jesuits along the way. Lavalette’s fate would thus mirror those of the French Caribbean islands more broadly: hanging in the proverbial balance, awaiting for those in the European corridors of power to decide his fate.

The investigation began before de la Marche left Europe. In Amsterdam, he met Fr.

Louis Roger Magloire, a member of Fayard’s faction whom Lavalette had expelled back to

Europe via St. Eustatius. De la Marche questioned him about Lavalette’s leadership on

Martinique and recruited him into the investigation. De la Marche did not report his

973 Berryer to Le Vassor de la Touche and Le Mercier de la Rivière. ANOM COL Series B 111 974 ARSI GAL 116 II fols. 424-426. 975 De la Croix to Ricci, 21 Apr 1761. ARSI Franc 49, fol. 214.

294

conversations with Magloire to Rome but given his connections with Fayard they would not have been favorable to Lavalette. Lavalette’s plan of neutering his opposition by removing them from

Saint-Pierre had thus backfired disastrously. It put his enemies straight into de la Marche’s path.976

De la Marche and Magloire met the war as soon as he arrived in the Caribbean. A British privateer captured his ship seventy-five miles from his intended destination of Saint Eustatius.

“However much suffering we endured with strength & fortitude through seventy days of continuous sailing,” he reported back to Rome, “yet more pain we endured to the full for the three days of our captivity.” The privateering crew confined the two priests and fifteen French passengers in the great cabin where “day and night two sailors stood at the door armed in one hand with drawn short swords & in the other short rifles; no one crossed the threshold.” Another

“immersed in beer” plundered the ship’s strongbox. The prisoners were given “a table for a bed, fetid water for drinking, & for food wormy bread.” The three-year-old bread required an ax to be made chewable.

The privateers took them to Antigua, where they forcefully reacquainted the Jesuits with their vows of poverty (“we were plundered down to our clothes…our money box and other provisions for the journey captured in the ship were detained”). An appeal to Antigua’s governor, George Thomas, supported by letters from influential friends of Magloire on the island restored their travel funds and provisions to them. Thomas also promised safe conduct to

Guadeloupe. While waiting for transport to the captured French island, de la Marche composed the first of his reports to Rome. He would send a constant stream of letters eastward throughout the investigation, keeping the father general up to date on his progress and findings. These

976 If Magloire was such a threat, it is unclear why Lavalette would send him back to Europe where he could further destroy Lavalette’s reputation within the Society. Possibly he thought that his friends in the Society would contain the damage. “Magloire” ARSI GAL 121.

295

letters offer a glimpse into his investigative process and the convoluted authorities that oversaw the wartime Caribbean. His stay on the island gave him further news of Lavalette, none of it good. “On Antigua,” he reported,

where rumors now frequently circulate about Lavalette’s audacious & irreligious

business dealings (audacibus & minime religiosis negotiatonibus), I was warned

with good will by captains of cargo ships who were captured in the war and

confiscated here that admitting no delay I dismiss Fr. Antoine Lavalette if I want

to consider the Society’s honor, dignity, position, & other fortunes.

Lavalette’s reputation, and therefore his credit, in the Caribbean had collapsed. Further conversations revealed that Lavalette had used funds borrowed at interest to buy up produce from around the Caribbean and shipped it to the Dominica plantation, which appeared to be the nerve center of Lavalette’s commercial operations. If the war prevented De la Marche from reaching Martinique, still in French hands, then perhaps he could shut down Lavalette’s network from Dominica.977

After a week on Antigua, de la Marche and Magloire sailed to Guadeloupe where they would stay from the beginning of November 1761 and until the end of January 1762.978 The

British governor invited them to lunch and confirmed de la Marche’s authority as visitor for

Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Martinique but ordered that no property be exchanged until negotiators in Europe had decided whether the island would remain British after the war. At the

Society’s residence they met the mission’s superior, Gabriel Moreau, and the exiled Guillaume

Fayard. Fayard in particular impressed de la Marche. “A man who is truly religious,” he gushed, “most wedded to the Society, by nature burning hot indeed, but for its good and greatest

977 De la Marche to Ricci, Nov 1761. ARSI GAL 114 I fols. 51-52. 978 The dates here are confusing. De la Marche states that his consult with the Guadeloupe mission took place on the 3 November while in his 8 November letter states that he arrived on Guadeloupe on 5 November. Rochemonteix’s chronology has him arriving on 28 October. Rochemontiex, Antoine Lavalette, 250.

296

health; vigorous, unremitting, and fruit-bearing in his zealous work among the slaves, finally instructed in all ornaments which can prepare and increase the good name of our society among externs.” De la Marche considered Fayard “an ally” of his investigation and re-appointed him procurator of the Martinique mission. He also sent letters to Martinique informing Lavalette of his impending arrival and appointing Guillaume Guillin vice superior under his authority.

On November 3, de la Marche held a consult with Moreau, Fayard, and Magloire to discuss Lavalette’s debts and the Guadeloupe mission’s responsibility for them. Since they did not yet have firm financial figures, these discussions were of broader strategy rather than specific allocations of funds. As superior but under Lavalette’s authority, Moreau had used the

Guadeloupe plantation’s produce to maintain the plantation and sent any surplus to Lavalette.

He was thus complicit but not responsible for Lavalette’s actions. The consult considered abolishing the Guadeloupe mission entirely and selling off its plantation to pay down the debts but de la Marche did not have the authority to do so since only the father general in Rome had the authority to abolish a mission. Instead, they decided that the Guadeloupe mission would pay off whatever it could and consider the rest of Lavalette’s debts to be the responsibility of the

Martinique mission.979 With the consult ended, De la Marche returned to his investigations. He met with one of Lavalette’s agents, Valentin, who substantiated the news of Lavalette’s trade network that the visitor had heard on Antigua.980 From him or someone else on the island de la

Marche acquired a signed certificate stating that Lavalette had done commerce and had gained the reputation of a powerful merchant.981

979 De la Marche to Ricci, 3 Nov. and 8 Nov. 1761. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 53-55. 980 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73. 981 In the “Mémoire Justificatif,” Lavalette claimed that the document was from “un ami intime du Père Magloire, qui vient d’être convaincu de faux, dans une affaire vis a vis du députe de la Guadeloupe.” Lavalette “Mémoire Justificatif,” fol. 109.

297

While waiting on Guadeloupe, De La Marche attempted to make first contact with

Lavalette by letter. He tried to put Lavalette at ease, writing that he was coming “not with judgement and hostile spirit, but rather with the greatest friendship and with the greatest willingness in itself…..I can apply and answer that which formerly Samuel asked, at Bethlehem,

Do you come peaceably? I come in peace.”982 De la Marche cast himself as one who could salvage the fallen reputations of Lavalette and the Society. “By reliable and undoubtable documents openly and publicly I can purge Your Fathership from those incriminations which are most grave.” De la Marche informed him of the parlement’s judgement the previous May, and of the news of Lavalette’s arrangements with the Dutch houses of Abraham Temnick and Clorck,

Dedel, & Cie. “How many more?” de la Marche wondered, “Your Fathership’s immense businesses resound in France, Spain, Holland, all Europe, and America besides.” De la Marche’s mission, then, was not just an internal investigation but a public relations campaign. The documents it produced could be quoted, published, and circulated around France as weapons in the Society’s defense.

De la Marche ordered him to prepare two books of financial records. The first would be a summary of Lavalette’s outstanding debts divided into three parts. The first section would to be an itemized list of the mission’s creditors in both Europe and America, with the amount of the debt, the date it was contracted, the reason, how much had been paid off, and how much remained outstanding. With this list, de la Marche planned to meet with each creditor upon his arrival and negotiate their satisfaction. In the second section, Lavalette would “declare….what, how much, at what time, in what conditions, and by what reasons the Martinique mission became

982 De la Marche refers to I Sam. 16:4-5. Samuel had arrived in Bethlehem to anoint the young David as king of Israel. The elders of the city met Samuel and asked him his intentions, to which he responded that he came in peace. De la Marche loved to use snippets of scripture as metaphores.

298

indebted both in Europe and in America & what solutions have been made to pay it down.” The third section would list any suits brought to court by the mission’s creditors and their outcomes.

The second book would to be an overview of Lavalette’s business dealings for the

Society’s exclusive use. The news in Europe, plus his investigations on Antigua and Guadeloupe had already convinced de la Marche that Lavalette was guilty of commerce (negotiatio) against canon law and the Society’s Constitutions. “The greatest planned commerce (negotiatio),” he wrote, “was conducted by Your Fathership in varied cities & ports both in America and in

Europe, of which neither doubt, nor obscuration is reported.” The profits from this illegal trade would need to be returned to those from whom they had derived. In the book, Lavalette was to list all the bills of exchange he had contracted, the Society’s property that he had alienated, and the losses the mission had suffered both at sea and on land. Finally, he was to lay out “what and how much profit derived from your businesses (ex negotiationibus suis).”983

The process of summarizing accounts would have been familiar to Jesuit procurators the world over who compiled regular balance books for their provincial and triennial catalogues for

Rome. If Lavalette had kept the various daybooks, inventories, lists of expenditures, and harvest records expected on Latin American haciendas, he would have been able to fill them out easily.984 Bernard Prieur had easily calculated the missions’ revenues and expenses for Maurepas in 1739 and Lavalette himself had provided the account of the mission’s finances to de la Touche in 1761.985 Lavalette, however, did not keep account books or destroyed their incriminating evidence. He would never write the demanded volumes.

On 28 January 1762, de la Marche left Guadeloupe for Dominica accompanied by Fayard and Magloire. Governor Dalrymple had helpfully provided a small ship for the journey. After

983 De la Marche to Lavalette, 7 Nov. 1761. ARSI GAL 114 I fols. 56-57. 984 Cushner, Lords of the Land; Cushner, Farm and Factory; Cushner, Jesuit Ranches. Alden, The Making of an Enterprise. Konrad, Santa Lucía. 985 Champigny and de la Croix to Maurepas, 13 Feb 1743 ANOM F5A 7/3.

299

twelve hours at sea they landed at Roseau, the largest town on the island “which in that place springs forth an abundance of reeds.” Dominica had fallen to British forces lead by Andrew

Rollo, Fifth Lord Rollo, the previous summer. The governor’s mistress, a friend of the Jesuits, provided an introduction. At Roseau, de la Marche began to gather the first documentary evidence of Lavalette’s Caribbean network from Lavalette’s agent on Dominica, Isaac Juda.

Juda showed the visitor the two missives from Lavalette ordering him to buy as much sugar and coffee as he could lay his hands on. Juda claimed that Lavalette had paid him back for these purchases (“he responded he owed nothing to father Antoine, nor was anything owed to him from father Antoine”) and signed a statement to that effect for de la Marche.

After four days at Roseau, they set sail again for the mission’s plantation on the southern tip of the island. It should have been an easy journey, but they were forced to put ashore, possibly to escape from French privateers. This delay turned out to be fortuitous. De la Marche discovered Constance, Lavalette’s former agent on St. Eustatius and a linchpin of his Caribbean network, to be living nearby. “Nothing was delayed” de la Marche wrote Rome, “to exhibit to me the whole and indeed the immensity of the businesses formerly engaged to him by Fr.

Antoine, a sequence arranged by him in remarkable order.” After a day to digest these findings, de la Marche completed the trip to the Jesuits’ plantation by land. “I made three leagues on foot” he wrote, “through mountainous, steep, sheer, and almost impassable places in order that I may arrive at our plantation.” Once at the plantation, with Martinique’s mountains beckoning over the horizon, “I spent several whole days in investigations.”

Final Report

At the Dominica plantation, de la Marche found a rich vein of evidence into Lavalette’s activities. The brother coadjutor in charge, Jean Nicolas Le Vasseur, produced the plantation’s account books plus over 600 letters of correspondence with Lavalette. Ranging beyond the

300

plantation, de la Marche sought out the records of local notaries for land transactions regarding the plantation. After a month of investigation, he was ready to report his findings to Rome.986

De la Marche lead the list with an account of Lavalette’s cruelty toward the Society’s enslaved men and women. “Without doubt in the year 1758,” wrote the visitor de la Marche in his report to Rome, “[Lavalette] sentenced to torture many captives….who were driven away from the number of the living.”987 Renata, a married woman from the Saint-Pierre plantation, died from torture under Lavalette’s orders on 27 March 1758. After her death, Lavalette began torturing the slaves on the Dominica plantation. An enslaved widow, Catherine, “on the ninth day of the month of May equally in torment breathed out the soul.” The Dominica plantation’s manager, the brother coadjutor Le Vasseur, argued to stop the “inhuman and barbarous experiment” but Lavalette ignored his pleas. Lavalette had two enslaved men, Martin and

Condo, killed on 11 June 1758 and 11 March 1759 after keeping them in chains. It is unclear precisely what form this torture took. De la Marche mentions a machine (“The name however of the certain machine in France is called Sep. and they assert the first knowledge was from Spain”) and also burning (“I saw myself that one awful deadly instrument of suffering, and of order that which by flames to surrender and to burn up penitents, of which remains only a vestigial stump of the machine”).988 These may be references to the rack or to burning at the stake. Lavalette then had their bodies either thrown into the sea or buried deep in Dominica’s mountainous interior.

Lavalette’s use of torture was an attempt to terrorize the enslaved population and root out a perceived plot among the Jesuits’ enslaved laborers. “Torment and death of another more prudent one will render and induce a full confession.” he wrote to the brother coadjutor Le

986 This report is De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762 ARSI GAL 114 I fols. 67-73. 987 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73. 988 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73.

301

Vasseur on 1 Apr. 1758. It is unclear what this plot may have been. De la Marche’s report, the only source we have on deaths, is vague and more interested in Lavalette’s culpability than the motivations of the enslaved. Lavalette’s victims included both men and women, implying that both genders participated. De la Marche refers to “sortiligorum” (soothsayers) and a “venefico”

(“sorcerer” or “poisoner”) who may have been the ringleader, implying a magic or poisoning circle similar to the Makandal affair on Saint-Domingue. Although neither Lavalette nor De la

Marche ever mentions poison, the timing between the Makandal affair and Lavalette’s string of tortures suggests a connection. The arrests for poisoning on Saint-Domingue began in May 1757 and ended in March 1758, preceding and overlapping with Lavalette’s killings. State authorities burned Makandal at the stake on 20 Jan 1758, Renata became the first of Lavalette’s victims two months later.989 News of the poisoning ring could easily have spread eastward across the

Caribbean in that time. As with Saint-Domingue’s northern province, the Îles du Vent suffered decreasing food imports from 1755 through 1759, to the point that Martinique was practically living off privateering prizes in 1758.990 Martinican planters also had a sensitive fear of poisonings. More accusations of poisoning occurred on the smaller island immediately before the Makandal affair than were voiced in the same time on Saint-Domingue.991 Lavalette may have feared that the enslaved workers on the mission’s plantations were conducting similar activities.

If the plot was indeed a scaled down version of the Makandal affair, then Catherine,

Renata, Martin, and Condo may have been using African methods to access the spirit world and mitigate deaths caused by low food supplies and disease. An epidemic had struck the Dominica

989 Trevor G. Burnard and John Garrigus, The Plantation Machine : Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 103–22; Malick W Ghachem, “Prosecuting Torture: The Strategic Ethics of Slavery in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Dominigue (Haiti),” Law and History Review 29, no. 4 (November 2011): 985–1029. 990 Pares, War and Trade, 384-385. 991 Burnard and Garrigus, The Plantation Machine, 108.

302

plantation shortly after Lavalette had returned from France in 1755.992 Limited food supplies may have cost more lives. Like Makandal, the enslaved men and women on the Jesuit plantation may have used African spiritual practices to enhance the efforts of European medicine and

Catholic prayers during a demographic decline.

At first glance the idea of “soothsayers” and “sorcerers” engaging in African religious practices on a Jesuit plantation is surprising. The missionaries, who were actively involved with baptizing and Christianizing incoming slaves, would have been unlikely to tolerate enslaved challenges to their spiritual authority. Jesuit estates elsewhere practiced an intense regimen of

Catholic worship. The workday on Latin American plantations began with morning prayers, religious instruction, and mass followed by the rosary in the evening.993 Preserving African spiritual practices under the watchful eye of the overseers and brothers coadjutors would have been difficult. The reality was more nuanced. The Dominica plantation’s enslaved men and women had only been under the Society’s control since 1748, giving them less time under the missionaries’ Christianization regime. Furthermore, planters often worked symbiotically with

African religious practices. The lack of skilled doctors in the Americas meant that slave owners often sought enslaved healers for spiritual cures.994 Lavalette himself turned to an enslaved woman to cure a sickness upon his return from France in 1755.995 The Jesuits could thus be opportunistic and pragmatic in their approach to African spirituality, rejecting its spiritual practices while taking advantage of its healing knowledge. Only when the usage of healing

992 Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 129. 993 Baur, “Christian Servitude, 100-101.” It is unknown whether the Île du Vent missions’ plantations followed a similar regimen. 994 See James H. Sweet, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). See also Karol K. Weaver, Medical Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006). 995 Lavalette to Ricci. ARSI GAL 114 II fol. 1-2.

303

rituals leapt outside church approved channels, as occurred in the Makandal scandal and possibly on Dominica, did it pose a direct challenge to planter’s control and invited eradication.

What might these executions have meant for the African men and women who watched them? In the Bight of Biafra, executions formed a regular part of royal funerals and religious ceremonies, but these were done en masse and not by fire.996 Vincent Brown has described the burial rituals among Jamaica’s enslaved population as moments of community reinforcement.

“The enslaved recovered a sense of their common humanity at funerals.” he writes. Through singing and dancing, they renewed the family bonds and communal relationships forever being destroyed by the plantation system. Pallbearers carried the body around the village, stopping at doorways to collect debts and avenge wrongs. Such actions placated the deceased and allowed their spirit to depart in peace rather than haunt the community.997 It is unclear whether the

Jesuits’ enslaved community on Dominica followed similar rituals, given the missionary’s

Christianization efforts, but by destroying the bodies through fire and water, Lavalette deprived the enslaved men and women of this closure. As Marissa Fuentes has noted, Barbados clamped down on funeral rituals for enslaved persons convicted of crimes during the 1760s. Their bodies were to be buried at sea or thrown down wells, thus depriving enslaved Africans of the bodies’ spiritual power.998 This denial of closure was Lavalette’s goal. “The privation of burial” he wrote to Le Vasseur, “will inject strong terror.”999 Catherine and Renata’s souls would not be allowed to rest in peace.

So horrible was the accusation of slave torture that de la Marche went out of his way to support his claims with evidence. “I know truly the story from me is incredible;” he wrote, “but

996 Vincent Brown, The Reaper’s Garden : Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008). 997 Brown, Reaper’s Garden, 66-74. 998 Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives : Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 117. 999 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar. 1762, ARSI GAL 114 I fols. 67-73.

304

of the aforesaid things all is faithful and true so great and public and private and furthermore now contributed to by records in order that by no means is it possible to call into doubt.” De la

Marche listed the enslaved victims’ names and the dates of their executions, thus preserving the identities of Catherine, Renata, Martin, and Condo for posterity. He also quoted directly from

Lavalette’s letters to Le Vasseur (translated from French into Latin for Ricci’s benefit). This was the only occasion on which he provided excerpts from his investigation’s source material.

De la Marche concluded that Lavalette was guilty of murder. “The acts by father

Antoine” he wrote, “were in no public harmony with the authority of Lawful judge, but in private and with the authority of such a master.” The Code Noir placed firm restrictions on the punishments that planters could inflict on the men and women in their possession; restrictions which de la Marche summarized for Ricci’s benefit. Article 42 permitted owners to chain their slaves and beat them with rods or straps, but not to torture or mutilate their limbs. Article 43 empowered royal officials to criminally prosecute masters who had killed their enslaved laborers.

Lavalette had broken these restrictions, de la Marche concluded, making his killings acts of voluntary homicide (homicidio voluntario). Such a sin was beyond his spiritual powers to heal since the Holy Office had not given him the power to absolve voluntary homicide.

Though de la Marche took pains to compare Lavalette’s torture to the Code Noir, it is important to note that these royal rules were rarely enforced on the ground and Lavalette was hardly unique in cruelty toward the enslaved population. The Saint-Domingue planter Jean-

Baptiste Caradeux, nicknamed “the Cruel,” buried slaves and let flies eat their heads while he and his assembled guests watched.1000 Nicholas Lejeune, another infamous planter on Saint-

Domingue, burned enslaved men and women with torches in the 1780s. None of them were convicted by royal authorities. Indeed, as Malick Ghachem has noted, torture on the plantation

1000 Paul Burton Cheney, Cul de Sac : Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 81.

305

could go hand in hand with torture by state officials. An enslaved person in a 1755 poisoning case on Martinique was tortured twice, once by the owner to get a confession and again by authorities after the slave retracted the confession.1001 The Jesuits themselves were not aloof from these activities. In 1715, the Jesuits in Guiana joined other planters in protesting a ban on the cutting off the ears of the enslaved, implying that their own overseers were violating the

Code Noir’s prohibition against mutilation.1002

De la Marche also never mentioned the Society’s rules towards the treatment of the enslaved. Like the rules regarding negotiatio, the modus procedendi for the treatment of the men and women enslaved to the Society varied across time and space in a continuous negotiation between the disciplinary needs of plantation managers and the humanitarian impulses of their superiors. The stream of directives and denunciations from provincials, visitors, and fathers general implies both a constant resort to cruelty on the ground and attempts to control it from above. In 1687, the Argentine provincial Joseph de la Barreda, horrified by reports of the punishments on the Society’s haciendas, barred overseers from dripping hot candle wax on the skin or hanging slaves off the ground by their wrists (on the ground was acceptable). Barreda also specified the maximum number of lashes (25 for an small offenses, 70 for serious ones) and the type of whip to be used (it could not be of knotted leather which drew blood after a few strokes).1003 The visitor Peter Kenney, who inspected the Maryland plantations in 1820, barred pregnant women from being whipped but allowed priests to whip men.1004 In exceptional circumstances, the perpetrators of the punishments could be punished themselves. When reports reached father general Michelangelo Tamburini in 1707 and 1722 of Indians on the Argentine haciendas being permanently maimed from severe whippings and confinement without food, he

1001 Ghachem, “Prosecuting Torture.” 1002 Le Roux et al., Loyola, 112-113. 1003 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 106. 1004 Murphy, Jesuit Slaveholding, 117.

306

ordered the perpetrators expelled from the Society.1005 In Spanish and Portuguese America, this dialectic crystalized into handbooks of plantation management, but no such documents existed for Jesuits in the French Caribbean. In none of the above examples did members of the Society kill the Jesuits’ human property, making Lavalette’s actions extreme by the Jesuit’s standards.

With de la Marche’s report to Ricci, all discussion of Catherine and Renata’s deaths ended. Lavalette was never brought to royal or ecclesiastical justice for these murders. De la

Marche never handed Lavalette over to the civil courts for violating the Code Noir. Nor did

Ricci in Rome discipline Lavalette. Ricci later wrote in a mémoire that Lavalette was guilty of

“cruelty and homicide against the Royal laws which prohibit it (under capital punishment),” but he made no effort to arrange a secular trial for Lavalette.1006 With the Jesuits’ enemies pouncing on any rumor of Jesuit crimes, such a trial would have been decidedly against the Society’s interests. Even internally, neither Ricci nor de la Marche disciplined Lavalette for torturing the order’s enslaved property and destroying the souls under his care. Rather than being expelled, he would leave the Society of his own volition. Later historians have also been tacitly complicit in covering up Lavalette’s crimes. Camille de Rochemonteix, whose mastery of the archival sources was exceeded only by his zeal to clear the Society’s reputation, never mentions the deaths of Catherine or Renata despite quoting at length from de la Marche’s Dominica report.1007

Rochemontiex’s book has been considered so authoritative that most historians have not returned to his primary sources. Only within the past thirty years has Lavalette’s cruelty come back to light. Gillian Thompson, writing in 1996, noted the line in Ricci’s mémoire and wrote that “as a

1005 Cushner, Jesuit Ranches, 111. 1006 By this point in 1762 the French parlements were in the process of expelling the Society. Ricci “Istoria” ARSI Hist Soc 273 fols. 87-88. 1007 Rochemonteix quotes entire paragraphs from the same page as de la Marche’s description of torture. Rochemonteix, Antoine Lavalette, 154-156 and 254-256.

307

man of sometimes violent temper, he [Lavalette] was rumoured to have tortured slaves to death.”1008

Having finished discussing the slave torture, de la Marche turned to Lavalette’s trade network. Le Vasseur’s correspondence and account books, together with the evidence from

Constance, Juda, and Valentin, provided ample proof that Lavalette had engaged in negotiatio, profane business against canon law and the Constitutions. Dominica had been the heart of

Lavalette’s Caribbean trade network. The account books of the Dominica plantation recorded the coffee and cotton bought from planters across the Lesser Antilles in exchange for foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and bills of exchange.

De la Marche also found that Lavalette had mismanaged the Dominica plantation. He had lied to the European hierarchy about its productivity. In August 1760, Lavalette had reported that the plantation produced 250,000 livres of coffee during the peace and 40,000 livres during the war years of 1759 and 1760. Lavalette had given similar figures to de la Touche, estimating

200,000 livres in peacetime but the much higher figure of 110,000 livres during the war.1009

Instead, de la Marche found that it had never produced more than 90,000 livres annually and only produced 70,000 livres in 1761. Worse, Lavalette had promised 150,000 livres in coffee from the plantation’s revenues to a M. Verrier.1010 When de la Marche informed Verrier that such a payment was impossible, Verrier angrily “denied all satisfaction to be bound to peace of this fraudulent sort.” Lavalette had likewise calculated the plantation’s production of wood, cattle, sheep, and manioc flour at 20,000 livres in revenue.1011 “Here again, so many words, so many

1008 Thompson also takes previous historians to task on their tacit complicity. “It was probably also in this period that he committed those terrible acts which all but one of the Jesuit commentators pass over in silence,” she writes of Lavalette’s wartime activities. Thompson, “Jesuit Superiors,” 215. 1009 Lavalette claimed they had harvested harvested 110,000 livres in either 1760 or the first half of 1761 but had lost 25,000 livres due to “le détournement des negres, et par la mauvaise oeconomie.” De la Touche, “Observations sur le Resume du Pere Lavalette,” 16 Apr. 1761 ANOM COL Series F3 93 fols. 262-267. 1010 Such an alienation was against the rules of the Society. 1011 Guillin estimated this revenue at 200,000 livres to de la Touche. De la Touche, “Observations,” 262-267.

308

lies,” reported de la Marche. He estimated that these sources produced only 5,000 livres, much of which had also been promised to others.

Finally, Lavalette had been alienating the plantation’s land. Likely tipped off by Le

Vasseur, De la Marche ordered copies of all land transactions relating to the Society from local notaries. The documents reveal a pattern of selling off parts of the Jesuits’ Dominica plantation cheaply and then buying them back several years later at inflated prices. He sold one field to a

M. Paillet for 8,250 livres and later redeemed it for 60,000 livres. He sold another to a white woman named Catherine, who appears to have been a pious supporter of the mission, for 2,000 livres and later bought it back for 15,000 livres. De la Marche was confused by this behavior which was so obviously detrimental to the mission. Possibly it was connected to Lavalette’s currency exchange network. In 1758, he sold what may have been the entire plantation to his main Caribbean agent, Van den Branden, for 160,000 livres and repurchased it again a week later. This sale implies that he used the land as collateral to back his wartime trade network among the islands. Securing payment for debts was a perennial problem in the Caribbean.

French colonial law made repossessing plantations difficult, leading to much animosity between metropolitan merchant creditors and colonial planter debtors. Gradis had required Lavalette to put the mission’s property under hypothèque to him when the settled their accounts in 1754, thus giving him a secure claim to the estate in the event Lavalette defaulted.1012 More central to

Lavalette’s Caribbean network and of greater physical proximity, Van den Branden would have been in a position to demand greater surety in the form of an actual deed of sale. In all these transactions, Lavalette operated outside the practices of the modus procedendi and the written code of the Institutes, which required the permission of the consult, the provincial, and the father general, for property to be alienated.

1012 Lavalette, 18 June 1754. AN 181 AQ/76 48.

309

Endgame

While de la Marche completed his investigations and finished his report, he may have heard gunfire drifting across the strait from the distant mountains of Martinique as the British campaign against the French sugar islands reached its peak. On 16 January, a British fleet of seventeen ships of the line under Rear Admiral George Rodney and Major General Robert

Monkton landed 13,000 troops near Fort Royal in the south. Fort Royal’s citadel, the only fortification on the island capable of offering resistance, surrendered two weeks later on 3

February. With the citadel gone, Martinique’s planters began surrendering to Monkton on their own despite entreaties by the governor to continue fighting. “Immediately upon the Fort offering to capitulate,” wrote an exultant Monkton to London, “the Admiral and I received a deputation from most of the quarters of the Island desiring likewise to capitulate, Mr. La Touche having refused them, to enter into any terms.”1013 After two weeks of negotiating, de la Touche himself formally signed Monkton’s surrender terms at Saint-Pierre on 13 Feb. 1762.1014 Since the fighting had been confined to Fort Royal in the south of the island, the Jesuits’ properties around

Saint-Pierre in the north had been unaffected. Unlike Vaudreuil’s surrender at Montreal two years prior, at which Amherst refused to guarantee the security of religious orders’ property,

Monkton permitted the Jesuits, Dominicans, Capuchins, and Ursulines to keep their lands and slaves.1015 “The inhabitants as well as the Religious Orders” read the final surrender terms “will

1013 Monkton to the Earl of Egremont. 9 Feb. 1762. British National Archives CO 166/2 fol. 24-32. 1014 Dull, French Navy, 222. 1015 Vaudreuil attempted to guarantee the privileges of the religious orders in Articles 32 and 33 of the surrender terms. Amherst affirmed the security of the female orders but refused to do so for male orders “till the King’s pleasure be known.” Gustav Lanctot, A History of Canada: From the Treaty of Utrect to the Treaty of Paris, 1713- 1763, vol. 3 (Cambridge, Mass, 1965), 231–32.

310

enjoy their properties and as they become British Subjects they will enjoy the same privileges as in his Majesty’s other Leeward Islands.”1016

De la Touche’s surrender finally opened de la Marche’s path to Martinique and Lavalette himself. “I trust to be transferred to Martinique Island within eight or ten days,” he wrote to

Ricci in his final report on 10 March, a month after the surrender.1017 He crossed the strait with

Fayard and Magloire five days later, arriving at Saint-Pierre on 23 March. De la Marche avoided meeting Lavalette but instead presented himself to Monkton and scheduled a consult of the mission’s senior members for the twenty-fifth. The consult was the first tense meeting between de la Marche and Lavalette. With de la Marche’s prior investigations, its results were also a foregone conclusion. “Le consulte tenait depuis une heure,” Lavalette recalled in the ‘Mémoire

Justificatif,’

lorsqu’on m’envoya prie d’y venir- J’y fus préparé a tout, On m’y lut une lettre du

P. Gatin, procureur de le mission à Paris, lettre pleine d’injures indécentes contre

moi- Je ne dit mot- On me demanda si j’avais fait le commerce- Je dis non, voyez

les livres de mon agent général, avec lequel tous les autres correspondaient.”

“J’ay une preuve en main” me dit Le P. la Marche- “j’étais bien assuré qu’il n’en

pourrait pas avoir,” “quelle est elle” lui répondis je? Il me lu le billet, ou

certificat, qu’on lui avait donné à la Guadeloupe.- J’ai ris, et dis : “cela est bon”-

“Il faut” me dit il “partir pour la France et me remettre vos papiers.” “Je partirai

quand vous voudrez ; lui dis-je, quant à mes papiers, voilà les clefs!”1018

One can almost imagine Lavalette slamming the door on his way out of the room.

1016 Monkton, Rodney, and Le Vassor de la Touche. “Capitulation of Martinique” 13 Feb 1762. British National Archives CO 166/2 fol. 57-64. 1017 De la Marche to Ricci, 18 Mar 1762. ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 67-73. 1018 Lavalette “Mémoire Justificatif” fol. 110.

311

Theatrics aside, the consult’s formal report which de la Marche sent to Rome was damning. Given his aim of producing documents to publicly salvage the Society’s reputation, De la Marche probably intended it for future publication. It is short and precise, tersely listing three findings and three punishments. No details of Lavalette’s business dealings are mentioned. His torturing of the Society’s slaves is ignored. The assembled missionaries ruled that Lavalette

“oversaw profane business (negotiations profanas) with outside markets (forum externum) against the Holy Sanctions of Canon Law and the laws of the Society of Jesus in particular” and that he had concealed and lied about these businesses to both the other Îles du Vent missionaries and the Society at large. By emphasizing Lavalette’s deception, de la Marche distanced the

Society from Lavalette’s activities, thus clearing them from involvement through ignorance. In punishment for his actions, de la Marche stripped Lavalette of all spiritual and temporal authority, including the powers to say mass and absolve sins, and commanded that he be sent back to Europe immediately.1019 With this judgement, Lavalette’s career as Jesuit and priest was over.

1019 ARSI GAL 114 I fol. 77.

312

Epilogue

The lives of Lavalette and his debts did not end with the parlement’s verdict in 1761 or

Lavalette’s removal from control over the Martinique mission in 1762. Lavalette sailed for

Britain and would remain there through the end of the war. De la Marche had recommended rehabilitating the wayward priest and restoring his sacramental abilities upon his arrival in

Europe but Lavalette asked to leave the Jesuits instead. He was formally dismissed and probably wrote his “Mémoire Justificatif” around this time. Given the notoriety and infamy attached to the name “Lavalette,” he chose to call himself Duclau. The reputation he had once cultivated was now a liability. While in Britain he dined regularly with the French ambassador, the Comte de Guerchy, and advised Lord Halifax and Lord Egmont on buying plantations on Dominica.

Lavalette’s first-hand knowledge of the Caribbean could still be a source of crédit. With the end of the war in 1763 and the Jesuits’ expulsion from France in 1764, he crossed the Channel and moved to the small town of Villeneuve-les-vaux in the Provençal mountains above Nice. He was once again under a new name: Du Pommier Douglas. There Lavalette lived for a year before returning home to his family in Martrin.1020

In the herds of cows dotting the rolling hills Lavalette once again saw opportunity. There was always a need for salted beef to feed the enslaved men and women on Caribbean sugar plantations. Lavalette planned to ship it to the islands through Bordeaux but the scheme never became more than an idea. In the autumn of 1766 he sailed to Saint Domingue under yet a third name, Dupinel, to search out a shipment of coffee which a brother-in-law on the island had agreed to send the family. Upon arrival, Lavalette discovered that the brother-in-law had died and the executor of his will refused to honor his claim on the coffee. Fate is not without a sense

1020 Archives Nationales, Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, Série Mémoires et Documents: Rome, Vol 9, fols. 186- 198 and 200-225. Rochemontiex, Antoine Lavalette, 270-278.

313

of irony. The following spring, Lavalette returned to France and took the oath of loyalty to the

Gallican church required of all former Jesuits before officers of the Toulouse parlement.1021 The return to the tropics had fatally damaged his health. When officers of the crown arrived in

September 1767 to interview him and seize his papers, he had been bedridden for six weeks, only leaving his rooms in a sedan chair. Antoine Lavalette died on 13 December 1767 and was buried in the church of Notre dame de la Dalbade in Toulouse.1022

Lavalette went to his grave insisting that he had never done commerce. He provided several defenses in the “Mémoire Justificatif.” Lavalette’s superiors had examined his activities, he claimed, during Rouillé’s 1754 investigation and had concluded that “mes lettres de change, mes achats de sucre n’étaient pas commerce, mais des emprunts faits payables en France. Il était indiffèrent qu’ils le fussant par des contracts, par des simples billets, ou par des lettres de change.

Il était également indifférent, que j’envoyasse de l’argent ou des lettres de change, ou que j’employasse l’argent à acheter de sucres pour y envoyer.”1023 Lavalette admitted that the had owned ships and bought plantation produce for sale in Europe, but “vendre ces sucres ces cafés, pour acheter d’autres denrées et marchandise et les revendre pour y gagner; ce que je n’avais jamais fait.”1024 Nor had he invested the mission’s funds in Lioncy frères et Gouffre’s business ventures. “Lioncy sait que je n’ay jamais voulu me liée avec elle dans les affaires de commerce,” he proclaimed “pas même prendre intérêt dans leurs navires, et cargaisons.”1025 On the contrary, he claimed that the Lioncy brothers and Gouffre had tried to tempt him into business rather than the other way around. “Il a déclaré très positivement qu’il n’a jamais fait

1021 This may have happened earlier. Rocheonteix quotes the parlementary archives saying that he had done it several years earlier in 1764. Rochemontiex, Antoine Lavalette, 270-278. 1022 Archives Nationales, Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, Série Mémoires et Documents: Rome, Vol 9, fols. 186- 198 and 200-225. Rochemontiex, Antoine Lavalette, 270-278. 1023 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fols. 104-105. 1024 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fol. 112. 1025 Lavalette, “Mémoire Justificatif,” ARSI GAL 115 fols. 114-117.

314

aucun commerce,” a royal official reported shortly before his death, “ni pour son propre compte, ni pour celui de la Societé des Jésuites; Qu’à la vérite les Lioncy l’avoient Sollicité en plusieurs occasions de prendre un interêt dans leurs vaisseaux, en lui offrant de lui prêter leur nom et de lui garder le Secret le plus inviolable, mais qu’il avoit constamment refusé de se prêter directement ni indirectement à cette proposition.”1026

His attempts to hide his currency transfer system and inter-island trade network tell a different story. In both De la Touche’s report and the “Mémoire Justificatif” Lavalette makes no mention of either, portraying himself as a planter whose fortunes had been ruined by the Seven

Years War. This strategic omission implies an awareness of wrongdoing; an understanding that his commercial activities were outside the modus procedendi and in violation of canon law. His silences speak louder than his full-throated denials.

Lavalette’s debts long outlived him. The Jesuits appointed Fr. Jean-Pierre Gatin to negotiate with the creditors individually following the parlement’s verdict. Through provincial funds and borrowing, he made partial payouts of over a million livres, bargained the remaining amounts down, and arranged payment plans for the remainder. In return for the original bill of exchange, they received an agreement notarized before the Châtelet court. Gatin reduced Jean

Lioncy’s claim of 1,502,276 livres, for example, to 810,000 livres and a second claim from

222,838 livres to 32,626 livres.1027 The Jesuits could have amortized Lavalette’s debts in this manner (or at least passed the burden from paying off their creditors to paying off the English province) if the Paris parlement had not expelled the Society between 1762 and 1764. In April

1760, the parlementaires ordered the Society’s goods sequestered and two years later commanded their creditors to form a union headed by a syndic. The Jesuits were thus being treated as bankrupts. Paying off the Society’s debts proved to be a massive undertaking.

1026 Raynal and d’Heury, “Extrait des reponses” AN AE, Serie Memoires et Documents: Rome: 9 fol. 196-7. 1027 Thompson, “Superiors,” 260-261 and 276.

315

Compiling an Ordre Général et Définitif of the 1,680 claims totaling 7.55 million livres took the union, headed by yet another Lioncy, Jacques-François, until 1772. These claims ranged from

Jean Lioncy’s 630,000 livres (the parlement had reduced it through a 180,000 livre rente) to 50 livres owed to a wigmaker named Cornette for barber’s services done for the college of Tours.

Lavalette’s creditors were subsumed among anyone who had bought a rente on a Jesuit college

(as the bishop of Châlons-sur-Saone had done in 1607, the oldest claim on the Ordre Général) or sold groceries to a professed house (as was the business of Pierre Garran, a marchand épicier at

Bordeaux).1028

Liquidating these assets was equally daunting. Since a royal edict forbade the union from touching any properties used for religious or educational purposes, they immediately sent representatives to seize the Jesuits’ Caribbean plantations. Here they were stymied by the colonial creditors (who were technically part of the union but acted according to their own interests), the colonial state, and the Jesuits themselves. De la Marche had died shortly after pronouncing judgment on Lavalette in 1762 and Fayard had handed over Lavalette’s Dominica plantation to creditors of the English province in 1763.1029 On Guadeloupe the union’s representatives found that Fr. Moreau had likewise sold the Society’s properties to a planter,

Thomas Le Preux, who agreed (after some wrangling) to pay them annual installments. On

Martinique, the Superior Council had granted pensions to the island’s former Jesuits and seized the St. Pierre plantation to pay for them. The Council fought off the creditors’ representatives

1028 Ordre Général et définitif de tous les les créanciers des ci-devant soi-disans Jésuites, tant en France que dans les colonies. (1772) 171, 204, 1029 It was hoped that this would pay back the English creditors for their loans to the French province. See Lenik. “Frontier Landscapes,” 151-153.

316

before selling the plantation to other buyers later in the decade.1030 Similar disappointments occurred in Louisiana, Saint Domingue, and Guiana.1031

Despite these setbacks, the creditors began selling off the Society’s other properties in

France, such as its novitiate houses, and issuing payouts to the creditors. As D.G. Thompson has shown, the union of creditors was much less efficient at settling the creditors’ claims than the

Jesuits. To take one example, Gatin had reduced Jacques Cazotte’s claim of 130,00 livres to

93,000 livres and promised to pay it off by 1 July 1763 in three installments.1032 However the

1772 Ordre Général listed a claim for him at 98,198 livres 17 sous 8 deniers.1033 Nine years after it would have been paid off by the Society, the debt not only remained but was still accruing interest. The creditors continued seizing properties and paying out claims through the first year of the Revolution. By the time the National Assembly dissolved the union in October

1790, they had paid out 12 million livres, satisfying 80% of the creditors’ claims, but still had three million livres in outstanding debts. Successive Revolutionary bodies under the Convention and the Directory continued to calculate how much the creditors were owed through 1798 when

Lavalette’s debts were quietly dropped.1034 The “Lavalette affair” ended in obscurity.

1030 Rennard, Histoire religieuse, 248-253. 1031 See Le Roux, Auger, and Cazelles, Loyola, 79–87; Marc de Villiers du Terrage, Les dernières années de la Louisiane française: le chevalier de Kerlérec d’Abbadie - Aubry Laussant. (Paris: Guilmotot, 1904), 162–65; Thompson, “Jesuits’ Creditors,” 267–68. 1032 See the Châtelet agreement in ARSI GAL 115 fols. 66-68. 1033 Ordre Général, 131. 1034 Thompson, “Creditors,” 275-277.

317

Works Cited Archival Sources France Archives Nationales de France (AN) K 1232 Archives Privées (AP) 181 AQ Fonds Gradis Archives des Affaires Étrangeres (AE) Series Memoires et Documents : Rome : Vol. 9 Archives français de la Compagnie de Jésus/Archivum Francium Societatis Iesu (AFSI) Fonds An[tilles] Fonds Brotier 189 VI Archives de Paris D.286 Juridiction Consulaire : Minutes des jugements et sentences (1680-1792) Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer (ANOM) Series A Actes du pouvoir souverain Series B Correspondence au départ avec des colonies Series C7A Correspondence à l’arrivée : Guadeloupe Series C8A Correspondence à l’arrivée : Martinique Series F5A Missions Religieuses Archives Departmentales des Bouches du Rhone (ADBR) Series B Fonds du Parlement de Provence 533 U Dossiers de faillites du Tribunal de Commerce de Marseille Italy Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI) His Soc 273 GAL 106 GAL 114 I+II GAL 115 GAL 121 Franc 49

Vatican City Archvio Segreti Vaticano Fondo Gesuiti

United Kingdom National Archives ADM 344 Admiralty: Hydrograhic Department: Coastal and Riverine Views CO 166/2 Colonies: Martinique, Original Correspondence, Entry Books and Shipping Returns: Military and Naval Jesuits in Britain Archives College of St. Thomas of Canterbury Lingard Correspondance BB/11

Newspapers Mercurio Historico

318

Des Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques Gazette de Leyde Lloyd’s List Whitehall Evening Examiner Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle London Evening Post St. James Chronicle or the British Evening Post Public Advertiser General Evening Post Boston Gazette

Published Primary Sources Arrêt de La Cour Du Parlement,: Contre Le Général & La Société Des Jesuites. Paris, 1761. Bouton, Jacques. Relation de l’establissement Des Francois Depuis l’an 1635…. Paris : Sebastien Cramoisy, 1640. Cazotte, Jacques, and Georges Décote. Correspondance de Jacques Cazotte : Édition Critique. Paris : Klicksieck, 1982. Chanvalon, Jean-Baptiste Mathieu Thibault de. Voyage à La Martinique,…. Paris : Cl. J.B. Bauche, & à Saint Jean le désert, 1763 Deligny. Réponse au mémoire intitulé : Memoire sur les Demandes formées contre le General et la société des Jesuites…. Paris : H.L. Guerin & L.F. delatour, 1761. Dessalles, Pierre-François-Régis, and Bernard Vonglis. Les annales du Conceil souverain de la Martinique. 2 vols. Paris : L’Harmattan, 1995. Du Tertre, Jean Baptiste. Histoire Generale Des Antilles Habitées Par Les François….. 4 vols. Paris : Thomas Iolly, 1667. Ferrière, Claude Joseph de, and A..G. Boucher d’Argis. Dictionnaire de droit et de pratique : contenant l’explication des termes de droit, d’ordonnances, de coutumes & de pratique : avec les jurisdictions de France. Toulouse : J. Dupliex, 1755 and 1779. Ignatius, and George E. Ganss. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970. Labat, Jean-Baptiste. Nouveau Voyage Aux Isles de l’Amerique… 8 vols. Paris : Cavelier père, 1742. Laget-Bardelin, and Chaumeau. Mémoire pour les Jésuites des provinces de Champagne, Guyenne, Toulouse, & Lyon…. Contre le syndic des créanciers Lioncy & Gouffre…. Et encore contre les sieurs Lioncy & Gouffre…. Chez J. Chardon, 1761. Lalourcé, Charlemagne, and Jean Lioncy. Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour Jean Lioncy, créancer, et syndic de la masse de la maison de commerce, établie à Marseilles sous le nom de Lioncy frères et Gouffre, contre le corps et société des P.P. Jésuites. Paris : P. Alex. Le Prieur, 1761. Le Gouvé, Jean-Baptiste. Plaidoyer pour le syndic des créancers des sieurs Lioncy freres & Gouffre, négocians à Marseille,. Contre le général & la Société des Jésuites. Paris : d’Houry, Charles-Maurice, 1761. Les Jesuites Marchands, : Usuriers, Usurpateurs, et Leurs Crautés Dans l’ancien & Le Nouveau Continent. A La Haye : les Freres Vaillant, 1759. Lettres sur les opérations du P. de Lavalette, jésuite, et supérieur général des Missions des îles françaises du Vent de l’Amérique, nécessaires aux négociants., 1760.

319

L’Herminier, Gillet, Mallard, Taboué, de la Monnoie, Babile, and Thevenot d’Essaule. Mémoire à consulter et consultation pour les jésuites de France. Au sujet d’une sentence, du 30 janvier 1760…. Paris : L. Cellot, 1761. Sentence Des Juge [Sic] & Consuls de Paris. : Du 30 Janvier 1760. Que Condamne Tous Les Jésuites de France Solidairement à Payer La Smme de Trente Mille Livres Dûes en Vertu d’une Lettre de Change Tirée Par Le Pere La Valette, Avec Les Profits & Intérêts Depuis l’échéance de Ladite Lettre, & Tous Les Dépens, Du Jour de La Demande. Paris : s.n., 1760. Moreau de Saint-Méry, M.L.E. Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’Amérique sous le vent ; 6 vols. Paris : Chez l’auteur, 1784. Ordre général et définitif de tous les Créanciers des Ci-devant soi-disans Jésuites, tant en France que dans Les colonies…. Paris : Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1772. Pelleprat, Pierre. Relation des missions des PP. de la Compagnie de Iesus dans les isles, & dans la terre ferme de l’Amerique Meridionale. : 2 vols. Paris : Sebastien Cramoisy, & Gabriel Cramoisy, 1655. Ratio studiorum: plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus. Edited by Adrien Demoustier, Dominique Jula, and Marie-Madeleine Compère. Translated by Léone Albrieux and Dolorés Pralon-Julia, Paris: Belin, 1997. Saldanha da Gama, Francisco de. Decret du Card. Saldanha, pour la réforme des Jésuites de Portugal & des domaines qui en dépendent. : Du 15 mai 1758. 1758. Savary, Jacques. Le Parfait Negociant, Ou, Instruction Generale pour ce Qui Regarde Le Commerce Des Marchandises de France, & Des Pays Etrangers. Paris : les freres Estienne, 1757. Target, Guy-Jean Baptiste, and Rouhette. Mémoire sur les demandes formées contre le général et la société des jésuites, au sujet des engagements qu’elle a contracté par le ministère du père de La Valette. Paris : M. Lambert, 1761. Target, Guy-Jean Baptiste. Second mémoire pour le sieur Cazotte, et la demoiselle Fouque, contre le général et la société des Jésuites. Paris : s.n., 1761. The Authentic Proceedings of the French King and His Parliament against the Jesuits of France. London: J. Wilkie, 1761. Thevenot. Plaidoyer pour les Jesuites de France, contre le syndic des Créanciers des Sieurs Lioncy & Gouffre, et les Sieurs Lioncy & Gouffre. Paris : Cellot, 1761.

Secondary Sources Alden, Dauril. “Sugar Planters by Necessity, Not Choice: The Role of the Jesuits in the Cane Sugar Industry of Colonial Brazil, 1601-1759.” In The Church and Society in Latin America: Selected Papers from the Conference at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 29-30, 1982, 139–72. New Orleans: Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University, 1984. ———. The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and beyond, 1540-1750. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. Alonso-Lasheras, Diego. Luis de Molina’s De Iustitiae et Iure: Justice as Virtue in an Economic Context. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2011. Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Anderson, Virginia DeJohn. Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Arden, Adrien. Un armateur marseillais: Georges Roux. Paris, 1890.

320

Bailey, Gauvin A. Architecture and Urbanism in the French Atlantic Empire: State, Church, and Society, 1604-1830. Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2018. Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History : Concept and Contours. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2005. Banbuck, C. A. Histoire politique, économique et sociale de la Martinique sous l’ancien régime (1635-1789). Fort-de-France, Martinique: Société de distribution et de culture, 1972. Bangert, William V. A History of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972. Banks, Kenneth. “Official Duplicity: The Illicit Slave Trade of Martinique, 1713-1763.” In The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel, edited by Peter A Coclanis, 229–51. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Banks, Kenneth J. Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713-1763. Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002. Bauer, Arnold J. “Christian Servitude: Slave Management in Colonial Spanish America.” In Agrarian Society in History: Essays in Honour of Magnus Mörner, edited by Magnus Mörner, Mats Lundahl, and Thommy Svensson, 89–107. London; New York: Routledge, 1990. Beik, William. Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France : State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Bois, François-Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye Des. Dictionnaire de la noblesse, contenant les généalogies, l’histoire et la chronologie des familles nobles de France,.... Schlesinger Frères, 1866. Borges, Charles J. The Economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542-1759: An Explanation of Their Rise and Fall. New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1994. Boromé, Joseph A. “The French and Dominica, 1699-1763.” The Jamaican Historical Review 7, no. 1 and 2 (1967): 9–39. Bosher, J. F. The Canada Merchants, 1713-1763. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1987. Boucher, Philip P. France and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Discontent? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Boxer, C. R. “Brazilian Gold and British Traders in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 49, no. 3 (1969): 454–72. ———. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Berkeley,: University of California Press, 1951. Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Translated by Siân Reynolds. New York, New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Brockey, Liam Matthew. The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia. Cambridge, Mass ; London: Harvard University Press, 2014. Brown, Vincent. The Reaper’s Garden : Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008. Browning, Reed. The War of the Austrian Succession. New York, N.Y: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008. Buffon, Alain. Monnaie et crédit en économie coloniale: contribution à l’histoire économique de la Guadeloupe, 1635-1919. Basse-Terre: Société d’histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1979.

321

Burnard, Trevor G., and John Garrigus. The Plantation Machine : Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Burns, Kathryn. Colonial Habits : Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru. Durham N.C. : Duke University Press, 1999. Butel, Paul. Les négociants bordelais, l’Europe et les Iles au XVIIIe siècle. Collection historique. Paris: Aubier, 1974. Campeau, Lucien. “Le commerce des clercs en Nouvelle-France.” Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa. 47, no. 1–2 (April 1977): 27–35. Carrière, Charles. Négociants marseillais au XVIIIe siècle; contribution à l’étude des économies maritimes. Marseille: Institut historique de Provence, 1973. Carter, Alice Clare. The Dutch Republic in Europe in the Seven Years War. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1971. Casanova, Jose, and Thomas F. Banchoff, eds. The Jesuits and Globalization: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016. Chapman, Sara E. Private Ambition and Political Alliances : The Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain Family and Louis XIV’s Government, 1650-1715. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004. Chaunu, Huguette, and Pierre Chaunu. Séville et l’Atlantique, (1504-1650). École pratique des hautes études. 6. section. / Centre derecherches historiques. Ports, routes, trafics 6. Paris: A. Colin, 1955. Cheney, Paul Burton. “A Colonial Cul de Sac: Plantation Life in Wartime Saint-Domingue, 1775-1782.” Radical History Review, no. 115 (Winter 2013): 45–64. ———. Cul de Sac : Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Clancy, Thomas H. An Introduction to Jesuit Life: The Constitutions and History through 435 Years. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976. Clark, Emily. Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834. Williamsburg, Va.; Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture ; University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Clarke, Arthur C. “The Star.” In The Nine Billion Names of God: The Best Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, 235–40. New York: Signet/NAL, 1974. Clossey, Luke. Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Cronk, Nicholas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Cross, Harry E. “South American Bullion Production and Export 1550-1750.” In Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, edited by J.F. Richards, 397– 424. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1983. Crowston, Clare Haru. Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Cushner, Nicholas P. Farm and Factory: The Jesuits and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism in Colonial Quito, 1600-1767. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982. ———. Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina, 1650-1767. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

322

———. Landed Estates in the Colonial Philippines. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1976. ———. Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600-1767. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980. ———. “Merchants and Missionaries: A Theologians’s View of Clerical Involvement in the Galleon Trade.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 47, no. 3 (August 1967): 360– 69. Dalton, Roy Clinton. The Jesuits’ Estates Question, 1760-1888; a Study of the Background for the Agitation of 1889. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968. Darnton, Robert. The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982. Daudin, Guillaume. Commerce et Prospérité : La France Au XVIIIe Siècle. Paris : Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005. Dawdy, Shannon Lee. Building the Devil’s Empire French Colonial New Orleans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Day, John. Money and Finance in the Age of Merchant Capitalism. Oxford ; Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Décote, Georges. L’itinéraire de Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792. Geneva: Droz, 1984. Decroix, Arnaud. Question Fiscale et Réforme Financière En France, 1749-1789 : Logique de La Transparence et Recherche de La Confiance Publique. Aix-en-Provence : Presses universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2006. Dépatie, Sylvie, Mario Lalancette, and Christian Dessureault. Contributions à l’étude Du Régime Seigneurial Canadien. LaSalle, Québec : Hurtubise HMH, 1987. Deslandres, Dominique. Croire et faire croire: les missions françaises au XVIIe siècle, 1600- 1650. Paris: Fayard, 2003. Dewar, Helen. “‘Y Establir Nostre Auctorite’: Assertions of Imperial Sovereignty through Proprietorships and Chartered Companies in New France, 1598-1663.” University of Toronto, 2012. Dubé, Alexandre. “Les Biens Publics. Culture Politique de La Louisiane Française 1730 - 1770.” McGill University, 2010. Dull, Jonathan R. The French Navy and the Seven Years’ War. Lincoln [Neb.]: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Engel, Katherine Carté. Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press ;, 2011. Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. Fontaine, Laurence. L’économie morale : pauvreté, crédit et confiance dans l’Europe préindustrielle. Paris: Gallimard, 2008. Forestier, Albane. “Commercial Organization in the Late Eighteenth Century Atlantic World: A Comparative Analysis of the British and French West Indian Trades.” The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2009. Friedrich, Markus. “Government and Information-Management in Early Modern Europe. The Case of the Society of Jesus (1540-1773).” Journal of Early Modern History 12 (2008): 539–63. Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives : Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Games, Alison. “Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities.” The American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (June 1, 2006): 741–57.

323

Garraway, Doris Lorraine. The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. Gervais, Pierre. “Mercantile Credit and Trading Rings in the Eighteenth Century.” Annales HSS 67, no. 4 (December 2012): 693–730. ———. “Neither Imperial, nor Atlantic: A Merchant Perspective on International Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” History of European Ideas 34, no. 4 (2008): 465–73. Ghachem, Malick W. “Prosecuting Torture: The Strategic Ethics of Slavery in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Dominigue (Haiti).” Law and History Review 29, no. 4 (November 2011): 985– 1029. Glasson, Travis. Mastering Christianity : Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World. New York : Oxford University Press, 2012. Greenow, Linda L. Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico: Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720-1820. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983. Greer, Allan. Mohawk Saint Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ———. Property and Dispossession: Natives, Empires and Land in Early Modern North America. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Grenier, Benoît. Brève Histoire Du Régime Seigneurial. Montréal: Boréal, 2012. Hancock, David. Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Harms, Robert W. The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Hauser, Henri. “Le ‘Parfait négociant’ de Jacques Savary.” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale, 1925, 1–28. Havard, Gilles, and Cécile Vidal. Histoire de l’Amérique française. Paris: Flammarion, 2005. Hodson, Christopher. The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hoffman, Philip T, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal. Priceless Markets: The Political Economy of Credit in Paris, 1660-1870. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Hoffman, Ronald, Sally D. Mason, and Darcy, eds. Dear Papa, Dear Charley : The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with Sundry Observations on Bastardy, Child-Rearing, Romance, Matrimony, Commerce, Tobacco, Slavery, and the Politics of Revolutionary America. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Chapel Hill : Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, and the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis; University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Holt, Geoffrey. The English Jesuits in the Age of Reason. Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns & Oats, 1993. ———. “The Fatal Mortgage. The English Province and Père La Valette.” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 38 (January 1, 1969): 464–78. Huel, Raymond Joseph Armand. Archbishop A.-A. Taché of St. Boniface: The “Good Fight” and the Illusive Vision. Edmonton, Alta., Canada: University of Alberta Press, 2003.

324

Jesuits. Ratio studiorum: plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus. Edited by Adrien Demoustier, Dominique Julia, and Marie-Madeleine Compère. Translated by Léone Albrieux and Dolorès Pralon-Julia. Paris: Belin, 1997. Jesuits, Ignatius, and George E Ganss. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970. Kessler, Amalia D. A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007. Kettering, Sharon. Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Konrad, Herman W. A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial Mexico: Santa Lucía, 1576-1767. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1980. Kwass, Michael. Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2014. ———. Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberté, Égalité, Fiscalité. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Lanctot, Gustav. A History of Canada: From the Treaty of Utrect to the Treaty of Paris, 1713- 1763. Vol. 3. Cambridge, Mass, 1965. Lavoie, Michel. C’est Ma Seigneurie Que Je Réclame : La Lutte Des Hurons de Lorette Pour La Seigneurie de Sillery, 1650-1900. Montréal : Boréal, 2010. Le Roux, Yannick, Réginald Auger, and Nathalie Cazelles. Loyola: les jésuites et l’esclavage : l’habitation des jésuites de Rémire en Guyane française. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2009. Lenik, Stephan. “Frontier Landscapes, Missions, and Power: A French Jesuit Plantation and Church at Grand Bay, Dominica (1747-1763).” Syracuse University, 2010. ———. “Mission Plantations, Space, and Social Control: Jesuits as Planters in French Caribbean Colonies and Frontiers.” Journal of Social Archaeology 12, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 51– 71. Maire, Catherine-Laurence. De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation : le jansénisme au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 1998. Mandelblatt, Bertie. “A Transatlantic Commodity: Irish Salt Beef in the French Atlantic World.” History Workshop Journal 63, no. 1 (March 1, 2007): 18–47. Marion, Gérard. L’administration des finances en Martinique, 1679-1790. Paris: Harmattan, 2000. Martinez-Serna, J. Gabriel. “Procurators and the Making of the Jeuits’ Atlantic Network.” In Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, 1500-1830, by Bernard Bailyn and Patricia L Denault, 181–209. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009. Marzgalli, Silvia. “Sur Les Origines de l’Alantique History: Paradigme Interprétif de l’Histoire Des Espace Atlantiques de l’Époque Moderne.” Dix-Huitieme Siecle 33 (2001): 17–31. Maupassant, Jean de. Un grand armateur de Bordeaux: Abraham Gradis (1699?-1780). Bordeaux: Feret, 1917. May, Louis Philippe. Histoire économique de la Martinique (1635-1763). Paris: M. Rivière, 1930. ———. Le Mercier de La Rivière (1719-1801) Aux Origines de La Science Économique. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975.

325

Maza, Sarah C. Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France. Studies on the History of Society and Culture 18. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. McCusker, John J. Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., by the University of North Carolina Press, 1978. Menkis, Richard. “Patriarchs and Patricians: The Gradis Family of Eighteenth-Century Bordeaux.” In From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750-1870, by Frances Malino and David Jan Sorkin, 11–45. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA: B. Blackwell, 1991. ———. “The Gradis Family of Eighteenth-Century Boreaux: A Social and Economic Study.” Brandeis University, 1988. Meyer, Jean. “La famille Grou.” Bulletin de la Societe archeologique et historique de Nantes de de Loire-Atlantique 99 and 100 (and 1961 1960): 117 and 58–65. ———. L’armement nantais dans la deuxième moiti ́du XVIIIe siècle. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1969. Miquelon, Dale. Dugard of Rouen: French Trade to Canada and the West Indies, 1729-1770. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1978. Murphy, Thomas. Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838. Studies in African American History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2001. Nelson, Eric. The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590-1615). Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. O’Keefe, Martin D., John L. McCarthy, John W. Padberg, and Jesuits Congregatio Generalis. For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty Jesuit General Congregations. 1st edition. St. Louis, Mo: Inst of Jesuit Sources, 1994. O’Malley, John W. The First Jesuits. Cambridge ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993. O’Malley, John W. The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773. University of Toronto Press, 1999. O’Malley, John W. The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773. University of Toronto Press, 2006. Pares, Richard. Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763,. Oxford,: The Clarendon press, 1938. ———. War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739-1763. London: F. Cass, 1963. Parsons, Christopher M. “The Natural History of Colonial Science: Joseph-François Lafitau’s Discovery of Ginseng and Its Afterlives.” The William and Mary Quarterly 73, no. 1 (February 7, 2016): 37–72. Peabody, Sue. “‘A Dangerous Zeal’: Catholic Missions to Slaves in the French Antilles, 1635- 1800.” French Historical Studies 25, no. 1 (December 21, 2002): 53–90. ———. “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pineau-Defois, Laure. “Un Modèle d’expansion Économique à Nantes de 1763 à 1792: Louis Drouin, Négociant et Armateur.” Histoire, Économie et Société 23, no. 3 (2004): 367–95. Price, Jacob M. France and the Chesapeake; a History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674- 1791, and of Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973. Pritchard, James S. In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

326

———. Louis XV’s Navy, 1748-1762 a Study of Organization and Administration. Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987. Rea, William Francis. The Economics of the Zambezi Missions 1580-1759. Roma: Inst. Historicum S.I, 1976. Rennard, J. Histoire religieuse des Antilles françaises des origines à 1914, da̕près des documents inédits. Paris: Société de lh́istoire des colonies françaises, 1954. Richard, Guy. Noblesse d’affaires au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: A. Colin, 1974. Riley, James C. The Seven Years War and the Old Regime in France: The Economic and Financial Toll. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Rochemonteix, Camille. Le père Antoine Lavalette à la Martinique: d’après beaucoup de documents inédits. Paris: A. Picard, 1907. Rodríguez-Camilloni, Humberto. “The Rural Churches of the Jesuit Haciendas on the Southern Peruvian Coast.” In The Jesuits II, edited by John W O’Malley, Gauvin A. Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and Frank T. Kennedy, II:241–61. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Romano, Antonella. “Teaching Mathematics in Jesuit Schools: Programs, Course Content, and Classroom Practices.” In The Jesuits II: Cultures Sciences, and the Arts 1540-1773., edited by John W O’Malley, Gauvin A. Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and Frank T. Kennedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Rothschild, Emma. “Isolation and Economic Life in Eighteenth-Century France: Isolation and Economic Life in Eighteenth-Century France.” The American Historical Review 119, no. 4 (October 1, 2014): 1055–82. Rowlands, Guy. Dangerous and Dishonest Men : The International Bankers of Louis XIV’s France. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. ———. The Financial Decline of a Great Power War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIV’s France. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012. Ruiu, Adina. “Conflicting Visions of the Jesuit Missions to the Ottoman Empire, 1609–1628.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 1, no. 2 (March 12, 2014): 260–80. Rushforth, Brett. Bonds of Alliance : Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France. Chapel Hill; Williamsburg, Va.: University of North Carolina Press ; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2012. Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. 1st ed. New York: Villard Books, 1996. Russell, Mary Doria, and Mary Doria Russell. Children of God: A Novel. 1st ed. New York: Villard, 1998. Schumann, Matt, and Karl W. Schweizer. The Seven Years War: A Transatlantic History. War, History and Politics Series. London ; New York: Routledge, 2008. Sgard, Jérôme. “Bankruptcy, Fresh Start and Debt Renegotiation in England and France (17th to 18th Century).” In The History of Bankruptcy: Economic, Social and Cultural Implications in Early Modern Europe, edited by Thomas Max Safley. New York: Routledge, 2013. Shaw, E. P. Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1942. ———. “New Facts Relating to the Biography of Jacques Cazotte.” Modern Language Notes 54, no. 1 (1939): 19–28. Smelser, Marshall. The Campaign for the Sugar Islands, 1759; a Study of Ambitious Warfare. Foreword by Samuel Eliot Morison. Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Va. by the University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Smith, S.D. “Gedney Clarke of Salem and Barbados: Transatlantic Super-Merchant.” The New England Quarterly 76, no. 4 (December 2003): 499–549.

327

Smoak, Katherine. “The Weight of Necessity: Counterfeit Coins in the British Atlantic World, circa 1760–1800.” The William and Mary Quarterly 74, no. 3 (2017): 467–502. Soniat, Charles T. “The Title to the Jesuits’ Plantation.” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 5 (1911): 5–31. Spang, Rebecca L. Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. Starkey, David J. British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990. Stern, Philip J. The Company-State : Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. New York : Oxford University Press, 2011. Sweet, David G. “Black Robes and ‘Black Destiny’: Jesuit Views of African Slavery in 17th- Century Latin America.” Revista de Historia de América, no. 86 (1978): 87–133. Sweet, James H. Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Tardo-Dino, Frantz. Le collier de servitude: la condition sanitaire des esclaves aux Antilles françaises du XVIIe au XIXe siècle. Paris: Editions caribéennes : Agence de coopération culturelle et technique, 1985. Tarrade, Jean. Le Commerce Colonial de La France à La Fin de l’Ancien Régime : L’évolution Du Régime de l’Exclusif de 1763 à 1789. Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 1972. Thompson, D. G. “The Fate of the French Jesuits’ Creditors under the Ancien Régime.” The English Historical Review 91, no. 359 (1976): 255–77. Thompson, D. G. “The Lavalette Affair and the Jesuit Superiors.” French History 10, no. 2 (June 1, 1996): 206–39. Thomson, Erik. “France’s Grotian Moment? Hugo Grotius and Cardinal Richelieu’s Commercial Statecraft.” French History 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2007): 377–94. Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity of Strangers the Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross- Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Trivellato, Francesca, Leor Halevi, Cátia Antunes, and Silvia Marzgalli. Religion and Trade: Cross-Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000-1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Truxes, Thomas M. Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Truxes, Thomas M. “The Breakdown of Borders: Commerce Raiding during the Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.” In Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009, edited by Bruce A Elleman and Paine, S. C. M. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2013. Van Kley, Dale K. The Damiens Affair and the Unraveling of the Ancien Régime, 1750-1770. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. ———. The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757-1765. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975. ———. The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Verge-Franceschi, Michel. Les Officiers Généraux de La Marine Royale, 1715-1774: Origines, Conditions, Services. Vol. 4: Normands, Poitevins. Vol. 4. Paris: Librerie de l’Inde, 1990. Vidal, Cécile. “The Reluctance of French Historians to Address Atlantic History.” Southern Quarterly 43, no. 4 (2006): 153–89. Vilar, Pierre. A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. London: NLB ; Atlantic Highlands, 1976.

328

Villiers du Terrage, Marc de. Les dernières années de la Louisiane française: le chevalier de Kerlérec d’Abbadie - Aubry Laussant. Paris: Guilmotot, 1904. Voltaire. Candide or, Optimism: The Robert M. Adams Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism. Edited by Robert M. Adams and Nicholas Cronk. Third edition. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016. Weaver, Karol K. Medical Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. White, Sophie. Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Zahorowski, Jerome. The Secret Instructions of the Jesuits in Latin and English. Translated by Thomas Edward Leyden and W. C. Brownlee. Boston, Mass.: T.E. Leyden, 1888. Zanco, Jean-Philippe. Dictionnaire des ministres de la marine (1689-1958). Paris: Harmattan, 2011. Zay, E. Histoire monétaire des colonies françaises d’après les documents officiels. Paris: Typ. de J. Montorier, 1892.

329