Architecture and the Mississippi Bubble (1716–1720)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Armand-Claude Mollet. Floor plan and elevation of the Hôtel d’Évreaux (1718), Paris. Etching and engraving. From Jacques- François Blondel, Architecture françoise (1752 –1756). Typ 715.52.219 v.3, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Photo: Harvard University. 40 https://doi.org/10.1162/grey_a_00241 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00241 by guest on 02 October 2021 Building on Credit: Architecture and the Mississippi Bubble (1716–1720) JASON NGUYEN In June 1733, the Count of Évreaux ordered an appraisal of his Parisian mansion located along the fashionable Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré . The document tallied the current market cost of his house and possessions in order to assess the value of his estate (he owned the building until his death in 1753). 1 Designed by the architect Armand-Claude Mollet, the Hôtel d’Évreux had been built between 1718 and 1722, and was already deemed to be one of the most striking hôtels particuliers of its day. The architect located the main block of the house between an entry court - yard (for the loading and unloading of carriages) and a rear garden that backed onto the leafy terrains of the Champs-Elysées. 2 The front elevation included a central pediment with symbols of war, trophies in relief, and columns and Corinthian pilasters befitting a high nobleman. The appraisal included a description of all of these components, but also more detailed information: dimensions and descriptions for each room, the woodwork, mirrors, and textiles lining the walls. In the Grand Salon, the appraisers mentioned the oak paneling and the inset decorative trophies by the ornamental sculptor Michel Lange, who added the bundled instruments of war to assert the count’s regal status. After tallying measurements with the going rate for building supplies, the reviewers estimated the contemporary cost of the house and its furnishings at 821,887 livres. The amount was impressive in its own right, given that the average savings for a Parisian laborer was roughly 800 livres, or 1/1,000 of the assessment. 3 This sum was apparently vindicated when Louis XV later purchased it as a gift for his mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour. 4 And the history of its architectural appreciation followed the mansion long past the ancien régime . After the French Revolution, the property entered into the hands of Napoléon I, and it has served as the official residence of the French president (today, the Élysée Palace) since 1848. The home’s exuberance was justified by early modern theories of architectural Grey Room 71, Spring 2018, pp. 40–67. © 2018 Grey Room, Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 41 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00241 by guest on 02 October 2021 decorum, called co nvenance , which delineated the appropriate degree of embellish - ment based on the social status of the patron. 5 Louis Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, the Count of Évreux, was born into one of France’s most esteemed noble families and served as a lieutenant in Louis XIV’s army. In his analysis of the home, the archi - tectural theorist Jacques-François Blondel explained, “These ornaments, joined with their grandeur, make known in a noble and imposing manner the residence of a person of the highest rank.” 6 Yet, if a classical theory of architectural decorum could explain that the nobility of a client demanded a richness of architectural materials, the tie between cost and value was much harder to maintain. In the original appraisal, the reviewers attached a four-page addendum that qualified the home’s market value and summarized the recent economic volatility to which such homes—and the décor-rich interior architecture—were being subjected: In 1717, 1718, and 1719, the majority of accommodations in Paris sold for less than they do now, as it was easy to find homes to purchase on the fly . and why most of them were then sold to take stock in the banknotes that were preferred to all other equities. [T]he banknotes began in 1716, and by 1720, com - modity prices had increased dramatically because of the stock market crash. 7 The variations described in this note were all the products of an economic experi - ment that has become known as the Mississippi Bubble (1716–1720). In 1716, the controller-general of finances, John Law, introduced a banknote credit system based on expected tobacco revenue from Louisiana, allowing innumerable expenses on the private market that previously would have been unthinkable. 8 The Hôtel d’Évreux was one of many residences built in Paris by Law’s banknote scheme. In light of this, the 1733 cost estimate of this building constitutes a crucial document for tying classical theories of early modern architecture, such as co nvenance , with other aspects of the late French monarchy that historians have seen as prescient of global modernity, including speculative capitalism. This article looks at what these buildings cost and examines how their fluctuating market prices illustrate the volatility of a speculative credit economy premised on colonial resource extraction and the actions of the stock market. 9 Among the Parisian elite, this system fueled desires and anxieties regarding money and social rank that found their greatest manifestation in the construction of grand private residences. In this context, architecture and decoration were both an effect and a cause of the period’s economic instability. As the costliest of the arts, they were best suited to grant symbolic form to financial prosperity. 10 Yet, at the same time, the 42 Grey Room 71 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00241 by guest on 02 October 2021 depletion of stone, wood, and glass drained resources at home and helped generate inflation in the building market. Despite the Hôtel d’Évreux ’s impressive estimate in 1733, the reviewers surmised that the home would have cost double that amount at the height of the Mississippi Bubble, from 1719 to 1720, given the increased price of construction materials during those years. 11 The architectural history of the Mississippi Bubble is inseparable from the extraordinary circumstances of the reign of Louis XIV and the regency of Louis XV (1715–1723). When the Sun King died in September 1715, he left the kingdom in political and economic turmoil: an astounding 2.3 billion livres in debts, 77 million livres in annual deficits, and an insecure line of royal succession. 12 The king’s nephew, Philippe II, the Duke of Orléans, served as regent during the minority of Louis XV (the sole legitimate direct heir, born only in 1710), relocated the court from Versailles to Paris, and employed the Scottish economist Law to salvage the kingdom’s finances. Architects flocked to the opportunities presented by the credit market, buying land and building homes for sale or rent independent of known patrons, which generated a housing bubble of unprecedented scale. The economic experiment was a gamble, but it was wildly successful in terms of pure monetary gain from 1716 to 1720. The moment birthed the term millionaire to describe the prosperous investors who amassed fortunes seemingly overnight. 13 It was not uncommon, as the reviewers wrote, for families to sell their estates in exchange for shares in Law’s bank, placing their bets on the economic promises of France’s New World territories. Historians have long pointed to the Mississippi Bubble as one of the more significant political and economic crises to befall the kingdom before the French Revolution. 14 Less attention, however, has been paid to the specific buildings erected with Law’s banknote scheme. During this period of instability, royally and academically affiliated architects such as Mollet, Germain Boffrand, and Jacques V. Gabriel doubled as building developers and gambled as artist and client on the private residential market (catering to a noble and nonnoble clientele alike). Their exploits fostered the commercial dissemination of the rococo decorative style, called the style rocaille or the goût moderne by contemporary critics. 15 Katie Scott notes that the bubble encouraged a counterfeit culture, whereby nonnoble elites assumed the wealth and influence to purchase the luxuries of the aristocracy. 16 The following analysis diverges from the work of Scott and others by centering attention on the fluctuating value of architecture—in terms of materials (including their manufacturing and cost), representation (the integrity of architectural decorum), and money (the legal currency tendered). Nguyen | Building on Credit: Architecture and the Mississippi Bubble 43 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00241 by guest on 02 October 2021 Architecture, because of its very materiality, actualized the wealth acquired by Law’s banknote scheme by giving form to money while, at the same time, exacer - bating inflation. The speculative construction of grand residences threw early mod - ern theories of architectural decorum into conflict with a financial system driven by conjecture. On a theoretical level, the sequencing of speculative building con - struction contravened the traditional notion of co nvenance , under whose regime patronage necessarily preceded artistic creation. On an economic level, the initial success of Law’s system, as well as the profitability of the early residences built by its banknotes, implied a dramatic reorientation of financial thought, pinned to speculation on land values and the promise of natural resources abroad. Value thus became unstable, no longer based on trade in precious metals such as gold and sil - ver. 17 What made architecture so vulnerable to inflation and the eventual crash was also that which made it attractive to courtiers and financiers eager to memorialize their status and wealth—that is, the cost of materials that constituted its making.