The French Monarchy and the Foreign Exchange System in the Era of Louis XIV

If the financial and administrative arrangements inside the treasury of the Extraordinaire des Guerres and surrounding the other fisco-financiers were fairly secretive, they were at least under some degree of ministerial supervision and scrutiny. Accounts, though sometimes presented years after the duty-year, were scrutinised in an effort to suppress excessive profiteering, while intendants and generals directed and maintained a watching brief over the fisco-financiers and their agents. Moreover, the first rank of fisco-financiers needed the continued support and patronage of the contrôleur général des finances, in spite of enjoying a degree of autonomy in the management of their ongoing operations. Their operations may not have been wonderfully clear to accounting experts, and they may have been able to manipulate financial instruments in their own favour, but it was far easier to keep these men in check than it was to control the international bankers upon whom the French monarchy came to depend for fuelling its continent-wide war effort during the Spanish Succession conflict. To appreciate why this was so first requires an understanding of the fundamentals and framework of the foreign exchange system in the era of Louis XIV.