Stratégies du capitalisme familial lillois et autonomie financière régionale : le financement des filatures Julien Le Blan, 1858-1914

From the charters and the balance sheets of the Julien Le Blan company, operating cotton and linen spinning mills in Lille, this article analyses the financial strategies of a family-owned textile company in the region of Lille during the second half of the XIXth century, so as to find out the factors of regional financial autonomy to which textile – a thriving activity in this district – contributed greatly. The company that was chosen is an example of the growth of family capitalism through the split of a group and specialization of the family branches. Its balance sheets, expressing in the accounts the financial structure of the company, show how the management of the private funds answered to the following demands : of profitability and concealing real figures from the tax department. Resorting on a structural basis to short-term debt urges us to question the notion of the financial independence of family businesses in Lille and to redefine the function of self financing within groups' strategies.This debt, which used to rely on various solidarities, but above all family solidarities, enabled to blend efficiently the growth and the upholding of the family control over the companies. It is thus in the system of these solidarities that we must look for the regional financial autonomy.