The Melted Throne and the Wallet of War

Melted Splendor

Versailles's Grand Gallery and Hall of Mirrors were once decorated with two hundred pieces of solid silver furniture. Silver candelabra, silver tubs for orange trees. They were the work of the court goldsmith, Claude Ballin.

In 1689, however, to finance the Nine Years' War, the king sent all of this silver furniture to the mint. The throne in the Apollo Room was melted down too: a huge wooden armchair, 2.6 metres tall, covered with silver plaques and silver sculptures. Gilded chairs took its place. The king himself destroyed the splendor he had commissioned to display his authority.

But this did not cover the cost of the war. In place of the real objects that had melted away, only the preparatory drawings by Ballin remained.

Recoined Currency

Melting down the silver furniture was a one-time measure. However, recoinage—melting down and reminting the currency itself—was a constant practice throughout his reign.

The method was twofold. One was to increase the face value of coins by decree. The other was to collect old coins, remint them with slightly less metal, and deposit the profit into the state treasury. During the tenure of Controller-General Chamillart, the currency was devalued five times in six years. Apart from these changes of face value, the full recoinages that called in every old coin numbered five, from 1689 to the end of the reign.

Between 1683 and 1720, when John Law's bubble burst, the livre lost 80% of its weight in gold. Minting coins enriched the treasury, but with each strike, trust in the currency eroded.

Paper Below Par

Whenever a recoinage occurred, those who turned in their old coins at the mint did not receive new ones immediately. Instead, they were given paper receipts, *billets de monnaie*, promising a later exchange.

From 1701, these notes were printed in large quantities as a form of wartime borrowing and were also used to pay soldiers' wages and merchants. However, the recipients could not use them at face value and had no choice but to circulate them at a discount. People experienced state-issued paper losing its value more than fifteen years before John Law's bubble burst.

The Garden Tour Given by the King

War expenses that could not be covered by recoinage or melted silver were ultimately filled by private financiers. At their apex was Samuel Bernard. He is said to have lent the state some two hundred million livres during the War of the Spanish Succession.

In 1708, when war funds were exhausted, Controller-General Desmarets devised a plan. He introduced Bernard to the king during a walk at the Château de Marly. The banker responded to the extraordinary hospitality of a personal garden tour from the king himself, and Desmarets secured the necessary funds.

Ironically, Bernard was born into a Protestant family. In 1685, the king had revoked the Edict of Nantes, stripping Protestants of their rights. To escape forced conversions by dragoons, between one hundred and two hundred thousand skilled artisans and financiers had fled the country. Bernard himself had turned Catholic at that time and stayed in the country. Now, the king who had shut that faith out of his realm had his war chest in the hands of one of its former believers.

Distressed by the sight of his impoverished people, Vauban, the master of fortification, wrote a book in 1707. It proposed abolishing the jumble of taxes and imposing a single tax—a tenth of one's income—equally on all, including the nobility and clergy. But the council banned it, and the printed copies were destroyed. Vauban passed away shortly thereafter.