Barthélemy de Laffemas

Barthélemy de Laffemas (1545–1612)

Bartholomew Laffemas was an economist, born in Beausemblant, France in 1545. He is officially record as dying in Paris in 1612. However, it is rumoured that he actually died on September 23, 1611, after falling from his horse.[1] He is known as the first person to write about underconsumption

Biography

Beginnings

His father was Isaac Laffemas (1583 - 1657). Coming from the gentry Protestant, poor, he worked and became a tailor. He left the Dauphiné and went to Navarre. There he met Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France.[2]

Then, in 1576, he became a "silver merchant" for the king. In 1579, the king owes his supplier 483 491 pounds. He had to borrow the money for his business, paid in annuities. In a memoir, Laffemas wrote that he lifted "..the silverware shop of the king, and borrowed over two hundred thousand crowns ...". These annuities are not as good and he was pursued by the creditors, and imprisoned for debt. When Henry of Navarre became King of France he was freed.

General of Trade

In 1596, in his "memory to draw Manufactures and works of the kingdom", it proposes to extend the guilds and develop the chambers of trade. He also advises to reduce imports and develop royal factories, supported by the state. Henry partly supports this program.

In 1598 Laffemas continued writing his ideas on trade and manufacture. Writing his ideas may have been required to receive support from Henry IV. They acted as a balance to those of Sully, more interested in agriculture. In the same year Laffemas published Les Trésors et richesses pour mettre l'Estat en splendeur, which blasted those who frowned on French silks because the industry created employment for the poor. This is the first known mention of Underconsumption Theory, which is later refined by John Maynard Keynes.

New letters

New letters patent of July 20, 1602 ordered the Commission to assemble regularly to attend to the execution of previous orders required by the body and communities of merchants.

He received the king, 15 November 1602. He advocated the mercantilism and encouraged the development of trade and manufacturing, differing in this from the Minister Sully, which emphasized the agriculture. He had a great influence in the areas of labor, economic and social organization and a leading role in the history of silk in Europe.

The committee concludes its meetings on October 22, 1604.

The political economy project of Henry IV of France based on the spread of plantations and silk industry followed Laffemas's advice. He was helped by the Protestant agronomist Olivier de Serres, a Protestant figure and author of a famous thesis on "The collection of Silk". He also got help from François Traucat, a native gardener of Nîmes. Traucat was the originator of the intensive mulberry plantations in the South of France, he planted four million in mulberry bushes in Provence and Languedoc.[3]

In 1602, a Royal Decision requires every parish in the country to own a mulberry bush nursery and silk. In Paris, the Gobelins manufactory is created and the Bois de Boulogne a silkworm is built surrounded by 15,000 mulberry trees.

This is also the time when the first river navigation channel is dug, the Briare Canal, while the Dutch capital is put to use to dry part of the Marais Poitevin, using as at the Flemish engineers refugee brand new Netherlands, first Protestant republic in Europe.

For domestic trade, Bartholomew Laffemas emphasizes the rehabilitation and development of roads and bridges, waterways, creating service letter post. For foreign trade, source of wealth, it grows to transit trade and warehousing, trade with the Levant, the colonial trade with the creation of large French East India Company and Western.

With the end of the Royal Commission in 1604, implementation of manufacturing projects will also stop at the image of that which was to be built north of the Place Royale, in Paris. In 1608, Bartholomew Laffemas complains in a treaty that his advice was ignored. The development of silk manufactures stopped and France resumed imports.

Nobility

In the marriage contract of his son, passed November 10, 1608, BARTHELMY is called noble. It is not known how Bartholomew became noble because it is unclear whether his father, Isaac, was. The ennoblement Bartholomew had to be acquired in return for his services.

Publications

Laffemas had a large number of publications about his ideas on trade and enriching the kingdom.

French publications

Published after death

Updated publications

References

  1. ↑ Viénot, John. History of the Reformation. p. 107.
  2. ↑ Gallica: John Viénot, History of the French Reformation. Of the Edict of Nantes his Revocation, p103-108, Librairie Fischbacher, Paris, 1934
  3. ↑ "/ark: / 12148 / bpt6k5728043g / F144 Gallica: John Viénot, History of the French Reformation. Of the Edict of Nantes his Revocation, Bookstore Fischbacher, Paris, 1934". p. 108.

External links

French

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