From Normandy Then and Now:
The mysterious fortune of the Goupil brothers, in Bagnoles de l’Orne
In 1789 when the Goupil brothers from Tessé-la-Madeleine in the Orne were young men, the French revolution shattered its way across France.
Their village was small, their family modest. Everything important was happening in Paris, so they took themselves off to the city.
Jean and Louis Goupil returned in 1829, very very rich…
How to make a revolutionary fortune? First survive the revolution…
During their time away the brothers lived through remarkable times;
They witnessed the Terror (Sept ’92 to July ’94), when King Louis, priests, bishops, nobles and the more ostentatious bourgeoisie (or the more annoying) lost their heads and their land.
They survived in a country so broke by old debts and new disorder that it could not feed it’s people properly.
Saw the military hero Napoleon take control of this beleaguered nation in year 8 (according to the revolutionary calendar, 1799 by ours).
And sometime during all that witnessed a nationwide land grab as the government started selling of nationalised property once owned by the church and nobility.
The only way to buy newly nationalised land was with Assignats, created in 1789 a sort of bond sold by the government. They provided a quick income for the country (about 2 billion francs worth of land was now available) and a killing for anyone who still had cash. Printed, Assignats were easily forged in France and by the English and in just a few months widely considered unreliable. By 1796 so many had been printed legally and illegally they were worthless and the system cancelled. By this time fortunes had been made and lost in sometimes questionable transactions.
Land up for grabs
It was not just nobility and the church that had money before the revolution; there was a rich middle class who ran farms, factories and made fortunes. But because they were not nobility or part of the church, they had to pay tax. An unfair system and one of the many reasons for the revolution in the first place. When the French government sold off ‘national’ land, many better-off ‘peasants’ bought farms they had managed for distant noble masters, creating a rather pleased new landowning class....
....MUCH MORE
I should maybe do a post on the Assignats. Crazy times.
