Paul Poisson de Bourvallais

Paul Poisson de Bourvallais (* in Laval ; † 1718 in Paris ) was a French financier who played an important role at the end of the reign of Louis XIV .

Live and act

As the son of a notary from Laval, he initially provided lackeys and then became the protégé of Louis Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1643–1727), the then President of the Breton Parliament, who introduced him to the Parisian financial world.

In 1677 Paul Poisson de Bourvallais took over the position of President of the Breton Parliament, in 1689 was given a leading position in the tax office, Contrôleur général des Finances , was appointed "Secretary of the King" in 1695 and received further offices in the following years through the mediation of Louis XIV. He was also the main tenant, fermiers généraux .

He built the Hôtel de Bourvallais named after him on Place Vendôme in Paris, which is now the French Ministry of Justice.

In 1703 he bought the Champs-sur-Marne castle and finished the construction there. These had been started under the previous owner Charles Renouard de La Touanne († 1704), who had commissioned the architect Pierre Bullet and his son Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chamblain with the construction in 1699, but then declared bankruptcy, whereupon the construction was stopped had to.

Poisson de Bourvallais' display of wealth, his numerous possessions in Paris and in the country, and the dozen or so lucrative royal offices aroused public envy. He was accused of embezzlement and sentenced to a heavy fine in a trial led by Duke Adrien-Maurice de Noailles in 1716. He had to sell the Champs-sur-Marne castle, retired to his residence on the Place des Victoires in Paris and died there in 1718.

literature

• Daniel Dessert: Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand Siècle . Fayard, Paris 1984, p. 671, ISBN 2-213-01485-X .
• Jean-Claude Waquet: Les grands maîtres des eaux et forêts de France. De 1689 à la révolution . Droz, Geneva 1978, p. 14.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Family history in French (PDF; 2.3 MB)