The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
Jacques I Dalibert:
his children, his career
After their wedding in November 1629, the Daliberts set up housekeeping in the house on the rue des Vieux-Augustins that Jean Charpentier and Etiennette Marests had ostensibly taken back from them in 1631, the better to speculate in the real-estate market.(1)
The Charpentiers, and their son Gratien, moved to a nearby house on the rue neuve de Montmartre. There Etiennette Marests died, circa 1642,(2) an event that doubtlessly explains why Jean Charpentier withdrew to Cormeilles-en-Parisis and left his sons to settle their mother's estate.(3)
In 1637 and again in 1639, Jacques Dalibert gave his address as the rue des Vieux-Augustins: "Jacques Dallibert, conseiller et secrétaire du Roi, maison et couronne de France et des finances,(4) demeurant rue des Vieux-Augustins, paroisse Saint-Eustache."(5) With 1645 came an important change: Dalibert was now a householder of Louis XIV's uncle, Gaston de France, Duke of Orléans. To be specific, he was conseiller du Roi en ses conseils, secrétaire de sa Majesté et de ses finances, et controlleur général des finances de Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans. For the moment at least, he and his family remained in their house on the rue des Vieux-Augustins.(6) As head comptroller for Gaston's finances, Dalibert received a stipend of 2400 livres and was an official member of the Duke's "council."(7)
When the Daliberts' oldest daughter married in October 1647, Jacques gave the notary a slightly different description of his duties: "Messire Jacques Dalibert, ... conseiller du Roi ordinaire en son conseil et direction de ses finances,(8) surintendant des maisons et finances de Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans, oncle du Roy."(9) In other words, in the space of two years, he had been promoted from Gaston's head accountant and paymaster, to superintendent of the Duke's households, castles, and finances. By 1651 Dalibert stated that he lived at the Palais d'Orléans (the Luxembourg); and he was in fact involved in the life of the neighborhood, serving as a marguillier at the church of that parish, Saint-Sulpice. By 1652 Dalibert's hand was beginning to tremble,(10) but he continued working for his master. He also kept tight rein over his own family's finances.(11) One of the latest acts I found bearing his signature is dated October 1662: Gaston had died in 1660, but Dalibert was still living at the Palace and was overseeing the very complicated task of settling of the Duke's estate.
The Daliberts produced nine surviving children. The two oldest were Marie and a son christened Jacques. The order of their birth is unclear, They clearly were born in 1631-1632, although it is not clear which was the firstborn.
Marie Dalibert was therefore approximately sixteen when she married Jean Le Boulanger in 1647 and received a dowry of 150,000 livres.(12) Le Boulanger was the son of a councillor in the Parlement of Paris, as were his brother, his brother-in-law, and most of the uncles, cousins, and friends who signed the wedding contract. Marie's brother Jacques signed the contract too. (The signature on the contract suggests that this was the same Jacques Charpentier, "clerc du diocèse de Paris," who in 1652 would inscribe a more mature version of this signature on an act granting him a prebend as canon at Notre-Dame.(13)
(See signatures of "Jacques Dalibert")
Next came two daughters: Anne, probably born in 1633, and Françoise, roughly two years her junior. In their late teens they would become Ursuline nuns.(14) A second son was born a few years later, probably in 1638. He too was named Jacques, his parents having apparently decided to "give" the older Jacques to the Church.(15) In the 1660s this younger Jacques — whom I call "Jacques II Dalibert" — would settle permanently in Rome. Another son, Claude, was born either a year or so before Jacques or a year after him. Claude too was "given" to the Church. He must therefore have been barely twenty when he was named almoner to Gaston d'Orléans. Three more children were born during the 1640s: Jean, Etiennette, and Elisabeth. They perhaps suffered most from their father's financial ruin in the early 1660s, for they were forced to move in with their uncle and their brother Claude. For lack of a dowry, the two women remained spinsters.
As Jacques Dalibert rose socially, his close relatives rose also. His brother-in-law, Gratien Charpentier de Mareuil, became a gentilhomme ordinaire to Gaston d'Orléans, and Jacques' own son, Claude Dalibert, became an almoner to Gaston.(16) But perhaps the most financially fortunate among these relatives was "noble" Pierre Dalibert, who became "secrétaire des finances [du] seigneur duc d'Orléans." At any rate, Pierre seems to have been the "nephew" who was remunerated in 1658 for his work as Gaston's "secrétaire des finances."(17) In 1658 Jacques I sold the office of second president in an élection in the généralité of Montauban in Languedoc to Pierre.(18) Pierre who had wed Jeanne Vatel next acquired the office of conseiller du roi and procureur in the bureau of finances of Toulouse, and he eventually became a trésorier de France in the généralité of Toulouse.(19)
To focus on Pierre Dalibert would take us far astray, but he merits a few remarks because he was so close to Jacques Dalibert. Pierre was one of the "Cartesians" around René Descartes. Descartes gave Pierre his portrait. In 1667 Pierre, described as a "financier," saw to it that "the bones of Monsieur Descartes were brought from Sweden, and he had a tomb built for him in Paris in the church of Sainte-Geneviève." The splendid ceremony was followed by an equally splendid banquet: "Un banquet réunit ensuite une élite de convives, qui célébrèrent la ruine de la scolastique, et la victoire de la philosophie nouvelle: banquet presque séditieux, puisque défense avait été faite la veille, de part le roi, de prononcer en chaire un panégyrique déjà tout préparé."(20) In addition, Dalibert had "thought of founding a school of arts and crafts" for artisans who wanted an education. Described somewhat later as a "banquier," Pierre Dalibert was the premier commis of Reich de Penautier in the 1670s. The pair lived together in the house on the rue des Vieux-Augustins. In 1676, during the Poison Affair, Pennautier was accused of having poisoned Pierre Dalibert.(21)
But back to Jacques I Dalibert, his family, his career.
The acts that Jacques I signed with his personal notary do not reveal
the extent to which he speculated and trafficked in the king's finances.
That is because he was concealing many of his transactions by using
straw men, prête-noms.(22) As early as
1649, during the Fronde, he had earned a place in the Catalogue des
partisans: "D'Alibert, confident de Cornuel [one of the Cornuel
brothers was an intendant des finances, the other was a
trésorier ordinaire de la guerre], rue des Vieux-Augustins, a esté
de tous les traitez qui se sont faits, par le moyen desquels il possède
de grands biens, tant en maisons dans Paris qu'en rentes constituées."(23)
In January 1649 his name appears on the list of individuals being taxed
to pay for arming Paris. The initial tax of 3,500 livres was
subsequently reduced to 1,400 livres. (The entry for this reduced tax
includes what seems to be an allusion to Dalibert's son-in-law, Jean Le
Boulanger: "Le Comte dict Boullanger.")(24)
During the 1650s Jacques I Dalibert gravitated to the circle around
Nicolas Foucquet, the royal minister who was arrested for peculation in
September 1661. Between December 1661 and March 1662, the Chambre de
Justice was issuing arrêts de prise de corps, ordering specific
traitants and gens d'affaires to appear before this
special tribunal. As early as December 1661, some of these financiers
were being confined to the Bastille; and by December 1662 both their
personal and their real property was being confiscated.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier's father, a master scribe, died on December 18, 1661. His papers were never enumerated, nor was his "dispatch cabinet" unlocked by the notary who drew up his death inventory in January 1662. Since several family "friends" were being swept up in the Foucquet Affair, it cannot be ruled out that the composer's family was keeping the papers of someone in the circle frequented by Jacques I Dalibert.
Thus it came to pass that Jacques I Dalibert was imprisoned in the
Bastille on January 30, 1662:
Ordre [au gouverneur de la Bastille]
pour l'entrée ... 30 janvier 1662
.... envoyant en mon chateau de la Bastille le Sr d'Alibert pour y estre detenu prisonnier, je vous fait cette lettre pour vous dire que vous ayez à l'y recevoir et faire loger et à l'y tenir soubz bonne garde jusques à nouvel ordre de moy, sans permettre qu'il ayt communication avec qui que ce soit de dehors de vive voix ny par escript.
Paris, 30 janvier 1662
Louis
Jacques I Dalibert was released on March 21, 1662:
Le Sr D'Alibert, Les motifs ne sont point connu:
Sorti le 21 mars 1662
Le Tellier, Ministre
Ordre pour la sortie du Sr Dallibert de 21e mars 1662 .... à mettre en pleine et entiere liberté le Sr Dalibert lequel est detenu prisonnier en mon chateau de la Bastille, le laissant pour cet effet sortir de mon chateau sans difficulté.
Louis(25)
Jacques Dalibert's name appears in the records of the Chambre de Justice: "Jacques Dalibert, Surintendant de la Maison de feu M. le duc d'Orléans." The Chamber ordered him to reimburse 498,878 livres to Louis XIV. He and his entire family were more or less ruined. In 1664, the "council" entrusted with paying Gaston d'Orléans' debts begged the King to "gratify" Jacques I and Jacques II with 10,000 livres, to reimburse their expenses:
Pour les srs Dalibert pere et fils, surintendans des finances a cause de plusieurs voyages extraordinaires faits par le pere dans les terres de l'appanage de S.A.R. pour les negotiations faites par le fils en Savoye suivant les depesches de feu S.A.R. Le Roy sera tres humblement supplié de les vouloir gratiffier de la somme de 10,000 livres. (26)
In addition to the information about the payment, this document reveals that while still an adolescent, Jacques II had been given the survivance of his father's position as superintendent of Gastons' finances. By early 1666, Jacques I Dalibert was dead.
A report about the confiscated Dalibert property, drawn up in 1666, reveals the extent of Dalibert's real-estate holdings. After four years, the houses were falling into disrepair. The Chambre de Justice noted that it would cost 6,633 livres to repair the roofs of several "maisons et héritages saisies" that belonged to "le deffunct Maistre Jacques d'Alibert, surintendant des finances du feu Monsieur le Duc d'Orléans." (Among these properties were the house on the rue de Montmartre where Jean Charpentier and his wife had lived, and the house on the rue des Vieux-Augustins, as well as houses at Clignancourt and Montmartre.)(27)
In 1668, Dalibert's heirs — and some of their late father's creditors — were struggling to preserve a few remnants of their late father's wealth,(28) weighing a long list of debts against the assets that remained after paying the fine. (Jacques II's share of the estate had, we shall see, been passed surreptitiously to him in 1662.) Marie Dalibert was now living in the cloister of Notre-Dame, with her sisters Elisabeth and Etiennette, her uncle Gratien, and her brother Claude the latter two men canons at the cathedral. Her brother Jean lived there as well.(29) Although the heirs had officially "renounced" their inheritance, in 1678 they were still struggling. At that time Jacques II, "Comte de Canary et d'Ogliastro, gentilhomme de la chambre et secrétaire des ambassades du Roy [sic] de Suède," sent his siblings a procuration from Rome. Marie Dalibert died soon afterwards.(30)
Footnotes
1. AN, MC, II, 137, Aug. 22, 1631,
cession.
2. AN, MC, XVIII, 267, Sept 1, 1642, titre nouvel; XX, 253,
Nov. 26, 1644, ratification.
3. AN, MC, XX, 256, May 6, 1646,
partage. I did not examine the parish and notarial records for
Cormeilles, which might reveal whether Cormeilles was the "cradle" of
these particular Charpentiers, or whether Jean and his wife had simply
purchased a summer house there.
4. For the secrétaires, see Bernard
Barbiche, Les institutions de la monarchie française à l'époque
moderne (Paris, 1999), pp. 163-64, 173-75.
5. AN, Y 178, fol.
325v; AN, MC, XX, 232, Sept. 10, 1639, vente.
6. AN, MC, XX, 257,
Nov. 24, 1645.
7. Arsenal, ms. 6533, fols 110-11.
8. For the
direction des finances, see Barbiche, pp. 257 and 263: " ... choisis
parmi les conseillers d'Etat, .... Ces directeurs ... constituaient un
échelon intermédiaire entre le surintendant et les intendants ..." The
directeurs des finances were entitled to report to the royal council of
finances, in the place of the comptroller general. For the
conseillers du roi, pp. 108, 282
9. AN, MC, XX, 265, Oct. 1,
1647.
10. Arsenal, ms. 6637, fol. 325.
11. From the 1630s on,
Jacques I Dalibert used notary XX; but his name disappears from that
notary's records in 1663, more or less at the time his property was
confiscated in the context of the Fouquet Affair. I wish to thank
Françoise Bayard for reassuring me that she did not find Dalibert
elsewhere in the Minutier, post-1663.
12. AN, MC, XX, 265, Oct. 1,
1647, marriage.
13. AN, MC, XX, 278, Sept. 29, 1652. concordat with
Eustache Le Clerc de Lesseville, the brother of the Charles Le Clerc de
Lesseville who had signed Marie Dalibert's wedding contract in 1647.
14. Anne: AN, MC, XX, 278, August 1652; and Françoise: XX, 281, Jan.
1654.
15. Montpensier recalled that Jacques II Dalibert had
completed his studies in a collège in 1656, and was "seventeen years
old," Mémoires, ed. A. Chéruel (Paris, 1859), III, pp. 84-85. Actually,
this assertion is part of her recollections for 1657, but she was
careful to note that Jacques had finished his schooling "somewhat
earlier" than 1657.
16. AD, Seine-et-Oise, Parish registers for
Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Sept. 30, 1648; BnF, Rés, Thoisy, 124, fol. 226,
p. 2.
17. Arsenal, ms. 6533, fol. 449v. "Au Sr Dalibert neveu, gages
de secrétaire des finances." Pierre was the son of a receveur des
tailles de Lavaur: see Daniel Dessert, Argent, pouvoir et société au
Grand Siècle (Paris, 1984, pp. 566-67.
18. AN, MC, XX, 289,
Feb. 12, 1658, vente d'office.
19. AN, MC, XLIII, 235, June 21,
1698, sentence arbitrale; AN, Y 255, fol. 400v.
20. Descartes, Vie
et oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Ch. Adam (Paris, 1897-1910), XII, pp. xvi,
470, 554. For the guests, see pp. 598, 604. Whether Jacques II
Dalibert's position in the household of Queen Christina of Sweden played
a role in the return of Descartes' ashes has not been determined.
21. See Archives de la Bastille, ed. François Ravaisson-Mollier
(Paris, 1866-1904, IV, pp. 293-97. See also the "compromise" signed by
Pennautier's heirs and Pierre Dalibert's son, AN, MC, XLIII, 235, June
21, 1698, sentence arbitrale. For Pierre Dalibert's financial dealings,
see Julien Dent, "Role of Clientels under Mazarin, in J.F. Boscher, ed.,
French Government and Society, pp. 55 ff. See also Adrien Baillet,
Vie de Monsieur Descartes (Paris, 1946), p. 270, an narrative dated
1691. The fact that Pierre lived in the old Dalibert house suggests that
by the 1670s one or more Daliberts were able to regain possession of the
building. His associate, Pierre-Louis Reich de Pennautier, was also a
Languedocian, see Dessert, p. 679.
22. BnF, ms. 500 Colberts, 243,
fols 212-13.
23. Choix de Mazarinades, ed. C. Moreau (Paris, 1853),
pp. 113-14.
24. Dubuisson-Aubenay, Journal des guerres civiles,
ed. G. Saige (Paris, 1883), II, pp. 316, 327.
25. Arsenal, Bastille,
10:332, dossier "D'Alibert." Archives de la Bastille, I, p. 227, states
that the ordre d'entrée was dated Jan. 30 1660: the actual document
unambiguously reads "1662." So much for the misconception that the
prisonner was Jacques II Dalibert (the error made its way into the
Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, "D'Alibert"). Indeed,
Ravaisson-Mollier did not realize that there were two Daliberts: he
therefore juxtaposed the two orders to the Governor, the statement from
the Catalogue des Partisans, and a letter to Le Tellier from the Bishop
d'Ambrun about Jacques II. Ironically enough, Michel Le Tellier appears
to have been a relative of Jacques I Dalibert, Bildt, p. 122, n. 1.
26. BnF, ms. 500 Colbert, 234, fols. 212-213. Dalibert is not on the
list compiled by Daniel Dessert, "La Chambre de Justice de 1661,"
Annales, E.S.C., 29 (1974), Annexe 1; and for the "gratification,"
Arsenal, ms. 4212, fol. 85, Etat dated 1664.
27. AN, Z1 294, fol. 1,
dated March and early April 1666.
28. AN, MC, LXXXV, 194, August 8,
1668, partage; and BnF, Rés. Thoisy, 124, fol. 226, Sentence des
requêtes du Palais, June 3, 1669, re estate of Jacques Dalibert.
29.
AN, MC, LXXXIV, 182, Oct. 25, 1672; Y 210, fol. 220v, Sept. 18, 1666.
30. AN, MC, LXXXV, 200, August 19 and Sept. 2, 1671; and 213, March
2, 1678, declaration apportée; LXXXV, 214, Sept. 30, 1678, an allusion
to Marie's death. An act dated Jan. 31, 1701, AN, MC, CXII, 245, lists
some of the acts passed after 1676.