| This project studies the social and cultural impact of the failure of the first-ever Bank of France in 1720. This dissertation places cultural products, such as plays and satirical engravings, alongside the private credit market in order to understand how the failure of John Law's economic reforms affected social relationships. The crisis of 1720 brought new groups into the private credit market which transformed time-honored social roles. The nobility had always dominated the credit market, a situation that was perfectly aligned with their social status. The entry of new groups into the credit markets posed problems for a traditional society that valued stability of orders based on corresponding levels of wealth. After 1720, there was a need to reconfigure the relationship between wealth and the established social order. The theatre was a privileged space for understanding how participants made sense of a rapidly changing economic world which threatened the delicate balance between different social groups. This dissertation looks at theatrical comedies and engravings that deal with money and finance produced between 1660 and 1732. The social and cultural conflicts posed by changing economic conditions could not be resolved by politics or religion. Instead, the gradual acceptance of the new social groups into arenas traditionally dominated by the nobility was resolved through cultural representations that demonstrated how society could successfully incorporate the newly wealthy into the existing social order. |
