Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard

Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard is a French financier born with the Mills from Antières with Cugand (the Vendée) the October 11th 1770 and died in London in October 1846.

Fortune at the time of the Revolution

Wire of a simple foreman, Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard accepted an elementary instruction and entered like employee a commercial firm of Nantes in 1787. He was not long in launching out in daring speculations and, as of the end of the Ancien Mode, he was associated to the ship-owners of Bordeaux Baour and Balguerie. Under the Directory, it grows rich considerably in the colonial trade and the military supplies. It then controlled three commercial firms to Brest, Nantes and Orleans, the Gamba bank, Gay and company with Antwerp and held important participations in three Parisian companies (Girardot and company, Rougemont and company, Charlemagne and company). He was also the associate of important suppliers: Vanlerberghe for corn, the Michel brothers for the military supplies, Carvillon of Tillières and Roy for steel and wood.

In September 1798, it obtained for six years the general supply of the vivres of the Navy, representing a contract of 64 million gold franc, passed in the name of his/her Blanchard brother-in-law. A few months later, it took again the contract of the Spanish fleet stationed with Brest then the supplies of the Armée with Italy in 1799. It then rented the Château of Raincy close to Paris, which it was to buy in 1806.

It was stopped in January 1800 on order of the first consul Napoleon Bonaparte, but the examination of its accounts and its contracts, prepared by its legal director Cambacérès, did not let appear any irregularity. Released Ouvrard, took part in the provisioning of the army the Marengo one and army from England stationed in Boulogne.

Financier of the Napoleonean epopee

Ouvrard was one of the founders of the Company of the Traders Brought together with the banker Medard Desprez (1764 - 1842), regent of the Banque de France. In exchange of an cash advance, the Company accepted valid obligations in particular on monthly subsidies that the Spain was to pour in France pursuant to the treaty of June 22nd 1803. The Company had also obtained from Spain the monopoly of the trade with the Spanish America and intended to obtain liquidities by organizing the return in Europe of Spanish piastres selected to Cuba. But the resumption of the war between France and England was going to slow down the movement of the boats. To produce liquidities, Ouvrard then imagined to make discount by the Banque de France of the accommodation drafts which the members of the brought together Traders had contracted the ones with the others. It resulted a swelling from it from incur that Banque de France financed while making go the board to tickets, causing a crisis of confidence in banknotes, soon suppressed by the victory of Austerlitz. As of the shortly after its return to Paris, on January 27th 1806, Napoleon revoked the Minister of Finances, François Bored-Marbois, judged guilty to have made in Ouvrard an excessive confidence, and the Treasury claimed with the financier the sum of 141 million gold franc.

Ouvrard crossed a period of financial problems then. It could not regulate the price of acquisition of the castle of Raincy. In 1809, it was imprisoned with Holy-Pelagie for unpaid debt and was released three months later. Judging that only maritime peace can bring back the economic growth, it tried to negotiate, with the support of Louis Bonaparte and Joseph Fouché, a secret peace with the England, which was worth three years of prison to him. One can charge to him the defeat of the armies of Napoleon having been charged to provide it in shoes. By concern economic, it delivered to the army shoes out of paperboards by making them pass for leather shoes. The effect of this swindles ignored had its effect at the time of the famous Russian winter.

Glory and ruin

At the end of June 1815, at the beginning of the Restoration, it acquires under cover of the identity of his brother-in-law (G.J. Tébaud) the house of Jonchère located at Bougival, known later, under the name of " Castle of Jonchère" . It made many installations as well on the initial building, as in its park. In 1816, it became purchaser of the Castle of the Roadway, not far from its house of Jonchère.

Ouvrard played a great part in the economic recovery of France after the fall of the Empire. The treated signed with Vienna in 1815 obliged France indeed to pay 700 franc million to the foreign powers, that is to say 150 million per annum, for which it was necessary to add the maintenance of: 150000 soldiers of the allied armies which were to occupy France during five years. In 1816, harvests crumbled and the cases of the kingdom were empty. The payments were suspended. Duke of Richelieu, Prime Minister of Louis XVIII found opposite the untraceable Chambre, whose quarrels and divisions returned the impossible task to him. At this point in time on the councils of Ouvrard, and in spite of skepticism and general pessimism, Richelieu created 100 million revenue which filled the cases of the State. The payments were paid and threatens it which planed on France was raised. Thanks to this payment, the Prime Minister could anticipate the departure of the foreign troops envisaged in 1820. The French territory was thus released in 1818, after the Congrès of Aachen. The Duke of Richelieu returned in Ouvrard his goods and cancelled his debt towards the Treasury. Proof of the prestige which he enjoyed at the time, the king in person, as well as the future sovereigns Charles X and Louis-Philippe attended in 1822 the marriage of his Elisabeth daughter with the general of Rochechouart. The following year, the munitionnaire financed the forwarding of Spain, but was never refunded in spite of the agreements signed with the Duc of Angouleme, which ordered forwarding. Placed in bankruptcy, it lost all its fortune then, and was even imprisoned with the Conciergerie for corruption. He was cleared, amongst other things thanks to the intervention of the Duke of Angouleme, but he never recovered his fortune. He died in London in 1846.

Works

Memories of G. - J. Ouvrard on its life and its various financial transactions , Paris, Moutardier, 1826, 3 flights.

References

External bond

Note on G.J. Ouvrard Biography on the site dedicated to its business lawyer Jean-Jacques Governed of Cambacérès.

Random links: