Mount of piety

The Mont of Piety of Paris is an financial institution created at the 17th century to allow the most stripped to escape the usurers by delivering loan against security . Become the Municipal credit of Paris in 1918, this establishment is today true a Banque.

History

The idea of the Mount of piety was born in 1462, when a Italian monk récollet, Barnabé of Tarnished, seeks a means of fighting wear and abusive interest rates used at the time. It is then at the origin of the creation of the Monte di Pietà , with Perugia in Italy. Ten years later, the Monte dei Paschi di Siena east is established with His with the same objective. This establishment then proposes a system of Loan against security with weak interest or free.

Similar initiatives are born in other towns of Italy. With the Council of Lateran, in 1515, the pope Leon X recognizes officially the Mounts of piety.

In France, a Mount of piety is founded with Avignon in 1610 by the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Lorette, but the city is at that time a papal city since 1348, and will remain it until 1791. It is in Paris that the founder of the Gazette of France , Théophraste Renaudot, opens the first Mount of piety in 1637. Five years later, the king Louis XIII authorizes several other cities of the kingdom to establish Mounts of piety.

After the death of Richelieu and Louis XIII, a stop of the Parliament puts an end to the institution under the pressure of the usurers. It is necessary to await an ordinance of the king Louis XVI, the December 9th 1777, so that it is restored.

The October 24th 1918, the Mount of piety becomes the Municipal credit of Paris. The change of denomination corresponds to the development of its bankings parallel to the loans against security.

“My aunt”

At the 19th century the success of the Mount of piety is such as it does not seem more only the anteroom of misery. The proper son of Louis-Philippe, prince de Joinville, would have deposited his watch to honor a gambling debt. Somewhat ashamed, he had claimed to have forgotten it… in his aunt. From where the expression “my aunt” to qualify the Mount of piety.

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