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Albert N. Hamscher, Daniel Dessert. L'argent du sel: Le sel de l'argent., The American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 5, December 2013, Pages 1607–1608, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.5.1607
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Over the past four decades, Daniel Dessert has investigated the fiscal-financial system that maintained the French state in the seventeenth century. In this book, he concentrates on an important niche in the system: the monarchy's monopoly on the sale of salt and the principal tax (gabelle) that it levied on this sale, which was a major component of the crown's ordinary revenue. The monarchy leased collection of the tax to consortia of revenue farmers by means of competitive bidding. Although Dessert provides a concise review of technical matters related to revenue farming, his chief concern is the individuals who invested in the revenue farms for salt from the early 1630s to the late 1660s, and the social, religious, and political connections that brought them together. In particular, he focuses on the most significant farm in this era, the Gabelles de France, and an associated farm, the Convoi de Bordeaux. The financiers and investors grouped around Thomas Bonneau, a prominent financier and general farmer in the period 1632–1662, receive special attention. The result is an impressive and novel examination of the relationship between power and money in early modern France that complements Dessert's 1984 masterwork, Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand Siècle.
