“The theft of the century” in 18th-century Lyon by Lutheran bankers

Abstract

In the general decline of the economy of France in the second half of the eighteenth century, which at its peak led to the fall of the monarchy and to the revolutionary government, Lyon represented an exception. However, the financial infrastructure for its flourishing industrial development was mainly provided by people belonging to a class foreign to the social and religious context of the city. They were bankers and merchants of German, Swiss and Alsatian origin, strictly of Lutheran religion, who had moved to Lyon in the first half of the seventeenth century, free to practice their religion. Among them, particularly relevant was the bank of the Fingerlin & Scherer families who, although had suered a great theft by a fierce criminal gang in December 1785, maintained their business until 1793 when, as well as the other members of the financial class, were forced to leave France.