Looking for info on the French Crown Estate

So I'm trying to find any info on the French equivalent of the Crown lands/Royal domains/Crown estate of other countries. I can find early info on the Crown Lands of France page on Wikipedia but I'm mainly looking for info during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy. If anyone can help me with this it would be hugely appreciated.
 
So I'm trying to find any info on the French equivalent of the Crown lands/Royal domains/Crown estate of other countries. I can find early info on the Crown Lands of France page on Wikipedia but I'm mainly looking for info during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy. If anyone can help me with this it would be hugely appreciated.

I dunno Constantine...I don't think the Crown Lands during that era would matter since this is not a Feudal Kingdom, but rather a nation-state. Any titles of nobility are not landed titles.
 
Stupid question: by crown estate are you referring to the biens national?:eek: Or to something entirely different

The actual estates held by the crown. I can find brief mentions of it still existing (when Louis-Philippe became King of the French he made sure to give the Goods of the House of Orléans to his children so they wouldn't return to the Crown lands), so I'm guessing they were something like the British Crown estate. Basically I'm trying to find out what lands were held by the Crown during this era and how much income did they produce.
 
Oh you mean like the actual property...

In that matter, I dunno where one could find something like that. I know they owned at least all the royal residencies of France (Versailles, Louvre, Luxembourg, etc.).

Looking at other Royal Residencies however:
-It is said that the Château de Chambord was purchased from the widow of former Napoleonic General Louis Alexandre Berthier (who so happened to be Maria Elisabeth of Bavaria) for the then infant Henry, Duke of Bordeaux (who would become known as Count of Chambord and the future Henry V in Legitimist circles).

-The Château de la Muette was split between two owners around 1820, one wing was given to then Minister of Finance, Louis Emmanuel Corvetto in 1816, the other wing and most of the grounds were given to a piano maker by the name of Sébastien Érard (who so happened to have pioneered the modern piano).

-The Palais Bourbon in Paris was acquired by the Princes of Conde. Louis Joseph, (officially bought by his son and heir, Louis Henri).

There are more but I would have to actually look up each and every individual palace in France that hasn't been gutted by the French Revolution to garner the information you need.
 
I think Constantine is looking more for estates that generated income for the crown. In the prerevolutionary period this is difficult, as the crown and the state were once -- I know that the French public budget was published sometime in the 1780s which also showed court expenses, but I don't know if it'd be available online. In the period of the Bourbon Restoration / July Monarchy, I'm not sure if there was any land held outright besides the various palaces (which again, would be considered national property probably as in England, hence the monarch couldn't dispose of them. The Chambord Chateau is the exception as it was bought personally for the young Duke of Bordeaux).

The only thing I can think of, and I have no proof, is perhaps the French monarchy's court expenses were subsided as they were in England: in the 1760s, George III gave up the incomes of the Duchy of Lancaster in exchange for an annual subsidy. The French crown may of been subsidized in such a way. I know the House of Orleans had it's appanage reinstated, and it was the last of such to reunite with the French state in 1830 when Louis-Philippe became King. That's a whole other thing as the House of Orleans was incredibly wealthy from the time of Louis XIV and they probably most definitely did not wish to combine their fortunes into the state. The appanages for Angoulême and Berri certainly existed too, but I don't know if they actually derived any income from those appanages or if they had even been granted outside the title -- usually the title was granted and then the lands later.
 
As an idea, can you find what lands the French government owns today as these would be the successor lands to the crown estate? It should give you a starting point.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
OK I kind of figured out what I meant. Basically I'm wanting to know about the land that were granted as Appanage to the various French princes. According to Wikipedia they were revived by Napoleon and kept by the Bourbon Restoration but I can't find much else. I thought that they were the same thing as the Crown lands but I guess I was wrong.
 
Top