Aspects of French Accounting

In this paper, three strands of French Accounting are studied. First, royal or state practice is traced from the Middle Ages. It is shown to interact through the financiers with mercantile accounting. Commercial texts are then briefly reviewed. Latterly, there has been an economic emphasis, which has facilitated links with statistics. National income statistics provide the third theme to be traced to the present. Seemingly state, commercial, and national income accounting converge best in France. But neither economic planning nor the accounting plans designed to inform the planners has been fully integrated.

Acknowledgement was paid (in the amended Paper #64: see The Accounting Historians Notebook, Fall, 1996) to major and trail-breaking studies by M.M.Vlaemminck and Stevelinck, neither of which had been translated into English. Nor had many French texts been republished in the Historic Accounting Literature series edited by M.J.Bywater and B.S.Yamey. Neither Arno nor Garland had republished much French-language material. Respects were paid to the great strategy for collaborative research presented by Stevelinck and others in 1970 and earlier. Contributions by M. Cordolliani and students of the OECCA were noted, along with the work of the Societe Academique from 1881. Quite recently, M. Yves Cleon of Vesoul and others had founded an Institut National des Historiens Comptables de France which published excellent Bulletins. M. Pierre Jouanique and M. C.C.Pinceloup were also referred to with respect and thanks.

Postscript - From 1996, very useful material on "Accounting in France", in a bi-lingual book, edited by Y.Lemarchand and R.H.Parker. (Garland, N.Y.)

Aspects of French Accounting

In this area there is a very long tradition with copious records, despite the lacunae resulting from revolution and accident. The revolutionary armies in the 1790’s, for instance, used 37,000 pounds of parchment on which accounts had been submitted until 1772 to the Chamber of Accounts, leaving further quantities which were sold for 400,000 livres (Bosher, 1970, 120). Yet records over many centuries remain attractive to numerous researchers.

Writing for record and communication is evidenced in the eighth century. Clerical scribes used similar methods both on monastic and royal estates. Royal property was inventoried for Peppin the short and Charlemagne in polyptiques (Jack, 1966, 140). Royal stewards were instructed in a capitulary to communicate each Christmas a list of possessions "distinguished, marked and in proper order" (Migne, 1862, 97:349-358). Whether Charlemagne’s hard-pressed successors continued his practices is uncertain. Estate accounting continued in practice on ecclesiastical lands, to be adopted anew by kings and lords from the 11th century. Thus to these early days, and to the church perhaps rather than to Italian merchants, should be traced many key practices of modern accounting. Here, it has been said, was the early modern idea of capitalism to be found (Hallam, 1975, 49).

Before and after the Norman Conquest, the financial administrators of Northern Europe may be compared. In Flanders, Normandy and England, courts such as the Exchequer received steward’s or sheriff’s accounts, while treasuries were usually under church guardianship. The audit began with charges signified by counters on a chequered board from which discharge items were progressively deducted. The board was covered by a cloth or bur, from which bureau is derived. Records were kept on parchment membranes sewn together and rolled into Magni Rotulli, checked against a counter-roll kept by a Comptroller. (Although functions adapt, terms such as "control" and "charge" live on in current French accounting).

Practices in the French royal demesne may have been more primitive, but by 1202-03 money accounting was more common in France than elsewhere, enabling a simpler accounting (Lyon, 1967, 49). The General Account of that year was described in Lot and Fawtier’s "The Premier Budget" (Lyon, 1967, 46). As long as dues were from the demesne and were traditional, lists of property rights might differ little from past receipts or from anticipated income.

The banking and deposit facilities offered by the Templars to the French kings were welcomed more than elsewhere. This Crusading Order received donations of wealth in innumerable forms intended ultimately for transfer to Palestine or the Moorish wars in Spain. In 1148, Suger was ordered to repay a debt to the Templars by Louis VII. Under Philip Augustus, the Templar Aymard became Paris Treasurer and royal adviser. When Normandy was conquered from King John, he presided at the Norman Exchequer. International settlements could be made through the Templars. When Saint Louis was captured on Crusade, his ransom was paid by raiding the chests and sums deposited for safe-keeping with the Templars, they resisting little! (But Hubert de Burgh’s deposit in 1232 was not released until he had agreed). Papal dues were also received and transmitted for Crusades which might or might not eventuate.

Thrice yearly, at Ascension, All Saints Day and Candlemas, the Templars took inventory of gold, jewels, and deeds, and rendered detailed statements on Current Accounts. At the Paris Temple, royalty and courtiers kept their accounts through which they ordered dues to be rendered or paid. Frequently the payments ordered were by transfer or virement to another account. The letter might order the Temple to pay X "or his mandatory." Brief reasons were given in the bill, enabling the Templars to classify the item in the statements rendered to clients (Piquet, 1939, passim). In 1307 the Order was abolished and its property was transferred to Hospitallers, in so far as not seized by the king.

As feudal levies failed to suffice for crusading plans or wars at home, the kings sought revenues outside their own demense. Such were the Aids granted by the Estates and divided as tailles over the whole country, "invading the whole of the daily life of the people to the last detail" (Dupont-Ferrier, 1932, 76). They were soon exacted on the "Farming" principle, with prepayments, or bids, regardless of what might actually be raised.

Occasionally taxes were farmed for three years or for one "Fair". More frequently tenders were invited in late September for a year ahead; but even after four month "gazumpers" (late bidders) who offered a third or more above the successful bid might be preferred and installed. Pledges were required.

In 1383 efforts were made to prevent bidding by partnerships or "companies". By the next century, maximum sizes of companies were specified. Unabated the trend continued until 1598, when the five Great Farms were brought together; and in 1681, la Ferme Generale united almost all tax raising under one firm of increasing notoriety until the Revolution. Royal borrowing was chiefly from these Farmers or other office holders. But a funding of debt by means of La Grande Partie at Lyons in 1555 is noteworthy. People ran to contribute as to a fire, and even Turkish Pashas subscribed (Ehrenberg, 1963, 302 and Braudel, 1972, 699). Interest rates of 16% plus 1% for a Sinking Fund seem to have had a stimulating effect on the publication of Interest Tables. J.Trenchant discussed compound interest and provided certain tables in his "Arithmetic" published in Lyons in 1558 (Parker, 1968, 59).

The private book keeping of the "financiers" will be described later, and contrasted with the royal accounts. By order of Louis X11 these had been in an Etat General which included both demesne and extraordinary income. By about 1440, the latter had become relatively fixed, but budgets were compared with actuals in etats au vray. The voluntary nature of aids was acknowledged, we shall see, until 1611. In addition to checks on taxes by the payers, there was a check on the collectors and disbursers through the Chambres des Comptes.

In each Department, the electors to the Farm were entitled to meet as an Auditoire des Aides to consider appeals. A Chamber or Court of Aids met from 1370, chiefly in Paris, to perform parallel audits to the Chamber of Accounts.

This latter Chamber extended its jurisdiction, sending out travelling auditors to Normandy and Languedoc in 1450. By the eighteenth century, eight chambers were performing traditional functions meticulously, if less than punctually! Forty-four categories of annual accounts were being processed about 1510 (Dupont-Ferrier, 1933, 210). Accounts were presented in varied measures and monies to a staff of 2 presidents, a Vice president, 8 Masters, 2 or 3 Correctors, 12 Clerks, 3 Registrars, a Royal Procurator and an Advocate.

Tax collectors were summoned "by the wish of the king" or "by the honour of the Chamber". In 1454, all appeared so promptly to audit, that they had to be sent away until summoned individually. That year, a "Style" of the Chamber was fixed to the wall, showing the uniform size, script, and spacing required for accounts, which had to go through five-fold processing: Presentation; Preliminary Examination; First Judgment; Correction; and Approval. Oath was taken on first presentation (Dupont-Ferrier, 1933, 229).

The use of parchment, and words in place of Arabic numerals, survived with other practices until 1772 (Bosher, 1970, 120). The auditors operated up to ten years in arrears, but pursued mercilessly any of parlous credit. The farming and finance system encouraged joint operations as tax-farmer, banker, and industrial investor, but failure to juggle such operations was always blamed on the individual (Nogaret, 1972,110). Proposals for change were always rebuffed by the Chamber: to Turgot they protested their enlightenment, zeal and disinterest, since proposals to impair their jurisdiction could give rise to nothing but abuse (Bosher, 1970, 122). Perhaps their conservatism was not disinterested. In 1776, the Chamber received fees of 360,000 livres for auditing accounts of the rentes, and half-a-million for auditing the General Farm.

In 1791, the Chamber was abolished and replaced by an Accounting Bureau, with duty of assisting in presentation of the accounts, not to a separate court but to the elected legislature (Bosher, 1970, 248). With war expenses, some audits were soon 18 years in arrears! The staff rose to 1,244 in 1796. Neither finance nor accounting was simplified immediately by the Revolution.

The hopes of the early and late eighteenth century were in different ways belied. John Law offered a consolidation of tax-farming and trading rights in his bank and Mississippi company, which initiated a speculative surge (outclassing the immediately following and comparable South Sea Bubble). There was then a return to state dependence on the services and credit of financiers. Their role in the development of French industry should not be underestimated. Baudard of St. James’ balance sheet of 1787 reveals his investments in wood, glass, thread, lead, mines, etc. (Nogaret, 1972, 111).

However, against royal profligacy of expenditure, on palaces and wars, no credit could survive. A climax came with French support for the American rebels. Necker was brought in to reform and economize. Burke, proposing the Economic Reform so necessary for Britain, too, (and initiated by Lord North for the U.K. Treasury and Exchequer) told the House of Commons in 1780 how he saw in France no arbitrary finance, frauds, forced loans, or suspension of interest. He beheld rather a regular, methodical system of public credit:

Necker’s reforms, however, were short-lived. The financiers were to be replaced by bureaucrats in the early 1790’s and soon after Napoleon was to be in control. Did the National Assembly of 1789 introduce such total reform? The holders of venal offices with their own dependent clerks were replaced by salaried officials working to a rational plan of functions. Applied in the Treasury writes Bosher (1970, 313) with:

The government was revolutionized, he suggests, earlier, quicker and more thoroughly than any branch of industry. The decimal system was adopted with other forms of progress. Yet the financiers re-emerged under a different title: The "Capitalists," the National Assembly called them (Bosher, 1970, 309). Faced by escalating financial problems and a collapse of credit, the revolutionaries brought Ouvrat into their service. Napoleon also turned to him and his like (Bosher, 1970, 314).

Published accounts offer an opportunity for objection. French States General, like English Parliaments, had as a vital role the approval of extraordinary taxes or aids to government. The earliest recorded meetings in 1302 and 1308 appear to have been preconcerned with the King’s disputes with the Pope and Templars. But the assembly of 1314 considered and approved a subsidy (Stourm, 1900, 21). For similar purposes a long series of assemblies was called, prompting Lord to assert that parliamentary control of taxation was no greater in England than in France before 1611 (Lord, 1973, 3).

However, in the following 170 years, sovereign rights in legislation and taxation were increasingly emphasized. In place of the States General, the Parlement of Paris was urged to rubber-stamp legislation. A pun from the last days of the Parlement is recorded as explaining why a meeting of the States General was, even in 1787, half-regarded as a mode of solving financial problems. When a request for financial statements (etats generaux) was discussed, a young member misheard and urged the need for Etats Generaux (Stourm, 1900, 38).

The demands soon following in 1786 included inter alia that:

This last suggestion, epoch-making in so far as royal sole discretion over expenditure was invaded, resulted in Article 308 of the Constitution approved in Year 3. This stated that the detailed accounts of ministerial expense, once signed and certified, should be made public at the start of each year.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man, Article 14, stated:

Despite such declarations, autocracy descended again with Napoleon, who in 1813 broke his pact with the French people, and levied taxes by decree (Stourm, 1900, 42). A truly public finance had to be elaborated from 1814 on.

Many practices in state accounting have deep roots. The period principle is normally applied to a fiscal, and in France’s case, a calendar year. Varied terms are used, state cashiers referring to a gestion or administration while expense authorizers (ordonnateurs) work within "exercises". This term is used also in company accounting, and personifies time periods.

The nuances have little to do with the delay necessarily permitted before the books are finally closed if transactions relevant to a period are to be comprehensively reflected in cash. Gestions were frequently extended by two months "to permit the allocation of certain budgetary operations to the year just passed" (Sanglier, 1974, 390).

Financial exercises may be traced to the desire in 1554 to increase the number of offices for sale (Bosher, 1970, 84). Any district could have two, (or later even three) officers, after it was ordained that "accounting officers shall alternate the exercise of their duties." Each year was personified in a distinct accountant, with consequent need clearly to demarcate responsibility. Like the Fund over time in Britain, the Exercise in France had separate identity. The Revolutionary Consulate assured the holders of mandates payable that the Exercises of Years Five, Six, and Seven were insolvent: their assets were exhausted (Stourm, 1900, 125).

Leon Say in 1868 described the Exercise as the totality of charges and dues of a year. However, twenty years later, he still pressed for the introduction of duration into its definition (Stourm, 1900, 118). As with "budgets", Exercises cannot be reduced to elapsed time, nor to defined cash-flows.

Until 1871, French Assemblies were less strong than the Executive; only thereafter did their rights extend beyond the authorization of taxation. From that date important principles were established, including the Assembly’s right to approve an "annual" budget, comprehending all resources and expenditure. The principle of "universality" ensured that revenue and expense be shown gross, with netting off forbidden (as now in French enterprise accounting). "Specialization" determines the level of items authorized and determined with the whole budget. Thus in 1847, 338 "chapters" were approved, and 482 in 1882. Within chapters were paragraphs and articles. When in 1883 it was proposed that each of 3,000 paragraphs should be voted on, the compromise of deliberating 637 chapters was agreed. Budgetary "equilibrium" was achieved at first by approving expenditures and then by voting adequate taxes. The sequence is now reversed (Lord, 1973, 6-7).

The term "budget" is derived from the French bougette for a purse. It was applied to annual government financial proposals in Britain about 1775. Its use became general in France in the nineteenth century, with a lucidity sometimes absent elsewhere. Moreover, it is associated, as is the Exercise, with personal accountability. In business, wrote Fayol, "Un Budget, c’est un Monsieur".

Thus, with many roots in common, Britain and France diverged. British royal prerogatives were tamed by the Commonwealth and the Glorious Revolution, so that the king’s debts became first those of the Crown, and then of the Nation. French national debt, on the other hand, long remained that of a specific king, and to innumerable financiers. Their servants were able to provide the Revolution with the accounting and organizational skills required by the new bureaux.

From Colbert, at least, the government had instigated industrial developments, which were scarcely distinguishable from direct state activities. The over-centralization of the Old Regime did not disappear with the new. Expectations of foresight and intervention by the state remained high. Thus, budgets, financial controls and legislation in general were expected to anticipate wisely the needs of all. Lord observes a French tendency to think that:

Aspects of such planning and centralization will concern us in our final section. They are certainly to be found in the Plan Comptable Generale, applied first from 1947 in the state and publicly owned sectors of the economy, then progressively adopted by private firms. In its preparation, officials, professional accountants, and businessmen all collaborated. Yet behind such novelties lay centuries of practice and doctrine of commercial accounting.

In this section, our interest may not be contained within a French royal demesne or national frontiers, for taxes and state expenditure. Instead, it must flow with French trade and influence, and to the money markets located so often in the Lotharingian strip from Italy to the Low Countries. Narrow nationalism is impossible in trade and finance.

The sequence, of course, is clear. Knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping spread north from Italy, first to the Low Countries. Pacioli's views were disseminated through varied authors, writing in Dutch or published in Antwerp or Amsterdam. Still in 1623, Coutereels could find himself pestered for a French edition of his "Solid Art of Book-keeping", first published in Amsterdam.

However, even before that time the French, who had been so eager to learn, were found ready and willing to teach. The impact of their texts within France is clear; beyond her borders it can only be hinted at. (Where French titles are not immediately intelligible, they are translated: in all cases, the original is given in the bibliography.)

Several works came from Antwerp where Jan Christoffels Ympyn settled. He produced in 1543, simultaneously in Dutch and French, a text translated four years later into English as "A notable and very excellent work" on the manner and form of bookkeeping (Stevelinck, 1970, 26). Dutch, English, and French merchants were thereby gently introduced to Italian bookkeeping, much as Pacioli described it. What Pacioli did for Venice, said Dupont, Ympyn did for Amsterdam and Savonne for Lyons (Dupont, 1930).

Pierre Savonne’s Instruction et maniere was printed in 1567 by the Plantins (whose own accounts have been so interestingly studied by Florence de Roover). His experience was at Lyons, where the contra-settlement or virement of debts between merchants at the end of each fair he lucidly described (Vlaemminck, 1979, 113). He then returned to Antwerp, eager to teach:

His methods are interesting because he commended separate Purchase and Sales books, at least in some editions. Savonne was also concerned with the need for secrecy, suggesting a special book in which the development of a "fund" could be traced from its acquisition.

Simon Stevin was a Dutch polymath (cf. ten Have, 1978), whose work was published in Dutch (1607), Latin, and French (1608). A man of wide experience, interests and influence, his Livre de Compte de Prince was written for his pupil, Prince Maurice of Nassau. He focused on annual accounts, especially for a kingdom, his recommendations having clear influence on Swedish royal accounts rather than toward the South. Accounts should be kept open, he said, until all transactions relating to the period were closed.

Claude Boyer was another of the Lyons School, publishing a Briefve Methode in 1627. His illustrations are for a partnership trading from Lyons to Flanders, England, Turkey, and Spain. Thomas Matthieu's Le Stile des Merchands also showed the settlement methods at the end of each fair. His innovation was a two-columned journal (Stevelinck, 1970, 102).

Several ideas are clarified in Jean Andre's Traite de Comptes (1636). For him the memorial, not the journal, is the best record for temporary needs for instance in relation to subcontracted work. The journal is "sun among satellite stars" for him, and alone of probatory worth. The ledger is of varied use, a trial balance being possible on a loose-leaf, whereas a more formal exit balancing is required on closure of the books. (Barreme later called the former a 'balance in the air'!). For Andre, capital was the proprietor's account "in his wealth in the fund," while funds were "all that a merchant owns in relation to his business". Key terms thus begin to have accepted definition (Stevelinck, 1970, 107).

Thereafter we move into the period of the Financiers, with the commercial and industrial developments under Louis XIV and his minister, Colbert. To the latter, Francois Legendre dedicated his Le Vraye Maniere or "Right Way" (1658). Good accounts make good friends, since the books provide explanation (livres de raison). Gendre's work was cut short by death, but was used later by Irson.

Pierre Pouvrat, meanwhile published at Lyons in 1676 his work on the balance sheet or science of double accounts, necessary not onlv for merchants but for all men of business, public and private oeconomes (or stewards in S. Europe), and for all who wish to advance in business. The gains he offered were the protection of wealth, advancement to honours, and peace of mind, since the memory is relieved. The science is a natural arrangement of our wealth which we can contemplate at any hour, in total or in detail, in its nature, growth or decline, to a penny (Pouvrat, 1676, i). Pouvrat produces many an epigram. He writes of recycling from fire to air to water, etc. (loc.cit p.i) and of the General Merchandise account which like the earth with its fruits passes to the personal accounts "to nourish them and be clothed by them. Specific goods accounts are like isles while the Cash Account is the ocean flowing with others through canals (Pouvrat, 1676, 40). He proposed five "things" or classes ; Money, moveables and unmoveables, general merchandise, profit and loss, and debtors (p.14); but he suggested that, as in the economy of creation, all sorts of beasts of accounts would lie down together (p.41). Indeed, he opposed any structuring of the ledger, to which "plants" are transferred from the journal, as onto a globe where location has no significance and no account can claim superiority!

In the year before Jaques Savary published his justifiably famous Le Parfait Negociant. With distinguished relatives, Jaques now exploited his wide experience in and out of royal service. He had been chief architect of the Commercial Code of 1673. His book of 1700 pages describes accounting only in Chapters 4-10 of Book Four.

His advice is not readily summarizable, although influential long afterwards. Some of the material in Malachy Postlethwayt's "Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce" (1751), was translated from Savary (see E. Fraser). For the regular inventories required by the Commercial Code, historic cost was the basis, except in the sixth edition of Le Parfait Negociant where au prix coutant was altered to au prix courant (Parker, 1966, 260),

Claud Irson's Methode pour bien dresser (1678), refers to his license alone to practice bookkeeping for legal purposes in Nancy. His debt to Le Gendre, and many others is considerable. Nevertheless he has high aims. His first general rule sought to establish why journal and ledger are required. If bookkeeping aimed only to extend memory,

He refers to the need to order, adjust and present accounts for legal purposes,

His later rules for accounts refer to their probatory quality, to the explanations for transactions, etc. Anticipating Fourth Directive alternatives in some sense, he distinguishes in Chapter 4, accounts where the categories or nature of receipts and expenditure are shown from those focusing on each "affair". The first satisfies the need to render an account; the second enables comparison of outcomes. After closing one's books, he proposed, when new books are opened for the new management (gestion), a resume should be carried forward so that liaison and linkage are maintained. (Such change of management with each Exercise, we found normal for financiers and tax-farmers).

In Chapter 7, Irson gives a remarkable example of search for generally accepted principles. Usage often gives to rules the force of law. But

He then reports his long-winded question on the validity of books with gaps in them and made up late, which he sent to the traders of Lyon, to the gentlemen of Venice, and the bankers of Turin, Florence, Genoa and Milan. It was universally accepted that such books were invalid. The first norm in accounting had been established!

Another famous French text, Le guide de negocians was written by a Dutchman, Matthew De la Porte, and printed in Paris in 1685. It is largely a manual implementing the 1673 code. Its successor of 1704, La Science des negocians, contains a clear exposition and illustration of a systematic classification of accounts into three main classes, analyzed in progressive detail. The three classes are for the "Proprietor" (Capital, Profit and Loss, Expenses, Provisions and Assurances), for "Effective effects" (money, goods, securities, and specific assets such as property, shops, etc.), and for "Correspondents" or Persons (De la Porte, 1685, 282. On page 97 he gives a different classification. The term Effects long survived in Statements of Effects, or assets which were not covered by Charge or Discharge Accounts). De la Porte has been praised for establishing the nature of accounts and showing, "lithe economic specific and legal effects of the whole firm's activities " (Vlaemminck, 1979, 138). De la Porte is said to have originated the entity principle.. "the moral personnifications of the firm independent of the personality of the trader according to Deschamps, Gomberg and Haulotte (cf. Haulotte, Gore and Depouy, page 132, trace the principle only to Bellay in 1834 and Courcelle-Sereuil in 1869). If he thus anticipated a principle often traced to the spread of companies with transferable shares in the late 19th century, then unique factors must have prompted him.

More effectively, perhaps, De la Porte stimulated widespread adoption of specialized day-books for purchases, sales, cash and bills (De la Porte, 1685, 10), which gave periodic totals soon to be put through one centralizing journal, and presenting what is often known as, the "French method" of accounting (Vlaemminck, 1979, 131). How auxiliary journals were to be related to auxiliary books; for cash, bills, index, factorage, accounts current, commissions, orders, acceptances, bills, expenses, letters, workers, bank and vessels (De la Porte, 1685, 69), is not entirely clear. But De la Porte knew his chief innovation:

Jean Moulinier's Le Grand Tresor (1704) may here be simply listed with reference to its wide intended readership. Samuel Ricard's L'Art de bien tenir (1709) was another Amsterdam publication which went through numerous editions, not always of identical title (Stevelinck, 1970, 136-141). The frontispiece of the first portrayed an angel whose trumpet supported the motto.."Eodem Ubique" ("Everywhere the same"). He studied terms such as the "Actions" (or shares) of the Dutch East and West Indies company, and the development of the keeping of books, in which the state of affairs can be clearly seen. In addition to three main books, he lists twelve others. The Goods Account he writes, should be kept at cost price:

He works toward a "General and Particular State of Affairs." Such "Etats Generaux" were common in private and public accounting, as we have seen.

B.F.Barreme's name is widely known for his ready reckoner providing barremes or rates, and also for his Traite des parties doubles (1721) which went through many editions. A copy was essential for any educated woman, wrote J.J.Rousseau in "Emile". The work begins with reference to Colbert's efforts to reduce royal accounts to Double-entry; but, wrote Barreme,

The Cameral system was retained, he said, because of the ignorance of ministers and accountants, who were of course royal officials. At the end, he sketches a Plan for a General Receipt of Finances in double-entry (Barreme, 1721, 285). Separate accounts are opened for each year's Exercise of individual taxes. He also compares traders' and financiers' accounts thus:

More accounts are required for a trader's varying operations. In a Receipt General, all operations are dictated by the General Plan (Barreme, 1721, 299).

Barreme thus compared in detail for the first time the accounting systems appropriate to the trader and to the state in the era of the Financiers who contributed so significantly to French political, economic, and financial developments.

In his elucidation of traders' accounts, Barreme preferred to personalize: A General account is debtor and I am creditor; Cash is a Cashier to which Capital has entrusted the management of his cash (Barreme, 172l, 238). The General accounts are sub-divisions of the proprietor's while the particular accounts are those of other persons. He also adopted the exit/entry idea:

The next authors were and are less important. P.Girandeau the elder's L'Art de dresser les Comptes (1746) is dedicated in part to the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce. A.Carront in 1754 wrote, in a series of works on mathematics Le Maniere de tenir les livres. Pages are devoted to accounting for army supplies, for each of which an account is opened in the ledger. J.Larne wrote a Bibliotheque des jeunes negociants (1758) and was able to translate it also into Italian. A.Mendes produced a Method Simplifiee (1803), which J.Rodriguez's La Tenue (1810) specifically referred to arms suppliers. New demands were being met by new accounting systems, one of which produced much controversy in France-Edward Jones' "English" system.

Edmond Degrange's La Tenue des livres, however, had a far more constructive effect and went through 39 editions after 1802. He innovated both the "American" system and the Five-Account (Cinquecontiste) School. The former unjustified appellation (Stevelinck, 1970, 157, suggests columnar accounting was first called an American system by a Belgian, Roland, in 1852) was applied later to a journal with columns adequate for many ledger analyses commended first by Degrange as offering a quick and up-to-date overview. Bookkeeping labour, especially in small firms, was much reduced for those content to know Dr. and Cr. totals and balances for cash, goods, bills receivable and payable, and profits/losses. Later he was to add a Miscellaneous column covering transactions with classes not covered by the chief five (Degrange, 1802, 294).

Technical developments and ingenuities thus became characteristic of 19th century accounting texts. M.Battaille's Nouveau Systeme (1802) professed to show the alternatives. B.Delorme's book of the same title (1809) adopted the addition of Dr. and Cr. columns in the journal. J.Isler offered a Nouvelle Methode Suisse (1810) in a very large number of cities. He represented joint ventures in a Social Account. He offered alternative column headings to Degrange’s. His work included a bibliography of earlier texts in several languages extending to two and a half pages (Isler, 1810, 266 ff.).

J.S.Quiney's Comptable Generale (1817) deserves mention only for its personalist approach and for its two-fold classification of Personal and Cash Accounts, separate from what he called General or Fictitious Accounts - for Capital, Goods, Fixed Assets, and Receivables and Payables!

The commercial development of Belgium gave rise to Feigneaux' Cours Theorique et Pratique (1827). Girls who had studied thus could help their husbands! His analytical journal and ledger accounts moved in to a Synoptic Table, with a Profit and Loss Account, a Capital Account and a Closing Balance. In this and a later book he aspired to illustrate accounts for different trades. Similarly, P.Ouvrat's Elemens d'ideologie du commerce (1835) advertised "extraordinary simple solutions" to the problems of accounting in banking, theatres, retailing, railway operations and an infantry regiment, with a bookkeeping, "no longer at rest in the tombs of the 17th century." His series of very minor innovations did not give confidence in uniform procedures:

Expense was divided by him into Establishment, Capitalised and for varied operations. Ouvrat offered counsel to all, while the new Belgian king received the suitably presented works of another Belgian which dealt specifically with industrial accounting.

The encyclopaedists and philosophers of the Enlightenment wrote in detail of the manufacturing processes of their day. Only from the next century are there books on appropriate accounting systems. J.F.Willame's Nouveau Systeme (1842) was printed in detailed and beautifully produced three folio volumes. It describes the systems of the Society of Furnaces, Forges and Workshops of Luxembourg. He aimed to help managers to draft on a scrap of paper a useful statement (etat ad hoc), by 117 forms and charts! Regular reporting by man/shift, works/week, etc. relied on multi-columned analyses. Stores were accounted for in terms of receipts and issues at different prices, owing to averaging and the inclusion of transport costs, Willame's book, however, appears to have been little read (Stevelinck, 1970, 169).

L.Deplanque's Tableau Synoptique (1842) took the form of a folded chart describing and relating all stages of accounting with such success that 31 editions appeared up to 1924.

While French costing developments have been well described by Solomons (1968, 10-12 and 42-4@), the systems for large firms deserve notice, since they evolved toward the "Plans Comptables" of this century, either in France or in Belgium.

H.Godefroid's Course de Comptabilite (1864) is still worth mention (cf. Most, 1962, 159). He was not reticent in his claims for his systems, or for accounting in general. Without it, all factories would fail in six months! The state armies and navies and commerce are all dependent. What other profession's disappearance would create such loss? (Godefroid, 1864, 258). With perhaps more wit he describes the normal course of balancing:

Alternatively, the manager, director, even the shareholder, can survey at one glance like a "Mappa Mundi" all the company's operations, their importance and results in his "little tableau" or encyclopaedic view of the whole year's history of the factory (Godefroid 1864- 6). Needless to say this "Compte Rendu" is a statement of some complexity with columns devoted to periods and sub-periods. It is the classification of rows which is best known. "Titles" and "Chapters" are identical. Initial establishment costs contain the real range of project expenditure to start production in mine or iron-works. Then follow General Expenses, General Stores, Divisional or varied Works Accountability, Sundry accounts for Capital, etc., and Finance. Each chapter is analysed to Articles. His chart was printed as a folded insert in his book. It was adopted by the Societe Generale de Belgique, and widely elsewhere.

Irregular or indiscriminating inventories were not acceptable to industrial accounts. Thus Godefroid accused the old fanatics for routine of including everything in a single Merchandise Account. Twenty-four years earlier Queulin had published a book on The Perpetual Inventory, suggesting that only thus could a trader know his current position and stop before the precipice of illiquidity.

However, the most clear case, on this and many other matters, was made by Leautey and Guilbault who asserted in their Science des Comptes (1889):

A survey of other theories may reveal their variety and their tendency towards an economic or statistical interpretation of accounting. Such interpretations are compatible with the positivist and optimistic philosophies of Auguste Comte in the mid-19th century.

In place of personalist explanations of accounting, adopted by many since Barreme and Degranges in the 18th century, and by Leautey and Guilbault in the19th, an economic emphasis was adopted by some writers. Coffy, for instance, in 1834 wrote of accounts for real and for rational values. The latter included Results and the owner's Capital Account. (cf. Vlaemminck-Essai). More clearly Courcelle-Senseuil in 1869 saw the owner as external to the enterprise in which he had invested his capital: the task of the accounts was to record all modifications in this capital. Earlier Bellay had found the separate identity of the firm an "infinitely rich" fiction. (Quoted by Gore, 1975, 132)

Later advocates of the economic approach have been among the founders of the "Plan Comptable Generale," which seeks a compatability between micro- and macro-accounting. Sources and uses have accordingly been favourite terms adopted in explaining the balance sheet for instance. Such explanation is, however, imperfect (Gore, 1975, 150). The roots of these Plans Comptables in Belgium have been briefly described (cf. Forrester, 1980). Their French adoption deserves separate study.

Pierre Garnier's "Accountancy as Science of Economic Records" (1937) deserves final mention. It echoed in its title Proudhon's claim that:

Garnier uses the terms Consumption and Product frequently, the former in relation to using up physical or human wealth. Consumption in current French accounts has been renamed Charges. His balance sheet is unusual in classifying on base of probability; Chapter III includes Uncertain or Eventual Assets. Garnier’s aim was to achieve an "Economography"!

J.Demarchey's Theorie Positive (1914) fits less easily into this school, although he surveys the views of Say, Proudhon, and theories of value up to Bohm-Bawerk. He considers accounting from the viewpoint of philosophy, science and value. Later he defined the account as "each class of units of value."

More mathematical was the often quoted Concepts fondamenteux de la Comptabilite of Eugene de Fages (1924). Accountancy was "the science aimed at the measurement of units in movement." They move on one plane from zone to zone, each exit and entry being recorded in accounts. The units need not be values, but any objects however small.

Prompted perhaps by changing money values, J.Sigaut hypothesized their elimination in La Comptabilite des Quantites en partie double (1951). Quantities of varied types should be recorded, and differences transferred to a balancing account, for instance when grain ground yielded a lesser weight of flour. This account would contain both such adjustments and profits. Sigaut admitted his purpose was somewhat academic, but emphasized utility!

To link with our next section, and with every current thought, Culmann's Comptabilite Fondamentale may be mentioned; it is derived from his experience in National Accounting. He seeks to distinguish accountancy from arithmetic, statistics, etc. His method is a progressive modification by axioms of an initial proposition:

On transformations, for instance, he adds a "Lavoisier" axiom ensuring the conservation of flows, or identity of dual values. Does National Accounting comply with his axioms? Yes, says Culmann, despite the approximation of data so often necessary. He rejects Marczowski's description of National Accounts

The French, at least since 1944, have sought a congruence between the accounting principles and formats of the state, of the private sector and for the sectoral and national statistics comprehended in National Accounts. The founders of the Plan Comptable Generale explicitly aimed to normalize micro-accounting data, so that economists could obtain data easily and so that a planned economy could be operated on information more adequate than that available earlier.

Thus P.C.G. insisted on a subjective classification of expense, showing the inputs from industrial- and service sectors, from the household sector (labour), from government (taxes) and finance (interest). The Value Added format is directly derived from National accounting, and Sources and Applications Statements almost as directly. Both are required in the 1979 "developed" form of P.C.G. for large companies. The requirements of the statisticians find effective voice in France, especially in its National Accounting Council (C.N.C.). There at least two traditions meet. French contributions to measuring the wealth and income of nations may now be briefly reviewed. (Much in this section may be traced to Studenski's "Wealth of Nations". Culmann's Comptabilities Nationales also summarizes geneses.)

First may be noted the slow emergence of lineal time, and of the equal periods so fundamental for statistics. Wealth would be inventoried on conquest or inheritance. The generation remained a fundamental span, with debt scarcely inheritable, and with the years numbered from the accession of emperor or king.

Progress is recorded in scattered events - a survey of part of the Rouen diocese under St. Louis; a listing of the parishes and bailliewicks in France feued in 1328. In 1539, parishes were ordered to record all baptisms and burials; then in the 1560s all marriages too. However, population statistics were estimates only until 1801 when Napoleon prescribed a census. While in London population statistics were based on the Mortality Tables of the plague, in France human resources were recorded primarily for conscription and the battlefield!

Meanwhile, wider surveys had been undertaken, especially by Colbert from 1663, into the state of the provinces, into changes in the city of Paris and also the condition in general of manufactures. Doctrines of wealth were clarified, the mercantilists focusing on movements in liquid assets, inflows of gold being encouraged and outflows discouraged by the state.

In Britain, Petty regarded labour as the father and land as the mother of wealth. In France, Henry IV recognized the need to develop all the wealth of his subjects which formed the whole basis of the state's prosperity - a view taken up by Boisguillebert of Rouen (ca. 1714) who criticized royal exploitation, and the destruction, of twenty units of wealth to raise one for the king! He opposed Colbert's veto on grain exports, and sought the balances, the harmony, proportion and equilibrium promoted bv economic competition and freedom (Studenski, 1967, 1:52). He wrote:

Meanwhile, Vauban (ca. 1701) proposed in his "Royal Tithe" a comprehensive survey in each parish of its inhabitants and houses, its cattle, acreages, mills and public houses. Several times later, such surveys were proposed; but so great a variety of data was scarcely manageable before the era of punched card processing; and interpretation of the data remain problematical.

The majority of "statistics" from Gottenwald in Germany in the 1750's to Sinclair's Statistical Account of the U.K. at the end of the century were descriptive. Important leads to a more mathematical approach came from Frenchmen who lacked both data and encouragement. There the theory and display of statistics developed apace. (Funkhouser, H.S. and Walker, H.M., describe the French welcome given to "Playfair and his charts" In "Economic History", Feb, 1935).

However, one pioneering step had been taken in Quesnay's Tableau Economique of 1758. Adam Smith quoted Mirabeau's view that in France his invention was comparable in importance to those of writing and of money (cf. Mattessich, 1964, 106). Partially prompted by observations by visitors of the stratification of Chinese society (Maverick, 1938, p.54), Quesnav distinguished three sectors, the most important of which according to the Physiocrats was agriculture. Relationships between church and landlords, merchants and artisans and the peasant farmers were portrayed as economic flows, to which values were ascribed. Thus, finance was advanced for land improvements, livestock and operating capital, the latter two being recycled annually. For Quesnay, the landlords were unproductive; the artisans' consumption equalled their product, while the net revenue of the nation came from agriculture. Such preconceptions, rather than conclusions, should not belittle his innovation of the Input-Output technique.

Many other distinguished contributors to French national accounting of the period could be mentioned-Forbonnais, Condillac, Turgot and Du Pont de Nemours. But greater than these was the scientist Lavoisier. His work on La Richesse territorials du Royaume was published in 1791, but had been started in 1784. It was based on information from the Farmers-General. With special care he avoided double-counting and sought double-check on his estimates. He saw wealth as a flow, rather than as a stock.

His methods required that a base year's general balance of total production be analyzed by type of product - for the country as a whole just as for the estate under individual control of receipts and their employment. Thus fourteen milliard pounds of wheat would be disposed, so much for seed, for cultivator's bread, for harvesting, tax and rent. Accounts in kind would be supplemented by an account in money in which all others are joined. Many agricultural products constitute raw materials for industry, so that cloth exports for instance can be seen as exports of wool and wheat. He wrote:

Lavoisier distinguished three types of national income, the last deriving something from Quesnay's Physiocrats:

In his calculations he used estimates of population, of useful animals and of land usage, from which annual production of grain, meat and wine were calculated. This could be checked against estimates based on per capita consumption and expenditure. Finally, population data could be multiplied by estimated daily earnings. Error in estimating could be indicated by such triplication of modes of calculation. Wine consumption, Lavoisier admitted might be + or - 25, 30, or even 50% of his estimate.

Lagrange, the mathematician (ca. 1813) published a further series of detailed calculations by Lavoisier in 1796, called Arithmetic Politique. Lavoisier's work was praised by the National Assembly, but he and twenty-seven farmers-gereral were guillotined in 1793 by the Jacobins. The revolutionaries took certain steps to continue the work, with a census ordered in 1791, but only implemented in 1801. A Bureau of Statistics was headed by Neufchateau, and later by La Place, The reports on population and agriculture ordered in 1801 from each prefecture were published late and with gaps. One may suggest that Napoleon's attitude was ambivalent in his remark:

(His attitude was similar to that of Louis XIV, requiring data of the local representatives, but anxious that it should not be used by the curious or by critical "ideologues.") The Bureau was abolished in 1812, although individual government departments maintained more or less formal statistical sections.

The various regimes after 1815 had differing attitudes to statistics, one of the functions of which was to calculate the taxable revenues of the country on the basis of data centralised from each constituency. The alternative, representative approach is for the ability and the willingness to pay of each constituency to be voiced in a parliament or national assembly. An indication of the centralising and technocratic aims in Louis Philipe's reign is given by Thiers' transformation in 1833 of the statistical section in his Ministry of Commerce into a Bureau of general statistics for the kingdom. Soon after began a series of annual Documents Statistiques. This came to an end in 1852. At the International Statistical Congress of the following year, the French held that they appeared backward. However, a new series of annual Statistiques General de la France began in 1878, becoming quarterly in 1911.

In this century, chief developments are attributable to three statisticians - L.March, R.Camille, and Claude Gruson (I.N.S.E.E. 1976, 21 ff.). The first introduced punched card equipment. The second established regional data processing centres during the Second World War, not only to serve the Occupying Power. Camille died at Dachau. Gruson receives the credit for the first, post-war National Accounts, although his contribution was more administrative than conceptual (Fourquet, 1980, 125).

The post-war development of National Accounting and its relation to economic planning and to politics have been analysed by Fourquet. Statistically informed long-term plans and incentives seemed necessary when governments changed almost monthly! What is surprising is that Fourquet and the participants whom he reports, referred to micro-accounts scarcely at all, He notes (p.343) the enormous distance between the firm's records and accounts and their consolidation in National Accounts.

A committee of the Conseil Superieur de la Comptabilite was required from 1947 to ensure that accounting standards under the Plan Comptable would be compatible with National income accounting. It included leading economists, one of whom, Marszewski, drafted a decimal plan, compatible with the framework of standardizers at Cambridge under Sir J.R.Stone (Mommen, 1957, 1:74-75). But by 1952, it was clear that in France the economists were producing National income accounts, by-passing the accountants with their efforts to normalize in order to ensure statistical additivity (Forrester, 1982).

French National Accounts since 1950 were significantly different from the alternative standard svstems (UNO and EEC), both derived from Stone's work. French influence is clear on the third-generation European Community System (SEC). Thus, whatever the virtues of uniformity seen by the French Accounting Council, they did not prevent vigorous and well-directed innovation by France’s National accountants.

Much more recently, statisticians in France and her former dependencies have been served by computerized inter-firm comparison systems, from which firms which voluntarily submit their data receive trend and comparative analyses (Forrester, 1983).

Three streams have been traced from far-off sources, with ill-defined watersheds. Thus, inventories provided bases for taxation; taxes were invested temporarily in industry: commercial inventories and accounts were prescribed to reduce bankruptcy which affected private and state creditors. Contrasts too were noted: Financial problems provoked the French Revolution, which did not cure the problems! A half century later, France became the home of capitalist speculation, which in turn provoked socialist reaction, post-1944 and 1981.

Our studies acquire new importance if they throw light on France's past and present contributions to European accounting, or to a preference for consolidations of the accounts of firms in one Industry or zone rather than of group subsidiaries. The traditions studied have spread widely from metropolitan France and deserve study not only in their technical manifestation in French or "OCAM" Accounting Plans. We have sought to provide somewhat broader perspectives, however superficially.

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