Establishing a piano manufacture in Paris required a substantial outlay of capital: for the vast properties on the rue du Mail, the machinery for making pianos and harps, the large quantities of raw materials, and the money to pay the 120 workers. The Erards relied heavily on credit to fund their commercial operations, confident that the quality of their instruments would bring in the income needed to pay their creditors. The French Revolution came at the worst possible time for their business. Foreign sales became impossible and domestic sales increasingly difficult; as a result, they had little income to offset their enormous investments. Faced with drastically reduced income, the firm still needed to pay their creditors and their workers, as well as maintain their properties. Moreover, the Erard empire was forcefully riven in two by the protracted state of war between the French Republic and Great Britain. The Treaty of Amiens gave the Erards a glimmer of hope. They quadrupled their stock of materials, rented new storerooms, enlarged their workshops and hired additional workers. The Erards’ enormous investments in their firm turned out to be a tragic miscalculation. Napoleon’s trade blockages exacerbated the Erards’ financial woes, and in February 1813 the Paris branch of the Erard firm officially declared bankruptcy.
