Incapacity and debt

This chapter begins with the efforts to find a solution when an heir proved incapable of exercising responsibility for property affairs owing to a long-term illness or disability. Failure to address incapacity in an heir could jeopardise not only the individual’s patrimony but also the maintenance of the family’s economic, cultural, and social capital. Tutelle and curatelle were legal mechanisms for managing such situations and the chapter documents family decision-making in archival case studies. The second issue explored is the nature of aristocratic behaviour when financial debts strained or exhausted nobles’ control of economic capital. Causes of financial difficulties are analysed as well as the effects on health, moral attitudes surrounding borrowing, and the implications of chronic indebtedness for succession and family dynamics in modern France.