Royal Companies, Risk Management and Sovereignty in Old Regime France.

This article examines the 1688 insurance dispute in Paris between the Royal Insurance Company (Compagnie générale des assurances et grosses aventures) and the Royal Marble Company (Compagnie de la fourniture des marbres d'Italie pour la décoration des maisons royales) following the seizure of the ship Amitié by Dutch forces during the Glorious Revolution. The conflict highlights how the French state under Louis XIV used royal companies as instruments of risk management to support its commercial and anti-Dutch policies, transferring maritime risks to private financiers while exposing ambiguities in the legal and conceptual definitions of war and peace. Central to the dispute was the interpretation of a war clause in the insurance policy and the timing of premium payments relative to the outbreak of hostilities, which challenged state sovereignty by allowing the insurer to unilaterally declare a state of war before formal declaration. Although arbitration ultimately resolved the case in favor of the Royal Marble Company, the episode revealed structural weaknesses in French maritime commerce, insurance law, and state authority that persisted through the Old Regime, influencing the development of insurance practices and the balance of power between insurers, policyholders, and the state.