In 1953 the proprietor of the chateau of Bonneval at La Haye-Aubree par Routot in the Norman department of Eure presented the French National Archives with a collection of eighteenth-century papers. They had been brought to the chateau by previous owners at the time of the French Revolution. The proprietor was unrelated to these shadowy figures, and the papers concerned neither his family nor the estate. Now deposited at the Archives Nationales in Paris, the 45 cartons of letters and business papers tell the story of the business activities of the Dugard family of Rouen. The earliest item in...