This article explores the world of informal financial transactions and informal networks in pre-industrial France. Often considered merely as simple daily transactions made to palliate a lack of cash in circulation and to smooth consumption, the examination of private transactions reveals not only that they served various purposes, including productive investments, but also that they proved to be dynamic. The debts they incurred helped to smooth consumption but also helped to make investments. Some lenders were more prominent than others, although no one really dominated the informal market. This article also compares informal transactions with formal ones through the study of probate inventories and notarial records respectively. It compares these two credit circuits, their similarities and different characteristics, and their various networks features. The debts incurred in the notarial credit market were more substantial but did not serve a different purpose than in the informal market. Here too, the biggest lenders did not monopolise the extension of capital. Perhaps the most striking result lies in the fact that the total volume of exchange between the informal credit market and the notarial credit market (after projection) was similar.

中文翻译：

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前工业化法国的 P2P 借贷

本文探讨了前工业化法国的非正式金融交易和非正式网络世界。通常被认为只是简单的日常交易，以缓解流通中的现金不足并促进消费，对私人交易的审查不仅表明它们服务于各种目的，包括生产性投资，而且证明它们是动态的。他们产生的债务有助于平稳消费，但也有助于进行投资。一些贷方比其他贷方更为突出，尽管没有人真正主宰了非正规市场。本文还分别通过对遗嘱认证清单和公证记录的研究，比较了非正式交易与正式交易。它比较了这两个信用回路，它们的相似之处和不同的特征，以及它们的各种网络特征。公证信用市场产生的债务规模更大，但与非正规市场的目的并无不同。在这里，最大的贷方也没有垄断资本的扩张。也许最引人注目的结果在于，非正式信贷市场和公证信贷市场之间的总交易量（预测后）相似。