The Dufour Affair 93
The cantons, who were naturally delighted at the prospect of such a windfall,
debated the issue at several diets during 1511, with war against Savoy to ensure
compliance not being ruled out.195 Bern’s position in such an eventuality was
unclear. The other cantons, at all events, insisted that they would accept a settle-
ment no less favourable than that offered to Bern and Fribourg. Negotiations in
June 1511 between the latter two cities and Basel and Schaffhausen led to Savoy
increasing its proposed payment from 160,000 fl to 200,000 fl, whereupon Bern
and Fribourg placed their allocation of 120,000 fl in the common chest. Savoy then
upped its own payment to 300,000 fl, the final sum which was to be shared equally
among all X cantons.196 In fact, several cantons gave up part or all of their quotas
out of shame (according to Alberto Caviglia), or because they believed the money
would not be forthcoming.197 Solothurn, which for a time sheltered Dufour’s wife
(who was estranged from her husband), surrendered part of its share.198
That the Dufour affair caused Duke Charles II acute financial and political embar-
rassment is beyond question. The subsequent renewal of Savoy’s Burgrecht with Bern
and Fribourg in 1514 was in truth an admission of weakness, not strength.199 Duke
Charles chose to introduce salary cuts for his court officials, while their annual
contracts of service were reduced to three months.200 The subsidies granted by the
Estates could not cover the payments due, so that officials were called upon to make
up the difference, which stirred up a hornet’s nest in the Vaud, just as previously in
Bresse.201 Charles was forced to draw on his personal treasury, to surrender the Savoy
mint to Bern, and to raise substantial loans, principally on the Basel capital mar-
ket.202 What sums were actually remitted to the Swiss remains obscure. According to
Richard Paquier, Bern and Fribourg abandoned any hope of further instalments in
1516,203 but payments seem to have continued into the 1520s.204
Dufour’s fate was as bizarre as his fraud. Because his entire property had been
confiscated by Savoy, he was thrown upon the benefactions of his Swiss collaborators.
Both Bern and Fribourg gave him and his family dwellings, and offered 450 fl in
cash.205 In 1511 he bought the house of the leading Fribourg councillor, François
195 Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 178.
196 EA III, 2, 565–7 (no. 407: a; f ) (June 1511); Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 182.
197 Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 183.
198 Martin H. Körner, Solidarités financières suisses au XVIe siècle (Bibliothèque Historique Vaudoise, 66)
(Lausanne, 1980), 166. Solothurn took only one-tenth of what it was due, making a present of the rest
to ‘the duke and his poor subjects’. The duke thanked Solothurn and regularly paid interest on the
balance right up to 1535. SASO, Ratsmanuale 9, p. 152.
199 Castella, Histoire, 213. 200 Barbero, Ducato, 240.
201 Tallone, ‘Frode’, 242. See the brief discussion on the Dufour affair at the end of Chapter 17,
this volume.
202 Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 134–5, 183; Gilliard, ‘Créanciers’, passim.
203 Paquier, Pays de Vaud, 2, 231–2—but not before Fribourg had attempted to enforce the surrender
of the Vaud in 1512 for accumulated arrears! In 1515 Duke Charles had requested that all outstanding
payments be cancelled. EA III, 2, 929 (no. 631: e) (Oct. 1515).
204 Simon-Muscheid, ‘Jean Furno’, 289.
205 Caviglia, Claudio di Seyssel, 131. In 1509 Dufour also petitioned for the payment of an annuity,
but Bern observed that he already had his pensions (i.e., grants) from the two cities and that he had
not (yet) been barred from seeking redress in Savoy courts. AEF, Diplomatische Korrespondenz a)
Bern: 27 (March 1509).