La faillite d'Isidore Warocqué, banquier montois du début du XIXe siècle.
The Bankruptcy Of Isidore Warocque, Mons Banker Of The Early Xlxth Century: As the banker of a great number of manufacturers of the province of Hainault, the Mons Isidore Warocqué enjoys the general confidence of his contemporaries. His reputation is such that the difficulties he meets with after the revolution of 1830 will be imputed solely to the political disturbances. However, his credit is shrinking gradually. The Société Générale which maintains excellent relations with him and has always supported him financially, begins to doubt his real situation and, in security for its claim amounting to over 8 million francs, demands guarantees which he fails to furnish. Warocqué's debts to the Société Générale remain uncleared at the due dates. As his situation grows more and more intolerable, he applies on January 4th, 1832, for a respite from all legal actions on the part of his creditors, thus crossing the Bank's project of having him adjudged bankrupt. Warocqué's request is backed by the majority of his debitors who still consider him a respectable businessman always worthy of their interest. The Société Générale opposes this request and consents in desisting from its claims only after being assured, on June 16th, 1832, with regard to the powers of the Commission entrusted with the winding-up of the Mons banker's business. On August 4th, 1832 a respite of one year is granted to him and his credit balance amounts to 3,900,000 francs. Alas, the Board of liquidators soon have to admit that the opponents of the respite were right and that they were to realize only the remnants of a seemingly huge fortune. On July 1st, 1834, Warocqué was adjudged bankrupt by the Commercial Court of Mons. The verdict of the Court provisionally setting the opening-date of the bankruptcy on November 30th, 1830, is appealed against; after long contradictory debates before different judiciary instances, in which the bankrupt, the syndics, the Société Générale, the Finance Minister... all serve their respective interests to the best of their ability, the Court of Appeals, in June, 1838, made the rather astonishing decision to set the opening-date of the bankruptcy definitely on December 27th, 1831. By validating the onerous transactions effected by Warocqué between this date and November 30th, 1830 to the profit of certain preferential or more exacting debitors, the decree of the Court of Appeals makes the mass of unsecured debitors lose more than 20% of the amount they would have been entitled to if the judgment of the Mons Commercial Court had not been appealed against. What could have been the reasons for motivating the challenged decree ? That is what we tried to reveal in the present study, which is rounded off with a few considerations on the personality of the bankrupt.