ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at piquage d’once from the socio-economic angle in order to shed light on the areas, actors and reasons behind this subterranean market. Pilfering of raw materials was a key element in the underground economy operating in the city and society of eighteenth-century Lyon. Documents on 277 cases found in the archives of the Fabrique and the Consulat provide an overview of this phenomenon for the period between 1709 and 1785. They also contain information on the actors and networks involved in this form of fraud. The black market for silk developed into a complex commercial circuit: everything was possible from theft of raw silk to resale of finished products, including pawning and fencing. A wide range of men and women from various professions were implicated in the traffic of stolen silk but, thanks to a few better-documented cases, it is possible to understand how these networks operated and, at the same time, to identify gender issues and power struggles. Although almost entirely absent from the debates over piquage d’once analysed in the previous chapter, women played an essential role in the circuits of the underground economy.
