In January 1703 Louis de Bernage, newly appointed intendant of Franche-Comté, was growing increasingly concerned about the financial plight of the province. To meet the gigantic costs of the War of the Spanish Succession, the royal government of Louis XIV had resorted to an unprecedented use of affaires extraordinaires. Yet after nearly two years of relentless fiscal demands, these expedients appeared to be reaching the end of their usefulness in Franche-Comté. Bernage was finding it increasingly difficult to convince or compel the province's elites to buy up newly created privileges and venal offices. Even when they did so, they were offering only derisory sums and dragging their feet on making payments. More and more traités were falling into arrears. As a result, Franche-Comté was now failing to furnish the funds the royal treasuries needed so desperately. The intendant suggested a radical change of course to Michel Chamillart, the king's controller general of finances. He proposed exempting the province from all further extraordinary affairs. In return, it would pay Versailles a new subsidy produced by substantial increases in its direct and indirect taxes.

Bernage's troubles in Franche-Comté were a manifestation of one of the key challenges faced by Louis XIV and his servants as the crisis of the late reign approached its climax: how to raise the money required by the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1701 France had not yet recovered from the enormous exertions and sacrifices of the Nine Years' War.