This chapter examines how Montesquieu, Hume and Smith adapted and theoretically responded to the gradual financialisation of government that was taking place on both sides of the Channel. First, it considers Montesquieu's response to the fiscal and monetary crises that plagued France between the time of Louis XIVs death in September 1715 and the collapse of John Law's System in November 1720. Correspondingly, Montesquieu sought to preserve France's delicate social and institutional arrangements, to safeguard against the excesses associated with new forms of high finance. His concern was that Louis XIV's territorial wars and the Crown's ministers responsible for its fiscal and monetary management were transforming France into an empire of conquest, anchored by a culture of odious luxury, reminiscent of the Later Roman Empire and, more recently, contemporary Spain. It then examines David Hume's essays on political economy, which echo Montesquieu's concerns about the gradual financialisation of free, European governments. Hume observed how innovations in high finance engendered a culture of odious luxury that atrophied the population's industrious character. Echoing Montesquieu, he feared that the paper money economy would disturb European nations’ social distinctions, whose maintenance he deemed necessary for preserving free, moderate government in the modern commercial world. Finally, I compare Adam Smith's response to the collapse of the South Sea Bubble in England to Montesquieu's response. Despite Montesquieu's abiding preoccupation with England throughout his writings, he is conspicuously silent in the face of a touchstone event in British economic history, which coincided with the failure of Law's System. In juxtaposing Montesquieu's preoccupation with France's noblesse de robe – a symbol of aristocratic valour in the modern commercial age – with Hume's and Smith's preoccupation with Britain's gentry – a symbol of commercial meritocracy – this chapter highlights a moderate perspective in the eighteenthcentury commerce and virtue debates, which embraces commerce but harnesses existing honour-yielding institutions to produce a civic republican counterpoise to its excesses.