In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Besenval family was not only one of the most influential patrician families in Solothurn, but also in the Swiss Confederation. They had become rich from the salt trade, occupied top positions in the Solothurn authorities and were in the service of the King of France as military officers. There, members of the family commanded their own Swiss regiments, intermarried with the high nobility and even cultivated close relations with the royal family. They built the Palais Besenval and Waldegg Castle in Solothurn and the surrounding area. The Besenval family died out in 1927.
The Besenval family archives had been owned by the ‘Fondation pour l'Histoire des Suisses dans le Monde’ in Pregny-Chambésy (Canton of Geneva) since 1980. The foundation went bankrupt in May 2021. The bankruptcy office of the Canton of Geneva donated the archives to the Solothurn State Archives at the beginning of October 2022. The Besenval archive, consisting of 75 boxes, contains letters of nobility, correspondence, military and business papers as well as handwritten stories and family trees from the 17th to 19th centuries. The ‘Fondation pour l'Histoire des Suisses dans le Monde’ had all the documents digitised before it went bankrupt and made them accessible on the Internet. The Solothurn State Archives have digitised the documents required for international research.
