Pirates on Lake Geneva?
Surely not?
Lake Geneva isn’t where you expect to find pirates.
Belle Époque hotels and paddle steamers… yes.
Armed gangs, ambushes and chests overflowing with gold?
Probably not.
But just over 300 years ago, two men carried out a pair of astonishing robberies on and around Lake Geneva — or Lac Léman, as it is known locally.
Two pirates, two extraordinary robberies
Their names were Joseph Dantal and Jean-Pierre Blanchet. One ambushed a wagon carrying gold intended for Louis XIV’s army. The other supplied the boat used by an armed gang to seize a treasure ship on the lake.
Between them, they stole 20,000 louis d’or and 13,500 gold écus.
Based on their gold content alone, the coins would be worth around £17.5 million today.
But that’s only their bullion value. Sold as individual historic coins, they could be worth much more, perhaps even approaching the almost mythical £50 million suggested by some. After more than three centuries, however, who knows?
Let’s just say… it was a colossal sum of money at any time!
Were there really pirates on Lake Geneva?
Dantal and Blanchet may not have worn tricorn hats, kept parrots and swung from the rigging with swords between their teeth. They didn’t sail the Caribbean flying the Jolly Roger either. But pirates they were. Just not the Hollywood variety.
Piracy wasn’t confined just to the open sea: it included attacks launched from boats, raids on settlements and the violent capturing of vessels and their cargoes.
By those standards, Lake Geneva definitely had pirates of its own.
In fact, strictly speaking, one of them was more of a ‘privateer’ than a pirate as Dantal claimed he was acting on the orders of the Duke of Savoy, disrupting the enemies supply chains in a period of wartime.
But what’s true is that between them they stole two enormous fortunes, in fact they stole the entire payroll of an army, twice.
Why was so much gold crossing Lake Geneva?
Just what was a king’s ransom doing on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Genevan bankers had been entrusted with transporting the gold for the French war effort to northern Italy, where it was intended to pay French troops fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, for a start, this is not one pirate story, but two.
Joseph Dantal: how to steal a king’s ransom
The first features Dantal, the son of a shipwright, who had grown up around shipyards. His father Laurent made some of the greatest ships ever seen on Lake Geneva for the Duke of Savoy.
He knew every harbour and hiding place on the lake. Useful knowledge for a future pirate.
But just how do you go about stealing millions? (Asking for a friend )
In October 1705, Dantal received information from a spy in Geneva that a fortune in gold was about to be transported along the Swiss shore of Lake Geneva to pay Louis XIVs troops in Italy.
Dantal gathered his men in an inn, the Hôtel de la Couronne, at Morges. Under cover of darkness, they set sail from Morges and took up position near Coppet.
They waited for hours, but no wagon appeared.
The pirates’ night at Yvoire castle
Dantal began to wonder if the convoy had changed its route. He crossed the lake to Hermance, questioned the villagers and discovered that it hadn’t passed along the French shore either. Before leaving, his men helped themselves to the local royal tax collector’s chest instead.
Convinced the journey had probably just been postponed, they headed to Yvoire. There, after forcing the local lord from his refuge and reputedly eating his dinner, the gang spent the night sheltering among the ruins of the medieval castle.
At dawn the following morning, they crossed back to Coppet and resumed their ambush.
This time, the wagon appeared, guarded by four mounted men.
Shots were fired, one of the horses killed and the guards quickly overwhelmed. Inside the wagon were the chests containing the fabulous sum of 20,000 louis d’or.
That’s around 124 kilograms of solid gold, worth almost £13 million at today’s gold price. And that’s just the value of the metal alone.
The pirates loaded the gold into their boat and vanished back along the lake. A few days later, Dantal and his men were seen celebrating in the inns of Bern.
After that, both the pirate and most of his treasure disappeared from history. Dantal was never heard of again.
Louis XIV was not happy.
The following year, the bankers tried again. This time, they sent the gold across Lake Geneva by boat.
Who said lightning never strikes twice?
Jean-Pierre Blanchet and the treasure ship
Enter Jean-Pierre Blanchet, former galley captain, owner of a château in the vineyards above Lutry, prominent local official… and the man about to become Lake Geneva’s second great gold robber.
Blanchet was no penniless petty criminal. Born into an influential Lutry family, he served as a captain on the lake and held the highly respected office of banneret. He had also married Francoise Colomb, a wealthy Huguenot widow whose property in France had been confiscated by Louis XIV’s government.
Blanchet had tried and failed to recover it legally.
On 17 July 1706, pretending he was going hunting, Blanchet left home with a gun over his shoulder. Down at the port, three boatmen were waiting. He sent them ahead to an inn at Ouchy while he and his nephew rode to Lausanne to buy gunpowder and shot.
At Ouchy, there met a group of armed Camisards. An informant had spotted a Genevan boat being loaded with precious cloth, silver and sacks of gold intended for Louis XIV’s army in Italy.
Then, almost unbelievably, the treasure ship sailed straight into Ouchy harbour and moored beside Blanchet’s boat. Strong winds had driven it there for shelter.
The pirates watched and waited. When the treasure ship continued its journey the following morning, Blanchet stayed on shore while four heavily armed Camisards and his three boatmen set off in pursuit.
The raid on Château de Glérolles
Near the Château de Glérolles, they caught up with the ship and surged aboard with swords drawn. The astonished crew surrendered without a fight.
The pirates transferred the treasure, cut the ship’s rigging, smashed its oars and tied the sailors to their benches. They even made them swear not to look in which direction they were escaping.
Initially the pirates pretended to head to Saint-Gingolph but then changed direction and headed back to Lutry, where Blanchet was waiting.
This time the haul was 13,500 écus… more than 43 kilograms of gold, worth around £4.5 million today.
Spontaneous celebrations broke out and in the ensuing chaos several sacks of gold toppled into the lake. Blanchet’s boatmen had to return secretly that night to fish them out.
The remaining treasure was spread across the garden and divided up. Twenty-six sacks, apparently intended for the Duke of Savoy, were hidden in the cellar of Blanchet’s château.
Blanchet then returned to his normal, respectable, everyday life. Or at least, he tried to.
Unfortunately, his neighbours had noticed the armed men, the commotion and the distinctly suspicious activity in his garden. They reported him to the authorities.
Jean-Pierre Blanchet’s luck runs out
Louis XIV wasn’t just unhappy. He was furious. Under pressure from the French Ambassador, the authorities arrested Blanchet and sent him to Bern.
There he was interrogated, tortured and finally beheaded on 4 January 1707.
A sad end to an extraordinary life.
What happened to the money? No doubt the bulk was retrieved by the Genevan bankers who probably sent it by balloon the next time.
The pirates of Ouchy today
On a recent visit I was intrigued by a small sign on the wall of a house: ‘Les Pirates d’Ouchy’. Chronically curious, of course, I had to look it up. And that’s where this story began.
There are still pirates in Ouchy. Or at least, there’s an association called ‘Les Pirates d’Ouchy’. They preserve the lake’s sailing traditions and organise regular outings aboard La Vaudoise, a traditional Lake Geneva barque of a type that would have been familiar to Dantal and Blanchet.
If you prefer to explore the lake without the swords and stolen gold, my guide to getting out on Lake Geneva covers CGN ferries, cruises and plenty of more law-abiding ways to take to the water.
So next time you’re gazing out across the lake, give a thought to those poor Genevan bankers, the furious King of France and the unpaid army in Italy… and maybe raise a glass to the sheer audacity of the pirates of Lake Geneva.
Sources and further reading: Historical details were drawn from and checked against the Swiss National Museum, the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland and Olivier Gonet’s Les Pirates du Léman. Modern valuations are approximate and based on gold content and bullion prices at the time of writing.
