A volatile period causing much disruption in trade.
France had emerged as a major trading nation by the time of the French Revolution (1789–1791) and was surpassed only by Great Britain, its major rival. France’s foundations in trade remained weaker than Britain’s. Most of this trade involved its colonial possessions in the Caribbean, with external trade only accounting for about one-third of the total trading activity. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mercantilism remained the primary economic policy followed by governments. With respect to trade, mercantilism meant the exclusiveness of trade and the reliance on duties. A movement toward more freedom in trade began in France with the philosophical views of the economists (Vincent de Gournay) and the Physiocratic School. In 1774, Jacques Turgot, the prerevolutionary comptroller-general of finances, attempted, with his Six Edicts, to establish the free circulation of grain within the kingdom of France. The French signed a commercial treaty with the newly formed nation of the United States in 1778. It contained a most-favored-nation clause.
In spite of these measures, protectionism remained a salient feature of French trade policy until the Eden-Reyneval Treaty of 1786 between England and France. It brought to a close a century of trade wars between the two nations. Conrad de Reyneval’s statement, “We should move closer to England, as hereafter there would no longer be any goods in which trade is prohibited between the two nations,” marked a departure from the traditional policy that would later be restored by the revolutionaries and Napoléon Bonaparte. The 1786 treaty tended to favor the British and is often blamed for a serious industrial decline in French industries such as cotton, crockery, hardware, and leather goods. The French market became saturated with cheap Brit ish goods. The treaty gave rise to unemployment and thus prompted a strong reaction against free trade during the revolutionary period.
Liberalism, the end of privilege, and equality became the hallmarks of the early years of the French Revolution. These principles extended to the realm of trade in the sense that the members of the Constituent Assembly declared free trade in grain on August 29, 1789, again on September 18, 1789, and continued this policy throughout 1789 and 1790. However, exports in grain were banned. France became a free trading nation within its own boundaries by abolishing the prerevolutionary custom duties between provinces with a decree providing for a uniform tariff on October 31, 1790. The tariff repealed the Anglo-French Treaty of 1786. The revolutionaries recognized the importance of trade to a strong economy, “The National Assembly, considering that commerce is the source of all agricultural and industrial development and strength… decrees as follows.” As a result of the growth in trade within and without France, the French introduced a metric system during this period. Charles Talleyrand introduced the change in the assembly’s debates in 1790. A standard and common system of weights and measures become a necessity. The metric system did not became compulsory until 1840.
As an attempt to continue the ending of privilege status, the revolutionaries withdrew from the commercial port of Marseille its prerevolutionary monopoly of trade to the Levant. Commercial companies such as the French East India Company, which had been reconstituted in 1785, suffered the same fate, as the Constituent Assembly abolished its monopoly of trade to East Africa. The Senegal Company suffered the same fate on January 18, 1791.
The revolutionary motto of liberty did not extend to colonial trade policy during the years of the liberal revolution. Despite the efforts of some radical agitators, the revolutionaries practiced a policy of protectionism. The interests of plantation owners were protected by a system known as the exclusif, passed on March 18, 1791, which obliged the colonies to trade only with the mother country. The law of June 22, 1791, opened trade with the colonies to all French ports. The Navigation Act of September 21, 1793, reinforced this commercial nationalism: all boats claiming to be French had to be constructed in France, owned by Frenchmen, and captained by Frenchmen, and the crew had to be 75 percent French. The system of the ancien régime was maintained in maritime and colonial trade.
The declaration of war on April 20, 1792, by the French on the king of Bohemia and Hungary had serious consequences for the French economy in general and trade specifically. Any liberal policies of the early years of the revolution were reversed because of the dire circumstances in which France found itself over the next few years. Measures taken by the revolutionaries during this period were affected by war, assignat depreciation (this was the French revolutionary paper currency), and inflation. The French National Convention established a number of committees during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) to deal with trade and the food supply. These included agriculture, trade, navigation, and communications. The French moved to a controlled economy. In fact, at the height of the Terror, the government’s control over the economy far exceeded what it had been before the revolution. The grain trade that had been freed up during the liberal revolution was closely monitored. A maximum price for grain was established on May 4, 1793. Manufactured goods from Great Britain, its colonies, and other allied powers were prohibited entry into France (October 9, 1793). The British, for their part, declared that they would seize any ships trading with France, including American ones. The United States passed the Jay Treaty in 1794 to avert war with Britain. But the French viewed it as an alliance with Britain and by 1796 they began harassing American ships and threatening the Americans with punitive measures.
The extreme measures taken during the period of the Terror continued until the end of 1794, when French ports opened to trade once again with neutral powers and the Navigation Act of September 1793 was repealed. The maximum law was repealed in December 1794 with the opening of foreign trade. French trade did not improve until 1795–1796, when France concluded peace treaties with Spain, Holland, and Prussia. In general, the revolutionary period saw a turbulent and destructive time for French trade.
Leigh Whaley
See also: Mercantilism; Navigation Laws.
Aftalion, Florin. The French Revolution: An Economic Interpretation, trans. Martin Thom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Braudel, Fernand, and Ernest Labrousse. Histoire économique et sociale de la France. Vol. 3, L’avènement de l’ère indus-trielle (1789–années 1880). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976.
Jones, Colin. The Longman Companion to the French Revolution. London: Longman, 1988.
Pollard, S., and C. Holmes, eds. Documents of European Economic History. Vol. 1, The Process of Industrialization. London: Edward Arnold, 1968.