Economic Development in Early Modern France

The Privilege of Liberty, 1650–1820

Jeff Horn

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781107046283
• eBook ISBN:
  9781316236413
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Privilege has long been understood as the constitutional basis of Ancien Régime France, legalizing the provision of a variety of rights, powers and exemptions to some, whilst denying them to others. In this fascinating new study however, Jeff Horn reveals that Bourbon officials utilized privilege as an instrument of economic development, freeing some sectors of the economy from pre-existing privileges and regulations, while protecting others. He explores both government policies and the innovations of entrepreneurs, workers, inventors and customers to uncover the lived experience of economic development from the Fronde to the Restoration. He shows how, influenced by Enlightenment thought, the regime increasingly resorted to concepts of liberty to defend privilege as a policy tool. The book offers important new insights into debates about the impact of privilege on early industrialization, comparative economic development and the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Profits and economic development during the old régime
• 2 Privileged enclaves and the guilds: Liberty and regulation
• 3 The privilege of liberty put to the test: Industrial development in Normandy
• 4 Companies, colonies, and contraband: Commercial privileges under the old régime
• 5 Privilege, liberty, and managing the market: Trading with the Levant
• 6 Outside the body politic, essentialto the body economic: The privileges of Jews, Protestants, and foreign residents
• 7 Privilege, innovation, and the state: Entrepreneurialism and the lessons of the old régime
• 8 The reign of liberty?: Privilege after 1789
• Bibliography
• Index