VI. THE END OF BRAKES ON GAIN -- ALMOST

"MERCANTILISM"
-- CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY
BY A PRE-INDUSTRIAL STATE --
IS UNIVERSAL

Think of the wives of the Kondodugu chief
who grow supplies for merchants,
and of their sons who fetch the kola

• But the French monarchy takes it so far

that it is associated with 17th- and 18th-century France

 Louis XIV and Colbert visit the Gobelins, 17th-century tapestry, Gobelins museum

The king inspects State production.

• Yet inexorable growth

forces society and kingship to change 
(From about 1750) 

° Straight streets no longer lead to symbols of monarchy and Louis XV chooses commoners as favorites: Jeanne Poisson, Madame de Pompadour; Jeanne Bécu, Madame du Barry.

° The Duke of Orleans -- owner of the Palais-Royal gardens and future Equality Philip -- rents boutiques under the arcades, a commercial enterprise until then unthinkable for a prince. As well, those boutiques sell luxury wares to anyone with the means to purchase them, when formerly they could be acquired through nobles' suppliers alone. 

° Protestants return.

° Establishments on the peripheries employ unheard-of numbers of workers: as many as 800 in the northern suburbs beyond the Saint-Denis gate, at least 300 in the south, 300 in the Reveillon establishment mentioned below...

-- Beyond Saint-Denis gate,
 The crowd in the French Revolution by George Rudé, 1982, a classic.
--  South:
Elements for a history of the Commune in the 13th arrondissement 
by Gerard Conte, 1981 (in French);

• Louis XVI lets English industrialists set up manufactures in Orleans and Rouen.

-- The monarchy's last glow

 by Charles-Eloi Vial, ch. 1, 2016 (in French)

• As well,

Louis XVI stops the seizure of foreigners' legacies

-- Same text:
An example of a major fact slipping in with data  

° African history reveals that practice's universality:

 Amadu imposes it 
 and Nambolosse is burned for trying to. 
Ending it means the king loses
a major way to contain the most dynamic forces.

• The struggle between capital and labor begins   

Shooting on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, April 28 avril, 1789, Carnavalet

The rumor that an employer of 300 workers will reduce their salaries brings street fighting with 200 casualties, two months before the taking of the Bastille.

The establishment's employees do not take part in the riot, and the underlying source of tension is traditional (the rise in the price of bread). But conflict over pay appears for the first time.

-- Prelude to the Revolution (1788), above 

• The French Revolution breaks out.
The underclass sweeps away the nobility,

and with it the obstacles that limit growth

Taking of the Bastille (detail) reprod. in "La Revolution française" by Georges Soria, I

• Capitalism takes off --

but State control of the economy

does not quite vanish

Claude Abron

By dominating multinationals' skyscrapers, the Grande Arche de la Défense proclaims State control of capitalism -- and France still regulates business more than most Western countries do. 

A trace of royalty's economic control remains.

*     *     *

Next and last:
Fresh perspectives