Before entering directly upon the history of French commerce, let us refer briefly to a small country called Flanders, which during the middle ages existed and flourished directly north of France, upon the shore of the North Sea, occupying a portion of what is now Belgium. We have already had occasion to allude to the trading ships of Venice and Genoa and their voyages northward along the coast of France as far as Flanders. Numerous testimonies are found in history as to the flourishing condition of Flemish manufactures as early as the twelfth century. The weaving of woolen cloth was their most important industry, and a writer of the thirteenth century asserts that "all the world was clothed from English wool wrought in Flanders." This is an exaggeration, but Flemish woolens were probably sold wherever the sea or a navigable river permitted them to be carried. England and Spain furnished the raw wool and Flanders worked it up into cloth. English wool was superior to the Spanish for fine cloths, and the Spanish wool was mixed with the English in the production of medium grades of cloth. Bruges and Ghent were the two chief manufacturing and commercial centers of Flanders, and each of them at one time had not less than forty thousand looms constantly at work.

Bruges was the termination of the route down the Rhine from Italy and the East, and before Lisbon eclipsed her, through the rise of Portuguese commerce and discoveries, was the chief distributing point whence cargoes were transhipped for the Hansa towns. Here the products of Asia and Africa, as well as Europe, came to be exchanged for the woolens, velvets, silks and linen fabrics from the looms of Flanders and Netherland cities. In the latter part of the fourteenth century Bruges was a market for the traders of the world, and we are told that "merchants from seventeen different kingdoms had their settled domiciles there, besides strangers from almost unknown countries who repaired thither."

The reason for the decadence of the commerce and prosperity of Flanders may be found in a combination of causes, one of which was that England gradually established manufacturing industries of her own and began to weave not only her own cloth but that of other nations, thus depriving Flanders of her most profitable customers; another was in the rise and competition of the Hansa towns, which destroyed the monopoly of Bruges as a distributing point and commercial center; the growth of Portuguese commerce which transferred the distributing center from Bruges to Lisbon; the growth of Dutch maritime commerce directly with India, by which transhipment of cargoes no longer became necessary either at Bruges or Lisbon. What was lacking to complete the ruin of Flemish commerce and manufactures from these causes, was easily furnished near the close of the sixteenth century by the religious wars and persecutions of the weak and narrow-minded Philip II. Antwerp drew away a portion of the commerce of Bruges; many of her weavers emigrated to England, and the political control of Flanders passed to Spain, Austria and thence to France.

French commerical history may be said to begin about the period of Louis XIV (1643-1715), about the middle of the seventeenth century, for prior to that time the industries and commerce of the nation were in a very backward state. French merchants had, for a century before, been trading in a small way along the west coast of Africa, and French colonies had been planted in Madagascar and some of the islands adjacent thereto. The French had also made some efforts to establish a footing in India, and in 1624 the great French East India Company was formed for the purpose, but later it was driven out by the English. The French do not appear to have been navigators or explorers like the Portuguese or Dutch, and except in North America were never very successful as colonizers. Internal commerce in France was like-, wise in a neglected and undeveloped condition prior to the advent of Louis XIV. Silk raising and weaving had been carried on to a limited extent during the sixteenth century, and the manufacture of woolen goods spread from Flanders into northern France and along the banks of the Rhine. Agriculture was very much neglected, and the peasants were unmercifully taxed to support an extravagant and dissolute nobility and maintain the succession of wars which cursed the realm. What with the Hundred-years war with England (1337 to 1453); the massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew night (Aug. 24, 1572), by which 100,000 persons were murdered in cold blood; the persecutions of the Jews, resulting in driving thousands of industrious and peaceable citizens from France, and the constant strife and commotion which prevailed, is it any wonder that commerce was at a low ebb?

The reign of Louis XIV has been called the Golden Age of France, in material prosperity as well as in art and literature. It was to France what the Elizabethan age had been to England. Louis XIV was called the Grand Monarch, and such he proved to be in many respects, displaying remarkable talents as a ruler. He surrounded himself with men who merely executed his will, and in the choice of these he showed rare ability and judgment. His ministers, especially Colbert, the great promoter of French industry, manufactures and trades, were men who surpassed the statesmen of most other countries of the time. Colbert's activity was unflagging. He set himself to develop the country on every side. He especially devoted himself to building up manufactures and commerce, the construction of routes of travel by both sea and land. He revived old manufactures and introduced new ones, such as tapestries, silk mosaics, cabinet work, lace, pottery, steel work, and the like. Fine cloth had hitherto been brought from England, but by his judicious patronage its manufacture was established in France. By encouraging the growth of mulberry-trees he enabled the silk manufacturers to dispense with the importation of raw silk. The art of making plate glass was imported from Venice, and the name "French plate glass" is synonymous with excellence to this day. The art of carpet weaving he introduced from Turkey and Flanders, and in these the French soon learned to excel their masters. A machine for weaving stockings was introduced from England; tin, steel, porcelain and morocco leather, hitherto brought from foreign countries, were now manufactured in France.