The Languedocian cloth industry experienced a remarkable period of intense growth in the period 1683 to 1715. My goal was to understand why this intense growth occurred by studying the Franco-Ottoman/Franco-Asian cloth trade in this period. As I delved into the archival documents of the Archives nationales, the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Archives de la Chambre de Commerce et Industrie Marseille Provence, it became clear that it was impossible to explain the developments of the 1680s strictly through discussion of cloth. The industry fared poorly throughout the decade, but I have yet to find any substantial evidence to suggest this was due to endogenous weaknesses; rather, this can be attributed in large part to structural weaknesses in French Levantine trade in the 1680s, specifically through reforms of France’s consulates, which (on paper) facilitated commercial exchange with the Ottoman Empire. These reforms have received little attention in the historiography, but a wealth of archival material from the abovementioned archives attests to the significant impact of the consular crisis on French trade (and, by extension, Languedocian cloth) throughout the 1680s. I therefore concluded that my project needed to be split into two monographs: one focussing on the consular crisis in the 1680s, and the other on the Franco-Asian cloth trade. My initial focus going forwards will be on the completion of the first monograph on the consular crisis, as this will provide the necessary foundation on which the book on Franco-Asian trade will build. The second monograph will engage not only with the Franco-Ottoman cloth trade itself, but will also explore the hitherto overlooked role of the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes orientales) in supporting the Languedocian cloth industry throughout the 1680s and 1690s, thus illustrating that the rise of this industry was a product of Franco-Asian exchange rather than strictly Franco-Ottoman exchange.
