TRAVEL REPORT
FRENCH ARCHIVES 18 JUNE - 28 JUNE
Paris: Natural History Museum Archives and day trip to Valence (Wed, 18 June – Sun, 22 June)
Having arrived fairly late on Wednesday, I spent the first day in the Archives of the National Museum of
Natural History, who have the Beaulieu manuscript on Coromandel Coast dyeing techniques as well as
several other, less well-known manuscripts on the French gathering of knowledge about Indian and Chinese
textile painting and dyeing techniques, including several letters and documents to and from the members
of the Jussieu family. All of this was material I need for my 5th chapter. The archive staff were very helpful
and so I managed to finish everything in one day, so that I could keep the next day free for my day-trip to
Valence.
Thursday evening also gave me the opportunity to go to the ‘Global France’ seminar series at : Reid Hall
organised by Columbia’s Global Center and the American University of Paris. Organised by Miranda Spieler,
that week’s workshop saw Catherine Desbarats (McGill University) present a paper entitled “The Politics of
State Financial Knowledge: the case of France’s ‘Canada Debt,’ 1750-1768” with Allan Potofsky as a
commentator. It was a really interesting seminar and a great opportunity to meet other scholars in the
field.
Despite the strike of French railway personnel (and to the disbelief of their staff in both Paris and Valence –
I was quite proud of this, it was awfully uncomfortable), I managed to get to Valence and back. With the
complete travel chaos I only had 1.5 hours at the archives there, but the really lovely staff there had gotten
everything ready for me in advance and I managed to take pictures of everything I needed, which means
that I can now complete the arrest statistics for smuggling that I plan to use for my chapter 3 and which I
had not managed to complete during my previous visit.
On the Saturday I met up with Elizabeth Cross, a very nice Harvard graduate student, to discuss a panel we
are planning to propose for the next ISECS conference on the role of India in eighteenth-century French
political economy. I also spent some time in the National Archives to further prepare my visit to Marseille
(because they don’t put their catalogues or inventories online – or even have a website at all).
Marseille: Chamber of Commerce Archives and day trip to Aix (Sun, 22 June – Sat, 28 June)
In Marseille I spent four out of my five days at the Marseille Chamber of Commerce archives. Eighteenthcentury Levantine imports were handled exclusively through that institution who kept detailed excellent
statistics on both the qualities and quantities and value of goods imported from that region. I have
collected all that data and will now be able to offer a complete set of statistics of Levantine textile
importations into France for the period 1725-59, which will significantly strengthen the case I make in my
book.
Apart from the statistics I also found some great information on the quantities and qualities of the textiles,
the trade’s legal framework, on policing and on smuggling, as well as on general trading conditions, both
with the Levant, with Persia, and with India, including a detailed 1730s memorandum by a French East India
Company employee on trading conditions in India.
I spent one day in Aix, both to consult the typewritten original of Fukasawa’s thesis at Aix University Library,
which includes partial statistics on the Levantine textile trade (from Egypt and Aleppo only), not given in
the published version; to consult one set of documents giving some additional details on the French China
trade held at the National Overseas Archives; and to meet with Olivier Raveux, who has kindly agreed to
read parts of my monograph once it is revised and also suggested another potential reader whom I shall
contact shortly.