ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the foreign merchant communities which set up in the kingdom of France in the eighteenth century, by explaining the reasons for their installation, their origins, their activities as well as their progressive integration into French society. French trade with the north of Europe became important from the seventeenth century on and in the eighteenth century, and many national activities were linked to these exchanges. The establishment of an administration of trade and the development of regulations did not limit the settlement of foreign communities. The arrival of foreign communities in the French ports gave rise to a group of businessmen investing in all areas while putting in place networks of traders across western Europe and beyond. A distinctive feature of the merchant colonies in northern Europe, however, was to stay longer in the business than other foreigners and to stay very bound to their homeland.
