ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century, French products were essentially aimed at local or at the very most regional markets; only some luxury goods managed to find external opportunities, thanks to the relatively low cost of sea transport. The construction of an internal market and thereby the constitution of a French economic framework long faced obstacles, owing both to slow and expensive means of land transportation and to inefficient circulation of information. If French producers were to distribute their sales across a national market, they would need both a means of payment which would be accepted throughout the whole country, and wider credit possibilities.
